Talent Is an Asset: The Story of Sparks by Daryl Easlea

Author:Daryl Easlea [Easlea, Daryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Biography, Composers & Musicians, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Music, Pop Vocal, Rock
ISBN: 9780857122377
Google: 7n515ucve20C
Amazon: B003FV7G44
Publisher: Omnibus Press
Published: 2010-04-06T23:00:00+00:00

* The Maels might have been able to achieve this at less expense if they’d spoken to Earle Mankey who was, by now, engineer at Brother Studios for The Beach Boys.

Chapter Eleven

Tiny Actors In The Oldest Play Or Disco

“Guitarists are jokes. They’re just so old-fashioned and passé that any band that has got a guitarist is just a joke.”

Russell Mael, Melody Maker, 1979

“I wouldn’t be caught dead in a disco!”

Russell Mael, Melody Maker, 1979

To provide a story-so-far moment: Sparks had not always been a duo, they had not always made electronic music, but the Giorgio Moroder-produced edition of Ron and Russell’s masterplan from 1979 seemed to change the Sparks dynamic forever. It focused on the small rather than the grandiose in terms of manpower and approach, and created a sound that was, at times, rather enormous. It was also to provide a template that enabled later double-acts, from Soft Cell to Blancmange to Pet Shop Boys, to shuffle the deck of irony and have their turn to sing in front of the machines that go ping.

Although highly unfashionable in rock circles, the Italian-born Moroder was possibly the hottest thing in popular music in 1978 when he received an approach from the Maels to work with them. Recording in Germany, he had begun his production work in the late Sixties and truly found his stride with the 1972 Chicory Tip hit ‘Son Of My Father’ (‘Tu Sei Mio Padre’), propelled along by primitive synthesisers. However, the working partnership that was to define his career was struck in 1974 when he started recording with an American expat also living in Germany. Donna Summer had achieved great success in the German stage version of Hair!, so she stayed on in the country to capitalise on this. Moroder and his engineer, Pete Bellotte, were so impressed with her full-throated, gospel-trained voice that they began to combine her soulful authenticity with their studio mastery — and, as digital technology became readily available, their increasing use of the synthesiser.

The first single to attract attention was ‘Love To Love You Baby’, released in 1975 and a slow-burning hit around the globe throughout 1976. Sultry, late night and dreamy, its infamy was guaranteed by Summer’s prolonged simulation of orgasm during the record’s climax. Chiming with the post-Emmanuelle, pre-AIDS world this seemed as modern as one could possibly get. However, it was their 1977 collaboration that sealed their reputation and partnership. Heard today, ‘I Feel Love’ still sounds as revolutionary as it did then. Its use of sequencer was practically unheard of and its grinding, synthetic repetition, combined with Summer’s strange, space-like vocal and robotic movements, was at once of the time and entirely ahead of it.

Introducing Sparks had taught Ron and Russell a valuable lesson: things had to change. The rock format as they knew it was, for the moment, finished. Working with session players, too, was not viable. Two records they’d heard while making Introducing Sparks made them stop and think: one was a cover of Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes’ ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ by Thelma Houston.

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