by Glyn Johns
It must have been extremely difficult for Mick to let go of the record that he had invested so much time and effort in. It would be hard to just give it to some complete stranger to mess with. He was good enough to let me get on with it, and when the dust settled, he seemed happy enough with the result, as I was to find out at our next meeting, where he was extremely pleasant.
A few months later I was making a live album with The Who on tour in America. The Clash opened for them on a few gigs, and they asked, as I was there with the gear, could I record them as well. I was happy to oblige, and did so at Shea Stadium in New York and the Coliseum in Los Angeles. All I remember is a lot of manic energy, not a good sound, and the bass player seemed to be on some other nonmusical planet. Nothing usable, in my opinion, but I understand that some of those recordings have since been released to feed the insatiable appetite of Clash fans by their record company.
I was fortunate to remain pals with Joe, and he returned to my studio to produce an album with his longtime friend from art school Tymon Dogg. That, sadly, was the last time I saw him.
PARICIPANTS IN THE ARMS CONCERT TOUR OF AMERICA. IN VARIOUS GROUPINGS: RONNIE LANE, ERIC CLAPTON, JIMMY PAGE, JEFF BECK, BILL WYMAN, CHARLIE WATTS, JOE COCKER, PAUL RODGERS, KENNY JONES, ANDY FAIRWEATHER LOW, RAY COOPER, JAMES NEWTON, CHRIS STAINTON, SIMON PHILIPS, JAN HAMMER, FERNANDO SAUNDERS, BILL GRAHAM, AND ME.
ARMS, 1983
As a result of his hit single “How Come?” in 1973, Ronnie Lane got a deal with A&M records and used the money from the advance to buy a derelict farm in Wales. He moved there with his wife and kids to become a sheep farmer while still writing songs and recording them with the mobile unit he had built in an Airstream caravan while he was in the Faces. That is, when it was available. It was in constant demand from the likes of Bad Company and Led Zeppelin. The income that this produced helped to keep his head above water while making the farmhouse livable. Ronnie recorded a couple of albums there. He was so broke that he used the same few reels of two-inch tape over and over again. Erasing the previous album in order to make the next.
Stu and Eric Clapton would often go down to play with Ronnie, both enjoying the solitude of the farm and hanging out with their friend playing music. Stu came round to see me after one of these visits and told me that he was becoming increasingly concerned about Ronnie, as he was slurring his words and losing his balance as if he were drunk. At first, no one paid much attention, thinking he probably was. Until one day, when he complained that his arm had pins and needles and had become numb, making it difficult for him to play.
Pretty soon he had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but only as a result of Stu and his wife, Cynthia, insisting that he go and get checked out, as up to then Ronnie had been in complete denial. Ronnie stayed with them when he went to London, and it was dear Cynthia who recommended a form of treatment that temporarily eased the symptoms of the disease using a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. They are tanks commonly used to decompress deep-sea divers. As there was only one available for use in London, Ronnie decided to try and raise £20,000 to buy another for a charity, Action Research into Multiple Sclerosis, or ARMS, to use exclusively.
He asked Eric if he would do a gig to raise the money. Eric was happy to help and turned to me to help him put a band together. His band was all Americans, so it would have been completely uneconomical to bring them over from the States and put them up in a hotel for one charity concert. I got straight on the phone to Stu, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and Andy Fairweather Low. By the end of the day, all had agreed to do the show for Ronnie.
A few days later, Stu went to a party at Jeff Beck’s house. He mentioned to Jeff and Jimmy Page that we were doing the concert and they both offered their services there and then. So the whole thing instantly took on another life. Jimmy had not played since the breakup of Led Zeppelin, and now we had three of the greatest guitar players in Britain appearing on the same bill. The word got out, and pretty soon my phone was ringing off the hook with equipment companies’ road managers and the rock and roll elite offering their services in droves, responding to the request for help from one of their own. Their generosity was completely out of kilter with the media’s image of them as preening, self-important, spoiled brats.
As Eric had previously been discussing the possibility of doing a concert for Prince Charles’s Trust, he suggested that the promoter, Harvey Goldsmith, book two nights at the Albert Hall and kill two birds with one stone.
Being completely out of my depth, I approached Paddy Grafton Green, the kindest man on the planet and the best lawyer in London, for help with the legal aspect of things. He readily donated an enormous amount of his time to the charity. I sold the radio rights in America to raise the cash to pay for our concert to be filmed, then rang Stanley Dorfman in L.A., who dropped everything and flew to London at his own expense to come and direct it. He was the only man for the job as he already had a wonderful relationship with everyone on the bill, having worked with them all many times in his days directing Top of the Pops and In Concert for the BBC. There is no one to touch him when it comes to shooting live music. His knowledge, respect, and enthusiasm for music and musicians is as deep and wide as anyone I know, bringing a wonderful aura of calm with all that expertise and sympathy to his work.
Eric invited his old pal Stevie Winwood and added Ray Cooper on percussion to his band. Kenney Jones could not be left out, as he had been in the Faces and the Small Faces with Ronnie.
We rehearsed at my place for a week. They all came from far and wide. No one was ever late. There was never a glimmer of ego from anyone. Although Jeff was rehearsing his own band elsewhere, he still came to our rehearsals every day, so as to be there should we need him. The whole spirit of the event revolved around Ronnie and everyone’s affection for him. No one minded where they were on the bill. I think it was the first concert of its type where everyone played with one another. My idea being to give the audience an experience they had not seen before and were not likely to see again.
Ronnie’s cheerful presence never let us lose sight of why we were there, and by the end of the week I think we were all pleasantly surprised, as it was something very few of us had experienced. It was hysterically funny, very social, and fantastic to be involved with, as everyone got on so well.
The first of the two nights was for Prince Charles’s Trust. We were all lined up to meet him and Princess Diana before the show. Poor Princess Diana, she was only twenty-two, so had not got a clue who she was meeting, as we all came from another era of music than she was likely to have been interested in. I tried to explain who was who and she responded in a shy and grateful way as if she understood but I am sure that she didn’t.
As it was Eric that had been approached to do this show, it did not have quite the same importance to the rest of us, and although we were happy to do it for a very good cause, I think some of us treated it like a good run-through for the following night for Ronnie. Andy Zweck from Harvey’s office took over responsibility for the production office at the venue, so everything ran like clockwork. The concerts were a wonderful success for all who took part. The end being particularly emotional with Ronnie coming onstage with everyone and singing “Goodnight Irene.” There was not a dry eye in the house. Along with me, I am sure that any individual in the audience felt extremely fortunate to be there.
The Stones donated their truck for me to record the radio show and sound for the video that we sold to Laurence Ronson, father to the record producer Mark and younger brother of the British business tycoon and philanthropist Gerald Ronson. Through his exceptional generosity and the fact that it was completely sold out, we ended up raising more than $1 million from the night.
We all met backstage after the show and, having had such a blast putting the whole thing together, decided that all that hard work should not go to waste, so we should consider doing more shows, and arranged to have dinner at my house a few days later to dis
cuss the possibility of where and when.
It was clear that this combination of the principal musicians who took part with Eric at the helm had a far greater earning power than any of them as individuals.
They all attended the dinner, where after much discussion, it was decided that we should take it to America. Stu suggested that Bill Graham was the only promoter in the States to handle the job and who they all knew and trusted. Having been charged with calling him, Stu returned to the table five minutes later to inform us that Bill was with us and the services of his entire company were at our disposal.
A month later I was dispatched to San Francisco to meet with Bill and sort out the details of the tour. My only previous knowledge of him was negative gossip and the one decidedly unpleasant meeting all those years ago with Steve Miller. In short, I did not trust him, so I felt like a Christian being fed to the lions as I boarded that plane, as you could write everything I knew about touring on a postage stamp.
On arrival I nervously explained that my principal concern was to maximize the amount of money raised by not wasting it on the frivolous expenditure that is so often associated with fund-raising. My fears were soon put to rest. Bill was nowhere near as intimidating as I expected. He could so easily have taken advantage of my complete ignorance of concert promotion but instead patiently steered me through the process of setting up the tour and maximizing the profit from it. Mick Brigden from Bill’s office took over the day-to-day logistics and tour management, holding my hand through the many pitfalls we experienced.
While in San Francisco I received a call from Eric’s manager to say that Steve Winwood had dropped out and that I had twenty-four hours to find a replacement or the whole thing was off. I called Joe Cocker and thank God he was available, as we could not have found a better replacement. Eric was okay with the idea, so after a few hours of flat panic we were back on again with three weeks to go until the first date in Dallas. We played nine shows in America and broke box office records in most of them, ending up with a fantastic reception at Madison Square Garden, the tour raising a total of around $1 million.
• • •
The following day on the plane back to London, it suddenly came to me that I had tricked myself into believing that all that effort and outpouring of affection for Ronnie from so many people over the previous few weeks would, like some kind of fairy story, somehow cure him of this terrible debilitating disease. This was not to be.
It seemed to me that, as we were raising money from Americans, it was only fair to use it to establish ARMS in America and encourage collaboration and exchange of the research that already existed in Great Britain. So a few months later, the charity was established in America via a lawyer who said she was in remission from MS and who offered her services to Ronnie to run it from her offices in Houston. In an effort to gain more publicity for the cause, we were all taken to Houston and given the freedom of the city, along with a warm message of endorsement from President Reagan. His kind acknowledgment of what we had achieved proved invaluable when, several months later, it was discovered that the lawyer had misappropriated a substantial amount of the money we had raised. Ronnie wrote to President Reagan for help and he was absolved of any responsibility but it must have had a hugely adverse effect on a man who was seriously ill to begin with.
He went to live in Austin, Texas, making many friends, becoming a well-loved fringe member of the music community. Sitting in at the odd gig around town with people like Joe Ely, when his health allowed.
He married his nurse, Susan, and eventually moved to Colorado, where he died in June 1997, living out his last days unable to move but never losing his wicked sense of humor. His courage and honesty touched everyone he came in contact with, and as Joe Ely says, “He is still with us through the songs he wrote.”
THE ARTISTS FOR THE ALBERT HALL GIG FOR ARMS. FROM LEFT, BACK ROW: JIMMY PAGE, CHARLIE WATTS, CHRIS STAINTON, JEFF BECK, STEVIE WINWOOD, RAY COOPER, FERNANDO SAUNDERS, ANDY FAIRWEATHER LOW, AND BILL WYMAN. FRONT ROW: KENNEY JONES, RONNIE LANE, ERIC CLAPTON, AND ME.
The Eighties and Nineties
Over the next few years I made more albums with Joan Armatrading, Andy Fairweather Low, The Who, and Eric Clapton. The results of my efforts to work with new artists like Live Wire for A&M, Charlie Dore for Chrysalis, and the wonderful guitar player Tim Renwick for CBS falling on stony ground. I was finding it more and more difficult to find new artists I wanted to work with, and in equal part, what I was doing began to sound dated and perhaps a little tired.
In 1979, Jerry Moss approached me with the idea of us going into partnership to build a studio in London, and A&M bought the huge old Regal Cinema in Fulham for the purpose. A&M was the company with the most artist-friendly feel of any of the labels that I dealt with. This was because it was owned and run by Jerry and Herb Alpert who set the tone and, with very few exceptions, employed people who maintained it. While remaining a serious business enterprise under Jerry’s watchful eye and I am sure with Abe Somer’s good counsel, they managed to preserve the image of the company’s insatiable appetite and enthusiasm for good music. Not an easy task.
I look back with great affection on those warm sunny California afternoons spent hanging out on the balcony of David’s office, watching the pretty secretaries going about their business—tripping backward and forwards across the lot—while discussing the pros and cons of what was happening in the business.
Jerry changed his mind and decided not to go ahead with the studio in London and sold the building. So, having spent some considerable time meeting with architects, acquiring equipment, and starting to build a console, I decided to continue with the project on my own and build a residential studio out in the English countryside. Twelve months later, I had bought a small farm in West Sussex, and with a great deal of help from Stu, converted its stable block into a studio.
I fell in love with the house, and although it had not been my original intention, moved into it, spending the next twenty-five years living there while working with The Who, The Clash, Bob Dylan, Midnight Oil, Jools Holland, New Model Army, the French band Téléphone, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, David Crosby, Labi Siffre, and Helen Watson, among many others. Every now and then I would go back to work in America, where, to be honest, I felt much more comfortable musically. I became more and more disenchanted with what was happening in the UK, and it increasingly became more disenchanted with me. The synthesizer and the drum machine took over and, to my mind, the standard of songwriting plummeted, with people becoming obsessed with beats per minute and electronically created sounds that in the end all sounded the same to me.
I continued to seek out and work with the ever-diminishing number of great songwriters and singers who still had a record deal and a fan base. John Hiatt was at the forefront. He is an exceptional talent and certainly is up there with the best songwriters I have worked with. His lyrics are superb, having the extraordinary ability to paint a picture or describe an emotion in one line that would take any mere mortal an entire page.
I was turned on to him by Andy Fairweather Low, who rang me one day bursting with excitement, as he had been following Ry Cooder round the country on his tour of Great Britain, saying that Ry had one of the best singers he had ever heard performing with him.
John was on A&M, and when I was asked to work with him, he had already made the superb album Bring the Family for them. This is probably the best album he has ever made, and being the well-oiled machine they had become, John, Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner and Nick Lowe only took four days to make it.
It was recorded by the exceptionally talented engineer Larry Hirsch. Being so impressed with the sound, I asked him to engineer for me when I produced John’s album Slow Turning. This was the first time I relinquished the role of engineer on any record I made. At first I felt like a spare part, not quite knowing where to put myself, but I soon got used to it and found it really refreshing not to have to do t
wo jobs at once.
We recorded in Nashville at Ronnie Milsap’s Groundstar Labs, using John’s road band as the rhythm section that included the amazing Sonny Landreth on slide guitar and Kenneth Blevins on drums, adding Bernie Leadon playing guitars various and the wonderful James Hooker on keyboards. I took it to L.A. to mix at Ocean Way. Thanks to the owner, Allen Sides, this was one of the few remaining studios that had stayed true to the acoustics for which they were originally designed in the late fifties, not succumbing to the commercial pressure of having SSL consoles and Hidley acoustic designs, both of which have been responsible for systematically reducing the quality of recorded sound like some invidious cancer.
Having finished Slow Turning, John’s manager, Ken Levitan, invited me back to Nashville to meet with Nanci Griffith with the view of me producing her next album. He took us both out to dinner, after which I was not convinced that I should work with her, as we seemed to have little in common as personalities. The following morning James Hooker rang to tell me I was making a big mistake and that Nanci was extremely shy but once you got to know her she became a great deal less reserved. So I took him at his word and agreed to make the album on the understanding that it was my intention to take her out of the glass case that she resided in and put her in a cardboard box. Nanci seemed quite happy with this and bravely went along with pretty much whatever I ran by her, whether she completely understood or not, and rose to the occasion with flying colors. She was perfectly polite and professional, but as I had originally suspected, she never really seemed to loosen up. We came from different planets as far as our personalities were concerned. I don’t think this affected the record at all, just the experience of making it.
I used Fran Breen, drums; Pat Donaldson, bass; Neill MacColl and Bernie Leadon, guitars; and the brothers, Jerry and Mark Donahue, electric guitar and emulator, respectively; with James Hooker, keyboards, and moral support for Nanci. They all made a significant contribution and along with Jack Joseph Puig’s engineering, complemented Nanci’s songs and her impeccable performance of them.
