Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits with The Rolling Stones, The Who, LedZeppelin, The Eagles, Eric Clapton, The Faces . . . by Glyn Johns

Author:Glyn Johns [Johns, Glyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

Sixties Sum-Up, Howlin’ Wolf, Humble Pie, Mad Dogs, Sticky Fingers, “Gimme Shelter,” and “Sympathy for the Devil”

The sixties started with almost everything being recorded in mono on quarter-inch tape, in three-hour sessions. Singles were what sold. An album, if you were lucky enough to make one, would be done in a day in three separate three-hour sessions, rarely finishing after 10:30 p.m., and never during weekends. Artists hardly ever wrote their own material, so therefore songwriters were just that and hardly ever performed their own songs. The industry was run by a small number of corporate labels, who employed staff A&R men to sign and produce the talent.

By the time the sixties were over, we were up to sixteen tracks on two-inch tape and albums were responsible for 80 percent of record sales, sometimes taking months to make, with everyone working seven days a week and very often all night. A&R men were confined to signing the talent and retaining an independent producer to make the record. The money advanced on signing a record contract had gone through the roof, with the deal almost certainly negotiated by a new breed of lawyer that had not existed ten years previously. The single was fast becoming just a promotional tool to sell albums, and the album sleeve had become an art form. All this driven by a massive increase of profits in the industry perhaps by as much as tenfold.

• • •

1970 started with a party at Ringo’s house on New Year’s Day. My overriding memory of that evening is hearing the sound of drums being played in another room in the house. I went to investigate and found Keith Moon giving Ringo’s four-year-old son, Zak, a lesson. Zak idolized Keith, who was his godfather. Amazingly, twenty-five years later he took Keith’s place in The Who, being one of the few drummers in the world who could come close to filling his shoes.

The first week of January was spent wrapping up Let It Be at Abbey Road and Olympic, and the Billy Preston album with George Harrison. Then I was off to the States for a couple of months, darting between L.A. and San Francisco, working with Steve Miller, Leon Russell, and a co-production with David Anderle for A&M with Lambert and Nuttycombe, a folk duo from Carmel Valley in Northern California. Their music was smooth and very laid-back, delivered with a wonderful blend of two-part harmony. They were great at what they did but sadly did not manage to catch the eye or ear of the public.

I returned home at the end of March to start a grueling couple of weeks of all-nighters with The Rolling Stones and the first few sessions with Peter Frampton and Steve Marriott from the Small Faces, for Humble Pie’s first album. Not the most innovative album title.

Then I received a call from Chess Records, asking if I would engineer some sessions at Olympic Studios with the blues legend Howlin’ Wolf. The great man was going

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