FEATURE:
Saluting the Work of a True Master…
PHOTO CREDIT: Julia Wick
The Marvellous Glyn Johns at Eighty
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ON 15th February…
IN THIS PHOTO: Glyn Johns at Olympic Studios in London in 1970 with Mick Jagger/PHOTO CREDIT: .Ethan Russell
the sensational and legendary Glyn Johns is eighty. Many know about his magnificent engineering, mixing and production work. He has been back in the spotlight, as he featured heavily in The Beatles: Get Back. To me, a key figure and support for the band during their last couple of years, Johns has also worked with The Rolling Stones, The Who, Eagles, Joan Armatrading and Stevie Nicks. I am ending with a playlist of songs from Johns. They are from albums that he has worked from. Before getting there, I found an interview from The New York Times from 2014. He talked about working with various artists. It is his recollections of working alongside The Beatles that interested me:
“After disembarking from a Los Angeles to London flight in February 1969, the recording engineer and producer Glyn Johns went straight to a studio to work with the Beatles on the album that became “Abbey Road.” That was followed by an all-night session with the Rolling Stones for the album “Let It Bleed,” after which he rejoined the Beatles, then concluded his marathon that day by recording Jimi Hendrix live at Royal Albert Hall.
That’s what life was like for Mr. Johns during one of the most fertile periods in popular music. Born in suburban London in 1942, he went to work as an apprentice sound engineer at the age of 17, when music was still recorded in monaural, and soon became the engineer of choice for the British pop groups then emerging: He was in the control room twirling the knobs the first time the Rolling Stones went into a recording studio, on a Sunday early in 1963.
Now Mr. Johns has written a memoir, “Sound Man” (Blue Rider Press), in which he explains, among other things, what a record producer actually does: guide musicians in “painting a picture in sound.” Published last month, the book offers behind-the-scene glimpses of his studio work — which in the 1970s and 1980s expanded to artists like the Eagles, the Clash, Howlin’ Wolf, Eric Clapton, John Hiatt, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt — and the working relationships he forged.
“My objective was not kiss and tell, but an observation of the industry over the last 50 years, how it has developed, and about the characters I’ve met,” he said. “I just love making records, and that’s never going to change. I can’t wait to get back in.”
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, Mr. Johns remains active, having recently produced CDs by Ryan Adams and Benmont Tench. In New York on book tour, he spoke of his 50-plus years in the recording studio. Here are excerpts from his descriptions of some of his biggest projects.
Though best known for the records he made with the Rolling Stones, with whom he worked until 1975, Mr. Johns also was the recording engineer for the Who, the Kinks and Small Faces on some of the most notable songs of the 1960s. Even at the time, he sensed these were not ordinary sessions.
“There was absolutely a sense of the possibility of rules being changed, of the enormity of what was going on. One had no idea whether the general public would pick up on it the same way I did. But I can remember very clearly the session for ‘My Generation.’ I can remember very clearly ‘You Really Got Me’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again,’ and lots of Stones stuff. ‘My Generation’? A bass solo? A stuttering vocal? Not to mention feedback or the song itself. Extraordinary! It was certainly special to me at the time. Are you kidding? You’d have to be deaf not to get excited by that.”
Early in 1969, the Beatles invited Mr. Johns to work on their new project. He accepted eagerly, thinking he would be the engineer for George Martin, who had produced the group’s previous albums. But when he arrived, Mr. Martin, who had grown tired of the bickering, was absent, and he realized he was being thrust into a producer’s role. The experience, which eventually yielded the album “Let It Be” after the tapes were turned over to Phil Spector, was frustrating:
“The idea was something like ‘The Basement Tapes,’ to show what they were really like. I’d worked with everyone and their mother by then, so I was quite used to being around people who were famous. But when I got the call, to walk in and be privy to those guys sitting around, doing what they did, and to be invited in, was pretty astonishing. I didn’t know them. I was the same as every other punter on the planet, who saw them as these extraordinary icons of marvelousness.
“And although they could hardly be normal people, because of what their success had done to them, I was witnessing them being normal to each other. Which no one else had got to see, and which nobody really had a clue about. And so my concept of the record was: how fantastic to have a record of them playing live, sitting around mocking each other, just having a laugh.
“It was very weird. But George Martin, being the gentleman that he is, he realized that I had been compromised in a way, and he saw fit to put me at ease about the situation. He took me to lunch, and he said, ‘You’re not to worry about a thing.’ I was feeling really awkward about the whole thing, and he was completely at ease about the situation. Because he is confident of his own abilities.
“I was disappointed that Lennon got away with giving it to Spector, and even more disappointed with what Spector did to it. It has nothing to do with the Beatles at all. ‘Let It Be’ is a bunch of garbage. As I say in the book, he puked all over it. I’ve never listened to the whole thing, I’ve only listened to the first few bars of some things and said, ‘Oh, forget it.’ It was ridiculously, disgustingly syrupy”.
Ahead of the eightieth birthday of one of the most important people in music, I wanted to assort some songs that show Johns’ talent and significance. Since the 1960s, he has earned this reputation as a producer, mixer and engineer like no other! Many people will salute him on his birthday. Here is my tribute to…
THE amazing Glyn Johns.