by Glyn Johns
The delay in finishing the film caused Let It Be to be the last album released by The Beatles, although the last album they recorded together was Abbey Road. George Martin and Geoff Emerick were restored to their rightful roles to finish the record in grand style. Shortly after this, The Beatles finally broke up, reuniting only to sever their connection with Klein a few years later.
David Anderle, March 1969
While in Los Angeles making Your Saving Grace with the Steve Miller Band, I was introduced to Lee Hazlewood and his girlfriend, Suzi Jane Hokum. Lee was enjoying success as an artist and producer, having just had a huge hit with Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” Not exactly my cup of tea musically, but he was a really nice guy.
Suzi Jane took me to the Whiskey on Sunset Boulevard one night to see a band I had never heard of, Delaney & Bonnie. I thought they were great, but the guy that impressed me most that night was the piano player in the band, Leon Russell. I had never heard anyone play like that, he was like an entire rhythm section all on his own.
We ran into Suzi’s friend David Anderle and joined him in a booth at the back of the room for the rest of the evening. He was running Elektra Records on the West Coast for Jac Holzman, having previously worked for Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys at their label, Brother Records. We hit it off immediately, and that chance meeting was the beginning of a lasting friendship.
He invited me to his office the next day to see the studio that Jac had built with help from Bruce Botnick and John Haeny, two genius engineers in L.A. The studio had not been open long. Bruce had already made a Doors album there with Paul Rothchild producing, and to demonstrate the sound of the place David and John took me into the control room to play me the Delaney & Bonnie album that they had just completed. The sound was incredible. The combination of an extraordinary rhythm section, Leon Russell’s piano, Bonnie’s voice, and the recorded sound was like nothing I had ever heard.
David gave me a test pressing of the album, and when I returned to London I lent it to George Harrison, who was so impressed he decided that Apple Records should release it in the UK. When David and Jac heard of his intentions they had to pay a quick visit to London to explain politely that the world rights to the record belonged to Elektra. I was mixing Let It Be at the time and they came by Olympic to say hi as an excuse to hear the new Beatles album before anyone else. They were discreet enough not to mention the real reason for their visit to the UK, and it was only recently that David told me of George’s innocent intention of piracy. George soon got over his disappointment, and some months later, having made friends with Delaney, went on the road with the band and ended up playing at Carnegie Hall with them, adding Duane Allman as a second guest. Another wonderful night of musical collaboration that was never to be repeated, and I was fortunate enough to be there.
It soon became apparent to me that David Anderle had the extraordinary gift of making anyone who was the least bit creative feel incredibly comfortable and secure, while never hiding his true feelings, positive or negative. He was certainly the least threatening and most uncomplicated record company executive I had ever come across. The result being that, wherever he has gone since, he has attracted wonderful talent and maintained great relationships with some of the most important artists in the business.
LUNCH IN L.A., 2013. L TO R: ABE SOMER, JERRY MOSS, ME, DAVID ANDERLE.
Jerry Moss spotted this not long after David’s exit from Elektra in 1969 and offered him a home with no title at A&M, reporting only to Jerry. David’s office at the old Charlie Chaplin Studios on La Brea became the hang for anyone who was anybody in the seventies. The quality and availability of the drugs there may have had some bearing on it, although I was never to witness such goings-on.
The next time I saw Elektra Studios was to record the demos for Rita Coolidge with David producing. I remember this session well, as although I had met him many times before socially, it was the first time I had recorded Jim Gordon, the much-sought-after session drummer. The list of artists he played with is like a who’s who of popular music in the sixties and seventies. He was in Derek and the Dominos with Eric Clapton and cowrote their biggest hit, “Layla,” with him. At this time he was playing with Delaney & Bonnie.
I went to place my normal three mics on his drums when he rudely demanded to know where the rest of the mics were. Not a good start. I explained politely that this was how I was going to record him and not to worry. This did nothing to appease his surly attitude and he demanded that I put a mic on every drum. I had a huge respect for him as a musician and had always found him to be pleasant company, so I was somewhat taken back by his attitude and I did not appreciate being told how to do my job. I just walked away, saying, “How about you play the drums and I will record them?” He seemed to approve of the drum sound when he came and heard the first playback and kept quiet for the rest of the session. He was in love with Rita at the time, and as it was unrequited, when he was not playing he spent most of the time pacing up and down in a very disturbed fashion. Sadly, many years later he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. This caused him to hear voices that told him to murder his mother, which he duly did, by attacking her with a hammer and stabbing her to death. For which he is still serving time in California.
David got Rita a deal with A&M with the demos we recorded that day and went on to produce several hits with her.
The only other time I used Elektra Studios was with the Stones, working for a couple of days on Let It Bleed. We went in with Leon Russell and the amazing fiddle player Byron Berline and worked on a version of “Country Honk.” I remember running a microphone out onto La Brea Avenue to record a car honking its horn for the intro.
I don’t remember him being there, but apparently it was Jack Nitzsche who recommended Merry Clayton to come in and sing with Mick on “Gimme Shelter,” which along with “Street Fighting Man” is without question one of my favorite Stones tracks. She was called very late at night and, being heavily pregnant and already in bed, was singularly unimpressed at being disturbed at such a late hour. She had no idea who The Rolling Stones were and was reluctant to come. Her husband got on the phone and once he realized who the session was for persuaded her to change her mind. She was absolutely amazing. None of us had ever heard anything quite like what she produced that night. I practically had to stand her in another room, her voice was so powerful. She did three amazing takes, standing there with her hair still in curlers, and went home. Her husband was quite right. The performance made her very famous and quite rightly so. The tragedy was that not long after the session she had a miscarriage and lost her baby. Believing that the effort that she put into her performance that night may well have been the cause, she could never listen to the Stones’ version of the song.
Let It Bleed may well be my favorite Stones album. Great songs. “Midnight Rambler,” “Monkey Man,” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” with Jimmy Miller playing drums and the London Bach Choir, which is a wonderful cross-pollination of cultures. There was some discussion about which should be the A-side of the single—it was between it and “Honky Tonk Women.” I wanted “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and fought quite hard for it. Mick disagreed, and when Eric Clapton visited us in the studio one evening he had me play both tracks in order for Eric to choose which he thought should be the A-side. Eric, telling me I must have a screw loose, chose “Honky Tonk Women.” It went to number one both in the UK and America for several weeks and could easily be their best-known song. Just shows you what I know.
Jimmy Miller played cowbell on the basic track, and as I was alone in the control room when it was recorded, in a rare generous moment Mick told me that I had produced it. All this did was confirm to me that at that point in time neither Mick nor Keith had any real understanding of what a producer really did.
There is another story showing my total incompetence during the making of Let It Bleed. Jimmy Miller and I wer
e mixing “You Got the Silver” and he had the idea of putting reverse echo on the lead guitar. This is achieved by turning the tape upside down and playing it backwards while putting echo on the guitar and recording the return from the chamber on an empty track. I had never done it before and I miscalculated which was the empty track to record on and succeeded in erasing Mick’s vocal. Unfortunately, Mick was ten thousand miles away in Australia, making the movie Ned Kelly. I was mortified, but fortunately there was a positive result to my mistake. We asked Keith to sing it. I think I am right in saying it is his first lead vocal on a Stones album and he did a really fine job. From that moment on I always wanted to make an acoustic album with him. He was an exceptional acoustic guitar player and that instrument was the perfect vehicle for his voice.
I would always call in and see David whenever I was in L.A. More often than not staying with him and his first wife, Sherril. It was on one such a visit that he played me a demo tape of a band he had been sent that morning by his childhood pal and attorney Abe Somer. They had a really interesting sound that was a blend of country rock and American folk music all wrapped up in wonderful harmonies. As David seemed quite interested in producing them, I asked if he would consider us doing it together. He liked the idea, and we jumped on a plane to Kansas to go and meet The Ozark Mountain Daredevils.
They were a great bunch of guys and enormous fun to work with and turned out to be the most prolific writers. I remember going through more than eighty songs before starting the first album. It was David’s and my second time producing together and I have to say it worked well, balancing each other out with David being the laid-back good guy and me being the considerably less patient workaholic slave driver. In the early summer of 1973, they came to Olympic studios in London to make their first album. This was great fun to record and resulted in the Top 30 hit “If You Wanna Get to Heaven.”
It was decided to go to the Ozark Mountains for the second album. The band had rented an old wooden house in the middle of nowhere, the ground floor of which we used as a recording studio. It was the most surreal experience. The band had found a little old lady who lived locally to come and cook the most revolting food I have ever eaten. She was a sweetheart and meant well, but there was a cog missing when it came to preparing food. I remember the one time I ventured off the property on my own, being given strict instructions to go into only one of the two local stores that were set diagonally opposite each other on a crossroads with no other signs of civilization in sight. Apparently there was a long-standing feud between the two families who owned them, and if you were seen going in one you were barred entry to the other.
We rented RVs to sleep in and the Record Plant Truck to record the proceedings. The house made a wonderful studio. All the rooms were lined with wood, which made for great acoustics. Overall I have very fond memories of the whole experience. Another band with a great vocal blend. The music was great, as was the company. Can’t ask for much more, really. Except maybe edible food.
The album was released and we reached number three in America with the first single, “Jackie Blue.” The song had not even been submitted by the band as possible material for the record because it supposedly made reference to some drug, but I heard Larry Lee playing it on the piano in a lunch break, and being completely ignorant of the drug connotation I got very excited, dragging everyone back into the room to record it immediately.
I had a disagreement over the content of the second album with Stanley Plesser, the band’s manager—a man who should have stuck to selling shoes, in my opinion. This resulted in me quitting and leaving the band in David’s very capable hands for their third album.
Eventually David relinquished his desire to be a member of staff without portfolio and in 1984 took on the job of supervising movie music for the company for a few years. Among his many successes were Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, and the hugely successful Good Morning, Vietnam. Then, in 1989, he succumbed to pressure from Jerry and finally took the job of head of A&R at A&M, where he ran the department with great success for ten years until the company was finally sold in 1999 to Vivendi, to become part of the Universal group.
Mimi, Jan, and Bob, July 1969
In June, having delivered Steve’s Beatle boots, we went in to record Your Saving Grace. On the evening of July 3rd, I was working in the studio with the Steve Miller Band when there was a polite knock on the control room door, which I opened to reveal a stunningly beautiful young woman. She apologized for the intrusion and, having introduced herself as Mimi Fariña, explained that she had just heard that Brian Jones had died that day. Having been told that I was in town working with Steve, she felt obliged to come and break the sad news to me in person.
I was shocked and saddened at the news, which was somewhat mitigated by Mimi’s being so kind and thoughtful as to take the time to come and deliver it. I soon learned that she was a wonderful folksinger, having made two albums with her husband, Richard Fariña, in the mid-sixties. The partnership was brought to a sudden end when he was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident in 1966. As a solo artist, she found herself in the shadow of her sister Joan Baez, the American queen of folk. However, later that year she joined forces with Tom Jans and made an album for A&M.
In later life Mimi established and ran Bread & Roses, a charitable organization that provides free entertainment for the institutionalized, initially in San Francisco and now all over America. She spent her entire adult life selflessly giving to others, until she died from cancer in 2001.
• • •
During the last few days working with Steve I was invited to stay with Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone magazine. We had been introduced by Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs on my first visit to San Francisco.
Phil Walden had arranged for me to go to Georgia to meet with the Allman Brothers when I had finished with Steve Miller, to discuss the possibility of me producing their first album. I told Jann where I was going and he decided to accompany me, as apparently our mutual friend Boz was there and Jann had become concerned about his well-being for some reason.
I went to see the Allman Brothers in rehearsal and felt that they were not ready to make an album yet. It was very early days for them. They clearly had potential, but were still a little rough round the edges. For some reason they had decided to use two drummers in the band. This is not an easy thing to pull off, and they were still figuring out how to play with each other. This made the rhythm section quite stiff and unsettled, which was the reason I passed. Duane Allman took me back to his house for the evening, and we hit it off instantly and had a great time talking about music and musicians until the early hours. He was a lovely man, as well as a phenomenal guitar player.
Jann and I flew on to New York. During the flight, he was editing an interview he had recently done with Bob Dylan. It was something of a coup, as Dylan had not been interviewed for several years.
We landed in New York, and while walking through the baggage claim area we spotted none other than Dylan himself, leaning against a pillar, people-watching. Jann went over to talk to him while I collected my luggage and went outside to find the limousine that was meeting us. I had never met Dylan, and left them alone to talk. The next thing I knew, Jann was tapping me on the shoulder and there was the great man himself, having come over to say hi. He asked me about the Beatles album I had just finished and was very complimentary about my work with the Stones over the years. In turn, I babbled on about how much we had all been influenced by his work. He said he had this idea to make a record with The Beatles and the Stones, and asked me if I would find out whether the others would be interested.
I was completely bowled over. Can you imagine, the three greatest influences on popular music in the previous decade making an album together?
As soon as I got back to England, I rang everyone to see if they would agree to such an idea. Keith and George both thought it was fantastic, but then they would since
they were both huge Dylan fans. Ringo, Charlie, and Bill were amicable to the idea as long as everyone else was interested. John didn’t say a flat no, but he wasn’t that interested. Paul and Mick both said absolutely not.
I have often wondered whether it would have worked. It certainly would not have been easy. I had it all figured out. We would pool the material from Mick & Keith, Paul & John, Bob, and George, and then select the best rhythm section from the two bands to suit whichever song we were cutting. Paul and Mick were probably right, however I would have given anything to have given it a go. Many years later, Dylan had his wish partially granted when he and George Harrison put the Traveling Wilburys together with Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, and Tom Petty.
Six weeks after the chance meeting at LaGuardia Airport, I finally got to work with Dylan when his first producer, Bob Johnston, asked me to record him live at the Isle of Wight Festival. He was being backed by The Band. Their first album, Music from Big Pink, had become a massive influence on my musical taste, so this was to be a treat indeed.
