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

by Glyn Johns

  The late great Joe Meek used IBC on occasion. He had his own studio at home, where he developed his extraordinary sound, but he would often bring his tapes in to run them through one of our homebuilt equalizers to cheer them up a bit. I think he was frowned on by the powers that be, and as I was the most junior in the place I would be given the job of looking after him. What a great opportunity for me. He was a great and innovative engineer and a quiet, kind, and seemingly egoless man.

  Last but not least was Terry Johnson. He left school illegally at fifteen and lied about his age to get the job at IBC. By the time I arrived he was already doing sessions as an engineer at sixteen. To say he was a natural is something of an understatement. He was an extraordinary talent. For eighteen months or so we were pretty much inseparable. We soon discovered that we shared the same taste in music and sound and became close friends, closing ranks against the somewhat disapproving attitude of the senior engineers at IBC.

  As that first year progressed, music began to change and the demand increased for English records to sound more and more like what was going on in America. Most of the older engineers didn’t get it and were entirely dismissive. This meant that Terry, being as young as he was and having a natural enthusiasm for trying new ideas, was in great demand, and he pulled me along with him.

  AT IBC IN THE EARLY SIXTIES, OBVIOUSLY EXTREMELY PISSED OFF ABOUT SOMETHING.

  We were constantly being challenged on how to re-create sounds that were coming from America. This proved particularly difficult because American musicians were creating a very different sound and feel to the English guys, something I was to have illustrated in triplicate when we had the privilege of prerecording the music for a TV show with Dusty Springfield called The Sounds of Motown. They flew the band in from Motown and set up straight off the plane. We turned the mics on and instantly there it was. Just like the records we had been listening to. I remember Terry and me looking at each other with great relief, as we had imagined that we were in for a struggle, not knowing how the hell that sound was achieved.

  We had to figure out new methods of recording to capture and do justice to the new, louder rock and roll as it took over. Previously, the loudest sound anyone had recorded was the cannon in the 1812 Overture.

  The studio was a constant buzz of activity. In a normal day, both studios A and B would have three sessions, very often each having a different client, musicians, and artist. The whole approach to recording was so different then. Even the dress code: a jacket, collar, and tie for all engineers and assistants. White coats, collars, and ties for the technical department. Sessions lasted three hours when as many as four songs would be cut. So albums were very often cut in a day. The volume and variety of work was fantastic, the building being constantly flooded and drained of an extraordinary assortment of people, from the most colorful, extrovert artist to the most bland suburban string player, hurrying off to his next seven pounds ten shillings, wondering what was going to win the 2:30 at Sandown Park.

  In the late fifties and early sixties almost everything was recorded in mono, as very few people had the facility to play stereo. The exception was the odd classical recording. Unlike today, it was all recorded at once, so when the three-hour session was finished, the tape could go straight to a cutting room to transfer the sound to disc and then on to the factory to be processed and pressed onto vinyl. If it was a single, and therefore did not require a sleeve with artwork, it could be in the shops in a few days. In fact, very few artists got to make an album in those days, as you had to have a few hits under your belt before it was justified. Then you were allowed to make an EP, finally graduating to ten or twelve cuts on an LP.

  Jack Good

  The first real extrovert I met was Jack Good. He was the complete antithesis of what you would expect a rock and roll producer to be. Immaculate in Savile Row suits, with an Oxford accent and a chubby, somewhat impish face rounded off with large horn-rim glasses. His only concession to nonconformity in his dress being Cuban-heeled Beatle boots. In fact, he was the first person I ever saw wearing them. He was charming, hysterically funny, and without ego. He was a breath of fresh air for Terry Johnson and me when we were given him as a client, as most of the other producers we were required to work with were far too full of their own self-importance.

  Jack started rock and roll TV in England, producing a weekly show for the BBC called Six-Five Special that very quickly became an absolute must for most teenagers in the UK. He went on to have the same success for ITV with Oh Boy!, which is where Terry and I came in. IBC was booked to prerecord the music every Thursday of the show’s run and we were given the job.

  It was mayhem. Although they only booked one studio, the entire building would be taken over for the day by the English rock and roll elite of the day: Joe Brown, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Wee Willie Harris, to name but a few. They were accompanied by a staff band, which in turn were supplemented by the Vernons Girls, an all-glamour group of young girls who sang and danced on the show. There was a narrow staircase running up the center of the building, which became the place for the artists to hang out while waiting for their call. This soon became known as “Chat-Up Alley.” God knows what went on out there while we were working. I do know that Joe and Marty eventually married two of the girls.

  All of this was controlled perfectly by Jack, who came from another planet to this unruly lot of state school dropouts. They all loved him, not only for his personality but because they shared his great passion for American rock and roll.

  Jack started to produce records, with great success. He did most of his recording with Terry and me at IBC. Then he was asked to do a special with The Beatles for Granada TV called Around The Beatles. He brought P. J. Proby to England from America to appear on the show and made him a star. Proby’s only claim to fame at that time was that he could imitate pretty much anyone. He would get calls from publishers to cut demos of songs they were trying to pitch to Elvis or Roy Orbison. I remember him telling me that he had spent so much time imitating other singers that he no longer knew which was his real voice.

  This was my first experience of The Beatles. I say “experience” as I did not really meet them, being only the second engineer on the session. We cut instrumental tracks with them to sing live to on the show. TV sound was pretty awful in those days and no one in their right mind would play live. Apart from the fact that recording technology has changed so much since then, none of the TV sound engineers or set designers had a clue about this new loud music. The sets were created for visual effect and not acoustically designed to cope.

  The one thing that struck me about this session was how relatively ordinary they sounded without the vocals. They could have been any competent group of the day, but as soon as the voices were added the magic was there. It has always amazed me how they progressed as writers, musicians, and producers from this already exalted position.

  Sunday Sessions

  Weekends were almost never booked in those first two years I was at IBC. So we were allowed to use the studio on Sundays to record our own projects. It all started with me and my friend Rob Mayhew recording a few demos, with John Timperley or Terry Johnson engineering. It was with one of these recordings that I attempted to be “discovered” as a vocalist, with a song I had written with my neighbor Hugh Oliver, called “Sioux Indian.”

  I set a trap for Jack Good. I waited until I heard him coming up the stairs to go into studio A’s control room for the start of a session and having left the door wide open, started to play my tape in the dubbing room next door. It worked. He stuck his head in and said, “Who’s that? It sounds really good.” Within a few weeks he had convinced Dick Rowe, then head of A&R at Decca Records, to sign me to my first recording contract, and Jack had produced my first single. He used the hot rhythm section of the day: Andy White, drums; Big Jim Sullivan, guitar; Andy Whale, bass; and Reg Guest, piano. My mate Terry engineered. The whole experience was surreal, as
I knew everyone so well and previously they had only known me as an engineer on the other side of the glass. The record did not make much of a dent, so my singing career was put on hold for a while, but it did mean that The Presidents could put “Featuring Decca Recording Star Glyn Johns” on their posters.

  Soon I realized that I could use the time to experiment and get some experience at the console, and I put the word out that you could get free studio time at my Sunday sessions. This attracted a crowd of exciting young musicians. Among them was Jimmy Page, who my pal Colin Golding had told me about. They were both at Kingston Art School—not far from where we all lived—along with Eric Clapton.

  I suggested that I might be able to get Jimmy some paying sessions, but initially he declined, saying he would lose his grant at school if it became known that he had an income. It was not long before he changed his mind, and in a short space of time he had replaced Big Jim Sullivan as the number-one session guitarist in London.

  Cyril Davies turned up one Sunday, a wonderful harmonica player and vocalist who was one of the founders of the rhythm and blues movement in Britain along with Ian Stewart, Alexis Korner, and Brian Jones. He brought Nicky Hopkins with him to play. I went to set up the mics on the piano and was greeted by a softly spoken, extremely gaunt young man with a gray pallor and clothes that were several sizes too big. His whole demeanor was devoid of energy. However, when the session started, his playing was the most fluid, melodic, and technically perfect that I had ever heard. All achieved with a minimum of movement and an unchanging facial expression. I asked him at the end of the day why I had not come across him before and if he would allow me to recommend him for sessions in the future.

  We were to become great friends. Over the ensuing years, I got him sessions with The Who, The Kinks, and eventually the Stones, where he was a tremendous influence, playing on the songs that Ian Stewart had refused because they were not the blues. I think the era that he and Mick Taylor were in the band resulted in the best records they made.

  • • •

  Later, in 1969, on a Stones session for Let It Bleed, Keith didn’t show. So while we were waiting, Nicky started jamming on the piano with Charlie and Bill. Pretty soon Mick got a harmonica and was soon joined by Ry Cooder, who was sitting in with the band that night. Jack Nitzsche had brought him over from California to play on the soundtrack to the movie Performance that we had finished a couple of days earlier. I ran the tape machine and the result was an album called Jamming with Edward, eventually released on Rolling Stones Records in 1972. It is just a bit of fun, showing Nicky’s sense of humor and extraordinary technique, and it is great to hear Ry playing with Bill and Charlie. Definitely worth a listen.

  Andrew Oldham appeared one Sunday. Dressed in a cloak and carrying a silver-topped cane. Which is the only reason I remember him, as he is not a musician and could only have come as a guest of one of the guys on the session. I think he was starting out in PR and, having got Brian Epstein on his books, was obviously sniffing around the music business either for clients or to check out a new career. He was to become one of the most influential individuals in the industry in the sixties, managing The Rolling Stones and starting one of the first independent labels in the UK, Immediate Records.

  First Session, 1960

  In 1960 I got my first opportunity to actually sit at the console as the engineer. I was the assistant on the recording of a Son et Lumière production about the Battle of Trafalgar staged on Lord Nelson’s ship the Victory in Portsmouth Harbour. Lord Nelson was played by Sir Laurence Olivier, who wanted to work on a Saturday, and the engineer, Ray Prickett, refused to work on weekends, so I was given the job. I was petrified. Fortunately, the director, Peter Wood, was a charming and kind man and did his best to put me at ease, knowing that this was my first session in charge. Just the idea of being in the presence of the great man was bad enough. It only involved one microphone, so not a lot could go wrong. Pathetic really.

  Unfortunately, the news of Olivier’s intention to divorce Vivien Leigh and marry Joan Plowright had broken in the press that morning. So when he burst out of the elevator on the third floor and into studio B with a flurry of agitated entourage, there was steam coming out of every orifice.

  After a few minutes’ conversation with Peter Wood in private, he had calmed down and we were ready to start work. I had prepared a table with a green baize cloth, a decanter of water and a glass, and a chair that I had stolen from the studio owner’s office. No tubular metal and canvas musician’s chair for God.

  He was to read the most important and emotive speech in the whole piece—Nelson’s letter to Lady Hamilton the night before he died at the Battle of Trafalgar. His transformation into character was extraordinary to watch. Those of us present being stunned into silence by the end of the one and only take.

  Later that morning he was joined by a group of young actors who had to play a scene with him. It was quite obvious from the start that they were all in awe of him, but within minutes he had them completely at ease in his presence. A true professional. His personal problems left at the door, his concern for others and the job at hand taking precedence.

  The thrill of working at IBC was the variety. You never quite knew what would come through the door next. From a jingle for soap powder in the morning to a traditional jazz band in the afternoon to a thirty-piece orchestra with a pop star of the day in the evening. Followed the next day by the London Symphony Orchestra with a sixty-piece choir at one of London’s town halls. Some of it was inordinately boring but it was all a great experience. I was not just learning about the technical aspects of recording but witnessing the way people behaved and manipulated one another in a creative environment.

  My first music session as the engineer was with Joe Brown. A kinder man I have yet to meet. He was a big star, and quite rightly so, and was to record a follow-up to his latest hit. His A&R man at Pye Records was Tony Hatch, another unpleasant man with a massive ego. Unbelievably full of his own self-importance, with all the charm of a 1950s block of council flats. Up until that evening he had barely acknowledged my existence as an assistant to the engineer on many of his sessions.

  It was to be a twenty-eight-piece orchestra with Joe singing live. Two songs, an A- and a B-side for a single, to be recorded in mono in a three-hour session. So, no tinkering with it afterward. The engineer I was supposed to be assisting had been taken ill earlier in the day and, as no one else was available, I was once again up by default.

  Hatch arrived and did nothing to calm my nerves by throwing a massive wobbly and declaring that it was too late to cancel the session, which is what he would have preferred to do, as I was not competent in his eyes.

  The session went really well. Joe was lovely and seemed very pleased with the result. The following morning I was summoned to Alan Stagg’s office and informed that there was to be an inquiry into the previous night’s session. Tony Hatch had called and told him that it had been a disaster as a result of my inexperience and that Pye Records would hold IBC responsible for the entire cost of the session. An inquest was held and the master tape critiqued, with IBC taking the view that there was nothing wrong with the recording, and Tony Hatch was told to take a flying leap. Pye Records was one of the studio’s biggest clients, so this was quite a brave move on Alan Stagg’s part, as he could easily have lost their business. I don’t remember the title but I am pretty sure that the record was released and was successful for Joe. So the good guys won all round, and I was off and running, having survived what seemed at the time to be “trial by fire.”

  Singer-Songwriter/

  Freelance Producer, Early Sixties

  In the early sixties, the record business underwent a massive change as the singer-songwriter emerged on the scene, The Beatles and Bob Dylan leading the way. It was not too long before everyone had to write their own material in order to be original. It was no longer enough just to be a good singer and performer.


  It was at this point that the independent producer came into being. Previously, the A&R man had always been an employee of the record company, and having signed the act and found the material, he then produced the record. As the singer-songwriter appeared, the A&R man took on the responsibility of finding and signing the talent to the label and supervising the recording career of the artist, delegating the making of the record, and very often the selection of material on it, to an independent producer. Clearly this expanded the creative options available to record companies, and although it was standard practice for independent producers’ contracts to be exclusive for a period of three to five years, it was not too long until artists and labels were allowed to change producers at will.

  Mike Smith was the first example of an independent producer that I can recall. He worked as an A&R man at Decca, where he had a string of hits with such artists as Brian Poole and the Tremeloes and Dave Berry. I can only guess that he was approached by other labels to work for them and realized the potential of becoming an independent producer as a result. He was a great guy, and it must have taken enormous courage to step out and break the mold.

  It is interesting to note that the old-time songwriter very rarely even made the demo of the song he or she had just written. It was common practice to hire a professional demo singer to present the song on tape from which acetates would be cut, and they would be carted around to the A&R men and sometimes directly to the artist, by the song pluggers who worked for the publishers and whose sole job was to pitch the song and get it recorded. So it would seem that the art of songwriting was singularly that, and rarely had anything to do with an unusually high ability to either sing or play, until the new breed came along.