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

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Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits with The Rolling Stones, The Who, LedZeppelin, The Eagles, Eric Clapton, The Faces . . . Page 17

by Glyn Johns


  Meanwhile, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Ian McLagan got back to London and set about putting the Faces together with Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart.

  Both bands eventually asked me to produce them. Humble Pie was ready first, but I waited until they had a deal with A&M in 1970 and then I agreed to go into Olympic and make the album Humble Pie without even hearing them. This proved to be a bit of a mistake on my part, as although they were all really good musicians and pleasant enough to work with, Steve Marriott had changed musical horses and this band was loud, extremely energetic, using variations on the same riff, with very few good songs. They were popular enough, and became quite successful by working incredibly hard, constantly touring America. But they lacked the substance that I had hoped for, particularly knowing what Steve was capable of as a songwriter. So the experience was disappointing for me and after a second attempt with the album Rock On (not the most innovative album title), I decided to stop working with them.

  I did not get to produce the Faces until their third album, A Nod Is as Good as a Wink . . . to a Blind Horse, in late 1971. It was good to get back in the studio with my pals Kenney, Ronnie, and Mac, and to meet Ronnie Wood for the first time. I had seen Rod around in the sixties and had always been a great admirer of his voice, but it was not until he joined the Faces that I really came to appreciate his skill as a vocalist. Their style of playing, coupled with the material they wrote, really suited him and showed him off to his best.

  They were really easy to work with, all of us sharing a similar sense of humor. Ronnie Lane, Kenney, Mac, and I picking up where we left off with the Small Faces, with the addition of Woody’s and Rod’s personalities and musicianship bringing a whole new and fresh start. This was rough-and-ready rock and roll with a twinkle in its eye. The album went Top 10 in America, and we had a hit single with “Stay with Me.”

  By the time we got to the next album, Ooh La La, things had changed quite a bit. Rod was having huge success as a solo artist with his worldwide number-one “Maggie May,” and his interest in the band was waning, with him showing less and less interest in the album we were making. The band had been hugely successful in its own right, but that was not enough to keep him. I think we were all pleased when the record was finished.

  It was not long before they split up. It was inevitable, really. After the American tour to promote Ooh La La, Ronnie Lane was the first to leave the band. When he got back from the States, he rang to tell me the news. He was really depressed and at a bit of a loss as to know what to do. I asked him if he had any songs. He replied that he had a couple. So in order to cheer him up, I suggested that we go into Olympic later that week and record them, as I had a couple of days free. This resulted in the single “How Come?” becoming a number one in the UK for Ronnie when it was released a few weeks later. That cheered him up a bit. The rhythm section I put together that day—Benny Gallagher, Graham Lyle, and Bruce Rowlands, along with the fiddle player Charlie Hart—ended up staying with Ronnie, and became his band, Slim Chance, adding the ever faithful and unbelievably competent Russell Schlagbaum as manager, road manager, and problem solver extraordinaire. They went on the road around the UK, using a circus tent as a portable venue.

  Kenney Jones, certainly one of the best drummers of the era, has kindly played on many sessions with other artists for me and went on to replace Keith Moon in The Who. He lives close by and remains a valued friend today. Ian McLagan moved on after the Faces to play with the Stones, Bonnie Raitt, and Bob Dylan, among many others. He now lives in Austin, Texas, where he has a successful solo career. We are still good pals, and I had the pleasure of mixing his last two solo albums. We all know what happened to Woody—he joined the Stones not long after I quit.

  The Small Faces, along with the Faces, finally got the recognition they deserve in America, being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.

  Ronnie Wood, Pete & Eric, the “Black Box” Album, and the Last Meeting with John, 1971

  In 1971, I started to look for a larger house to live in, before the birth of my second child, Abigail. A friend of my mother’s had a beautiful late-nineteenth-century house with seven bedrooms and a large, well-established garden. It had been the lodge to the Tattenham Estate on the edge of the Epsom racecourse, not far from where we were already living. It was the perfect family home and really well situated. London was only twenty miles to the north, and to the south we were bordered by woodland that led to open countryside all the way to the coast some forty miles away. He was anxious to sell. So as there was no agent involved and I knew him well, we were able to negotiate a really good deal relatively quickly.

  I was feeling pretty pleased with myself and had completed the purchase the week before, when at around three a.m. at the end of a session with the Faces, Woody announced that he had been given the keys that afternoon to a house he had bought from the actor John Mills. He asked if I would like to accompany him on his first visit as the new owner. I jumped at the opportunity, being nosy and wanting to see how his purchase stacked up against mine.

  It was a short drive west from Olympic along the river and up to the top of Richmond Hill. The house was very grand and impressive from the outside. We parked up, and Woody produced a bunch of keys, none of which worked in the lock. Not to be beaten, he decided to break in. I was not sure that that was a good idea, particularly the way we looked. Two fairly unkempt guys at three a.m., breaking in to a house that everyone locally would have known belonged to the famous actor.

  Fortunately there was no alarm. We gingerly entered and found the light switch in the hall that revealed a grand room with the classic black-and-white squares of marble floor so often used in eighteenth-century houses and a beautifully proportioned staircase. Woody, leading the way, proceeded to show me round. It was without a doubt the most beautiful house I had ever been in. Quite breathtaking.

  It was on four floors, the main feature being three large oval rooms one on top of the other, all with stunning understated ornate ceilings. On the ground floor was the drawing room, above was the master bedroom, and below was the dining room. Even the doors were slightly curved to complete the perfect oval. In the basement were a huge kitchen and an oak-paneled snooker room with the most beautiful table, which had once been owned by the world champion Joe Davis.

  There was a conservatory on the ground floor that had the most fantastic view of the River Thames winding away to the west, and from a bedroom on the top floor at the front of the house was a panoramic view of the rooftops of London to the east. I remember Woody announcing with lecherous glee that we were standing in Hayley’s room—John Mills’s actress daughter, who, apparently, he had spent his youth fantasizing about.

  When I found out that he had paid only a little more than I had for my new place, I have to admit I was extremely jealous. He soon put in a small studio on the lower ground floor. That room was where the basic track for the Stones’ “It’s Only Rock ’n Roll (But I Like It)” was cut. With Kenney Jones playing the drums. Charlie was not deliberately left out. Mick and Keith went round to Woody’s place for a jam and Kenney happened to be there. It turned out so well that they ended up using it.

  There was a fabulous cottage at the end of the steeply sloped garden that Ronnie Lane lived in for a while, and after him the next tenant was Keith Richards.

  Pete Townshend called me one day in December 1972, telling me that he was really worried about Eric Clapton, as he had become a heroin-induced recluse along with his girlfriend, Alice. Pete felt that he had to get Eric out playing again. So he put together a wonderful rhythm section with Ronnie Wood, Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood, Rick Grech, Rebob, and Jimmy Karstein, and had Robert Stigwood book the Rainbow in London a few weeks later for one night only, and asked if I could help with the rehearsals and record the show. So as Woody and I were in the middle of the Faces album Ooh La La, we took a week off. Woody generously offered his house for rehearsals, and Ronnie Lane donat
ed his Airstream mobile recording unit to record it.

  I was keen to do all I could to help but had little faith in Eric even turning up. Which he eventually did. At this point I was not a big fan, but that was based on his use of heroin and what it did to his personality and his ability to play. I have yet to meet a heroin addict that I would choose to have any kind of social intercourse with let alone a creative relationship, and I am sure the feeling would be mutual.

  They got through the show with the band carrying Eric as best they could. His performance was less than sparkling. Understandable really, as he was not in good shape. It was suggested that he should come to Olympic a few days later to replace some of the weaker performances. So when Eric did not show for the overdub session, I said I would not mix the album as it stood, as it would certainly not be in Eric’s best interest for it to be released without it being tidied up. Robert Stigwood, who was managing Eric at the time, was really keen to have an album to put out. So he got Bob Pridden to mix it as it was, who I am sure did a great job but it seemed that Mr. Stigwood had little or no concern for the integrity of his artist.

  God knows what Pete’s action saved Eric from. It certainly got him motivated to join the real world again and to start playing. Perhaps he saved his life.

  Once Woody and his first wife, Krissy, had settled into their new home, it became a great place to hang out. They were always pleased to see you and encouraged friends to call in if they were in the area. It was on one such afternoon’s visit in November 1974 that we were joined in the kitchen by Mick Jagger. He and I had been to see the Faces play in London not long before, where they had put on a formidable show that had impressed him mightily.

  He explained to me over a cup of tea that the Stones were in something of a quandary. They were in the process of extricating themselves from their deal with Allen Klein and it turned out that they owed him one more album under the terms of their contract. So the band had decided to go through all the recordings they had made during the term of the contract and find material that had been rejected for one reason or another and assemble it into an album to satisfy the legal requirements of the deal.

  Although I had stopped working with the Stones sometime before, I had recorded all the material that they were considering using, so Mick, and I presume Keith, had decided to ask me to briefly return to the fold and go to New York for a few days in order to put together what became known as the “Black Box” album. As I was free later that week, I was happy to oblige.

  On the plane on the way over, I remember Mick leaving his seat next to me and going to chat with an extremely well-dressed elderly gentleman for at least half an hour who I think was the Lord Chief Justice of the day. How quickly things had changed. It seemed only five minutes ago that the whole of the establishment in England was bitterly against what The Rolling Stones stood for, locking them up and making examples of them, and here we were at thirty-five thousand feet, with Mick engaged in charming social repartee with one of the lawmakers of the land.

  Over the next few days we got on with the job in hand, going through hours of multitrack tapes. There was a very good reason why this material had not been included on any album before. It was almost entirely unfinished ideas that had come to nothing.

  I must say I enjoyed the time with Mick. Although we had known each other for years, it was rare for us to spend a concerted amount of time together without the circus that surrounds the band.

  We went for a drink one night in the bar of the hotel and he asked if I would consider going back to work with them. We had had this conversation many times before and it had usually turned quite ugly, with me maintaining that I had put my time in as their engineer and was only prepared to continue with them if they recognized me as a producer and gave me a royalty, and with him refusing to give me a royalty and calling me, among other things, a whore.

  Though I had been producing with some degree of success for some time, Mick and Keith only ever saw me as an engineer. Their process seemed to be getting slower and slower. The flush of Mick Taylor joining the band had subsided somewhat. Substance abuse had changed him almost beyond recognition from the quiet fresh-faced genius I met when he joined the band.

  In fact, the last time I had worked for the Stones was in 1972, recording and mixing some of Exile on Main St. My brother Andy did most of the album at Keith’s house in the South of France, where, sadly, he fell under the spell of Keith and heroin. Things had not gone particularly well as a result of a massive amount of drug taking by everyone except Mick, Charlie, and Bill. So Mick invited me down to visit, and not long after, he asked if I would go in with him on his own to help him finish a couple of vocals and do some mixing. My one condition was that it would only be him and me, with no interference from any other member of the band, after what I had witnessed in France.

  We started back in London at Basing Street Studios and were getting on really well, slipping straight back right where we left off. Until, on the second day, the control room door opened and much to my surprise in walked Mick Taylor. We had been working on a mix for about half an hour and had discovered that Mick Taylor had overdubbed himself on drums and bass and was singing background parts, all of which I had decided not to use, as The Rolling Stones already had the best rhythm section that I knew of and I would not insult them by using what he had played as a substitute in the mix. As for the singing, I felt it would be best if he stuck to playing the guitar. On realizing that I was only using his guitar part, Mr. Taylor became quite upset and demanded to know where his bass, drums, and singing were. I politely explained that they would be remaining on the multitrack tape and that I would not be using them in the mix, as I felt they added nothing of value to the track. This was a changed man. He had become an insufferable egomaniac. I reminded Mick Jagger of our agreement, and he asked Mick Taylor to leave, agreeing with me that having him there was not going to work. That was the last time I saw him, until I did a live album with Bob Dylan ten years later, in 1984. He was in the band and had straightened himself out and reverted back to being the quiet, unassuming guy I had once known.

  That session was the last time that Mick and I had the conversation about me going back to work with the Stones and I declined. After a couple of drinks in the bar in New York, I agreed on the condition that I would co-produce with him and Keith.

  The next day, as the session was finishing, Mick announced that he was going to spend the evening with John Lennon at his place and asked if I would like to come along. Some months prior to this, John had been interviewed by one of the English tabloids about the Let It Be album, and for some unknown reason to me, had chosen to slag me off in an extremely unpleasant way. So I declined the invitation, telling Mick the reason why. He told me I was being ridiculous, and after much discussion, persuaded me to come along, making me promise to be on my best behavior and not challenge John about what he had said in the press.

  We arrived at John’s apartment and to my surprise, I was greeted with much affection. He was living with May Pang. Yoko had arranged for her to be with him while she was away. We spent a pleasant evening watching TV and chatting.

  When it came time to leave, I felt it would be hypocritical of me to go without mentioning the article in the press and John’s extraordinary venom aimed at me over the Let It Be sessions. So, as we got to the front door to leave, I turned and, in as pleasant a way possible, asked him if he could explain himself, since he had appeared to be so pleased to see me and yet had been extraordinarily unpleasant in the interview.

  He turned to me and told me that he had been equally vicious about Paul during the same period and that Paul had got it right when he had declared that the only person John was hurting with his vitriolic behavior was himself. It was not exactly an apology, more like an explanation. This outpouring of negativity had taken place during John’s “primal scream” period in Los Angeles, when apparently he came off the rails for a while. We parted
company with a hug and a look of relief from Mick that I had not embarrassed him, having gone against my word to behave myself.

  That was to be the last time I saw him. I am really glad that my last memory of John is such a pleasant one.

  Black and Blue, December 1974–February 1975

  Having come to an agreement with Mick in New York for me to return to the fold, a couple of weeks later I was on my way to Munich to start their next album. The day that we left for Germany, Mick Taylor announced that he was leaving the band. I can only assume that it was a dispute over the financial arrangement between him and the Stones. This turned out to be a bonus for me. Not because he would not be there, although I was not really looking forward to having to deal with what he had become, but because it was like going back to the beginning, the original team, only without Brian and with the addition of Nicky Hopkins. I must say I took great comfort in this and enjoyed the sessions immensely.

  We got a huge amount done in the twelve days we were there. In fact, I thought we had very nearly finished the record. My favorite track from these sessions was “Fool to Cry.” Mick played electric piano and delivered a brilliant vocal. I still have the rough mix I did in Munich the night we finished, having put a synthesized string section on with Nicky Hopkins, and I think it eats the version that they finally released a year later.

  We reconvened on the 21st of January in Rotterdam. The Stones were trying to avoid paying tax in the UK so were intent on recording out of the country. Hence the sessions in Munich and now Rotterdam. Stu had found a concert orchestra rehearsal facility that he felt would be suitable to use as a studio, so we took the Stones Truck, parked it outside, and ran what seemed like several miles of cable into the building along endless corridors up to the second floor into a large room with a high ceiling and excellent acoustics for a symphony orchestra, but was not at all suitable for a rock and roll band. Still, we made the best of it.

 

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