by Glyn Johns
Two minutes later, my phone rang again and it was her. Still locked in the bathroom, she said she had no intention of sleeping with Bill and asked if she could come to my room instead. I declined, adding that surely she had not been so naive as to expect her own room when she accepted the invitation.
The trip was a success. Bill and I had a great time, with him being feted around Madrid. We even had dinner with El Cordobés, the legendary bullfighter, who seemed to have the status of Elvis in Spain. He was charming and excellent company, giving Bill the most beautiful embroidered bullfighter’s jacket.
The band got the publicity it needed, I did a couple of gigs with them and a whole load of press and TV to promote my record, and returned to obscurity in the UK. I have no idea which chart the guy from Sonoplay was referring to. I think he may have been overexcited and exaggerated a bit. Bill ended up winning over the girl and must have made quite an impression on her in the process, as he and Astrid Lundström spent the next sixteen years together.
B-SIDE COVER FOR THE FOLLOW-UP SINGLE FOR SONOPLAY IN SPAIN, 1967.
I ONLY GOT ON THE COVER OF THIS MAGAZINE BECAUSE THE RECORD COMPANY OWNED IT.
Managers in the Early Sixties
The music business in the early sixties was a bit like the Wild West, or a video game. Every day was spent zigzagging and ducking, trying to avoid the unsavory individuals that the business was littered with. It attracted every kind of dodgy character you could imagine. Hanging around on the fringes like vultures on a fence, waiting to swoop on unsuspecting naive young musicians.
There is no official qualification to become a manager, other than the ability to spot talent and convince them that you could further their career by representing them. To be fair, many of these guys were invaluable, and because of their expertise and contacts were able to successfully steer artists up the ladder by motivating the record company and creating a strategy of promotion that resulted in far greater success than perhaps the artists deserved, while saving them far more than the manager’s commission came to.
However, there were many more who took advantage in the early days and worked the acts incredibly hard, seeming to have no concern for their well-being or bank balance. Perhaps the best known of these was Don Arden. He managed the Small Faces among others, and as I was engineering their records I got to know him quite well. Initially he seemed fine to me. He always paid my invoices promptly, and as he represented several other acts, he used me on other occasions to record them for his production company.
I went to Ready Steady Go! one Friday to supervise the sound for an appearance of the Small Faces. After the show, Ronnie Lane passed out in the dressing room from exhaustion. They had been on the road solidly for weeks, sometimes doing two shows a night with long distances to travel in between. This had taken its toll on them all, and they were pretty wiped out. I put Ronnie in my car and drove him back to the house I shared with Stu in Epsom. He stayed a couple of nights with no one knowing where he was and got to rest up and recover.
Ronnie and I had always got on well but this time together cemented what was to become a great friendship. He was the only person to sit me down and tell me to my face where I was at fault and take me to task about my sometimes acerbic personality. He nicknamed me “Bluto,” after the bully in the comic strip Popeye. No one in the band was bigger than five-foot-seven, so as I was six feet they were easy to intimidate.
They became more and more frustrated with Don Arden’s management and asked me to speak to Andrew Oldham on their behalf, to see if he would be interested in managing them and signing them to Immediate Records.
Andrew had meetings with them and Don Arden, and after the exchange of £25,000 in cash in a brown paper bag, the band were somehow set free from their contract with Decca Records and Arden’s management. As Don was well known for threatening violence in order to get his own way, I am amazed that Andrew managed this coup with a simple cash transaction without some serious unpleasantness. All I know is that Arden blamed me for being part of the conspiracy to get the Small Faces away from him, when all I had done was introduce them to Andrew Oldham at their request.
Sometime later I was in Madrid, where I met a young singer who told me she had just signed with Arden. I foolishly told her she had made a big mistake, as he was not to be trusted. She went back to London and told him what I had said.
When I returned to London, a man named Reg, who used to work for Andrew Oldham as his driver and bodyguard, contacted me, saying that he had a band that I should see with the view to making a record. We arranged to meet one evening at Olympic Studios while I was on a break in my session.
As the office at the studio was locked, there was nowhere private to chat, so he suggested that we go outside to his car. I readily agreed, having no idea what I was about to be confronted with.
The car was an Aston Martin and there was another man sitting in the driver’s seat. Reg invited me to sit in the back and then got into the passenger seat in the front. They both turned to face me in the back and I immediately recognized the second guy as a small-time club owner who I had had several run-ins with in the past when I was managing The Presidents. We frequently played his venue and he would never pay the agreed fee. I would always argue, knowing that, as the police station was opposite, there was little chance of it turning too violent. He was a short, stocky man and apparently had been a professional wrestler. He always had a huge sidekick, with the high-pitched voice of a eunuch, on the door. They made a very odd couple. I never liked him, and as it turned out, the feeling was mutual, because when he turned round in the car, he leveled a sawn-off shotgun at me.
Reg told me that Don Arden had sent them. That their instructions were to shoot me in the legs, but as they both knew me—Reg claiming that he even liked me—they were just going to issue a warning, and that I was to attend a meeting the following week at Don Arden’s office without fail or they would carry out their employer’s original request.
I sat rigid in shock until I came to my senses and realized that it was all for show, and I nervously suggested that he put the gun away because he clearly was not going to use it in his car as it would make quite a mess.
Having been summoned to a meeting, I realized that it was not going to be at all pleasant. I informed my friends Shel Talmy and Sammy Samwell—who was supposedly well connected—what was going on. They both told me to ring as soon as the meeting was over and that if they had not heard from me within a reasonable length of time, they would notify the police. I made a point of mentioning this as I was ushered into Arden’s office by a large minder, who stood at the back of the room with his sleeves rolled up. I had seen this guy around, as he was involved with running a few dance halls in South London and was usually accompanied by an enormous Alsatian dog. Don—a short, stocky, unattractive man—sat behind a huge desk, I suppose to increase his feeling of self-importance. He had definitely seen too many Edward G. Robinson movies.
He told me that if I ever mentioned his name again it would not matter where I was or what I was doing, he would find me and shoot me and my family. A bit over-the-top considering all I had done was inform someone quite accurately that he was not to be trusted. I said nothing and left, feeling extremely relieved to get out of the building in one piece.
There were many stories about Don, none of them pleasant. He intimidated the artists he represented, and anyone else who got in his way. He supposedly had someone blow out the windows of Steve Marriott’s house with a shotgun, and he is most famous for supposedly having a man hung out of a third-story window by his ankles. He eventually moved to Los Angeles, where I am told he lived in a mansion with armed guards everywhere. I suspect that this paranoia was as a result of him trying his strong-arm tactics on the wrong guys in America and coming up against the real thing. Years later I met his daughter, Sharon Osbourne, who was fabulous, bright, and interesting, seemingly not inheriting any of her father’s u
npleasant attributes.
Chris Blackwell
Perhaps the most extraordinary man I have ever met in the music business is Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. He started his label in Jamaica in 1959 and established it in London in 1962, being one of the very first to start an independent record company.
Our first meeting was at IBC in 1964. The session was to record Millie singing “My Boy Lollipop” on a track he had previously recorded elsewhere. The record went on to sell more than six million copies. Not a bad start for his first production in England. He had cut his teeth as a producer in Jamaica, having built a small studio in a shack and recording local talent.
He was softly spoken, always casually dressed, with a cultured English accent and an air of relaxed confidence about him that was extremely reassuring. You were never left in doubt that he was in charge or that he knew exactly what he was doing, but this was achieved in an extremely pleasant, unchallenging, seemingly egoless fashion.
He proved over and over again that he had exceptional taste in music and played an enormous roll in dictating what would become successful from the late sixties until the sale of Island Records in 1998.
The list of talent he signed and sometimes produced is too long to mention here, but here are a few: Bob Marley, U2, The Cranberries, PJ Harvey, The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Steve Winwood, Cat Stevens, and Fairport Convention.
He could spot talent a mile off. Then he would support it, within reason, come what may. This made his label a target for many artists. There is a huge element of security if you are signed to a label by the guy who owns it. The same was true of A&M, in my experience. Jerry Moss was always supportive and loyal to his artists. Whereas, if you were signed by an employee of a major label, who was to say how long he or she would be in the job and who would replace them should they leave.
I believe Chris’s finest skill is as a negotiator. I would pit him against any of the heavy hitters I have come across in the business. He has this extraordinary ability of coming at a problem from a completely different angle than expected, catching his opponent unawares and unprepared, invariably getting the upper hand.
In the summer of 1968 he asked me if I would help him design a studio that he intended to build in Notting Hill. He had acquired a building in Basing Street that had been a church and was pretty derelict, perfect for a complete interior refit. There were to be two studios, one above the other, and office space on top of that. We had several meetings over the next few months, but I was unable to contribute fully to the project as I was incredibly busy working. Chris was extremely understanding and seemed quite happy to have my input as and when I was around. My major contribution was suggesting that he form a company with Dick Swettenham for the purpose of designing and building the consoles. I persuaded Dick to leave Olympic, which he was happy to do, being given the opportunity to start his own company with Chris backing it. The resulting consoles were a great success and Helios went on to establish itself all over the world.
The first time I used the studio was in June 1970 to mix The Band’s Stage Fright album. This was the first 16-track recording I ever came across, and Basing Street, having just been built, was one of the first studios in London to acquire a 16-track machine, so I had little choice. Fortunately, the studio with its Helios console proved to be a great combination.
Todd Rundgren had engineered the record and Levon Helm came up with the idea that I should mix it. Robbie Robertson quite understandably wanted Todd to mix what he had started. So there was a standoff that resulted in Todd coming to London with the multitrack tapes and he and I doing our own set of mixes independently. We never even met. He would send me a reel of masters, and when I had finished he would have it collected and another reel would arrive for me to work on. I was disappointed that none of the band were able to attend the sessions. It was the first time I had ever mixed anything without the artist being present. This was doubly strange, as I had never heard the material before and I was used to getting the approval of the artist by running by any ideas I had to change the sound or arrangement before committing them to a mix. Once I got used to the idea I really enjoyed it.
Levon was very happy with the mixes I sent and I still don’t really know how many of mine got used. I hope it was fifty-fifty. That would seem fair. I have a great deal of respect for Todd and hope he was not too upset with me messing with his recordings. If the roles had been reversed, I would not have dealt with it well. I had been a huge fan of The Band ever since their first album, Music from Big Pink, which came out in 1968 and had a massive influence on me, so it was a particular thrill to be asked to work with them.
The next time I used Basing Street was in August 1970 to mix Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!, the Stones’ live album that I had recorded at Madison Square Garden in New York and the Civic Center in Baltimore in November 1969. This was the second occasion that I had mixed a record without the artist being present and the only time I can remember it happening with the Stones, as Mick and Keith always took a very active part in the mixing process. Of course, they checked and approved what I had done before we mastered it.
At the beginning of 1971 I mixed Graham Nash’s solo album Songs for Beginners at Basing Street. What a fabulous record that was. He was definitely at his peak as a songwriter. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young had previously approached me to work with them on Déjà Vu in 1969, but I had heard that they were all at each other’s throats so I declined. I had met Graham a couple of times in the sixties when he was in The Hollies and I was a big fan. What a great band they were. I have always felt really proud of Graham for being recognized for the British talent that he is and being accepted as an equal into the great American popular music tradition, and quite rightly so. You won’t meet a nicer guy. He is generous to a fault and a true professional to work with.
The first album I made in its entirety at Basing Street was the Eagles’ Desperado.
SITTING ON THE BACK OF THE TRUCK BACKSTAGE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN.
RECORDING YA YA’S AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN.
• • •
In 1976, Chris decided to build a studio near his house in Nassau, in the Bahamas. He invited me to join him there to discuss forming a company to include the studio and accommodation for artists and musicians. I had a wonderful few days staying with Chris and discussing the details of what we were about to embark on. One of the other houseguests was Abe Somer, the most prestigious music business lawyer in Los Angeles. Abe grew up with my pal David Anderle and represented Jerry Moss, A&M Records, and The Rolling Stones, among many other heavy hitters. I had known him and his family socially for some time. He asked why I was staying with Blackwell, and when I told him of the studio project in Nassau he took me outside, sat me down, and told me I was making a big mistake by going into business with a friend. I told him that was exactly why I wanted to do it, because Chris was my friend.
Chris and I discussed a deal, and I was very happy to accept what I thought was an incredibly generous offer on his part. I met with the architect and we began the basic plans for the studio.
A few months later, Chris came to London and we met up again on a glorious sunny English day at Chris’s house in Theale, near Newbury. The meeting went well until Chris told me that the deal he had originally offered had to change as the Bahamian government had insisted on one of its members being on the board as a director. I was not happy about what I considered to be corruption and having what Chris and I had originally agreed on substantially changed. So I politely withdrew.
Chris really did not need me and he went ahead with the project. Compass Point Studios opened in 1976 and became a great success. Stu and I went down for the opening to check it out, resulting in the Stones recording there shortly thereafter. I returned whenever I could, and although I did not make any really successful records there, I always had a great time. Chris would let me stay in his guesthouse whether he was on the i
sland or not, and when I remarried he kindly invited me and my second wife to stay as part of our honeymoon, very generously giving us his Boston Whaler boat as a wedding present. For many years I have had the registration plate LP1 on my cars and Chris had renamed the boat El Pee One, much to everyone’s amusement.
The last project that I did there was in the mid-nineties with Belly, a great young band from Boston, with the gorgeous lead singer Tanya Donelly. We used Jack Puig to engineer and what an excellent job he did. It was a wonderful environment and was perfect if you needed to get away and work without distraction.
Once the studio was well established, Chris diversified into property, being largely responsible for the rejuvenation of Miami Beach in Florida and building hotels in the Bahamas. In 1989 he sold Island Records to Universal and he expanded his hotel business to Jamaica, and the record business lost one of its most influential entrepreneurs.
Let’s Spend the Night Together, 1966
By now it was quite normal to have sessions go all night, a habit started by the Stones in 1966 while we were making Between the Buttons, with almost every session starting at 8:00 p.m. and going till 7:30 or 8:00 the following morning. On a Sunday afternoon in studio 1 at Olympic, we were recording Mick Jagger’s vocal on “Let’s Spend the Night Together.” The track had already been recorded, so there was just Mick, Andrew Oldham, his driver Eddie, me, and my assistant in the studio. I had set up an open-fronted vocal booth a third of the way down the studio, facing the control room. We had been working for about twenty minutes and Mick was getting close to the take that we would eventually use.
