by Glyn Johns
• • •
The second album I made for John Hiatt, Stolen Moments, was recorded in 1990 at Ocean Way, and this time, in an effort to make the record sound more contemporary, I decided to use Jack Puig to engineer. He had developed his own way of working and turned up with a truckload of his own equipment, which completely filled the control room and involved a rat’s nest of cables, to integrate it with the perfectly adequate equipment that was already there, much to my annoyance.
We had first met in 1987 when he visited me on a session for the album Blue Slipper by the superb English singer-songwriter Helen Watson at A&M studios in Los Angeles. I had put a fantastic band together with Richie Hayward, drums; Bill Payne, piano; and Paul Barrere, guitar—all from Little Feat. George Hawkins, bass; Paul “Wix” Wickens, keyboards; Michael Landau, Steve Lukather, Bernie Leadon, and Jerry Donahue on guitars. The word had got out that I was making an album with a large rhythm section playing live in the studio, and as this had already become something of a novelty, it created some interest from some of the younger engineers in town, who were anxious to see how it was done and to check out this incredible combination of musicians. Jack came by and politely introduced himself, asking if he could sit in and watch for a while. I was immediately struck by his intensity and enthusiasm for engineering, being as a large piece of blotting paper, anxious to absorb as much information as he could, while remaining extremely respectful and not interfering with the proceedings.
Prior to starting Stolen Moments, John and I met up in his hometown of Nashville in order for us to discuss the material and the musicians we felt would be suitable for the record. John asked if I would accompany him to check out a rhythm section he knew of in Memphis, with the view of using them on the album. To pass the time during the long drive from Nashville, I played him a cassette of some demos that my son Ethan had just sent me from England. I had let him loose in my studio at home whenever I was not using it, and he took full advantage, writing, playing, and recording his own material, becoming more and more accomplished as a musician, engineer, and songwriter. John was really impressed with Ethan’s playing, and when the guys in Memphis turned out not to be suitable, he suggested that we use him on drums for the album. I completely disagreed with the idea, not wanting to be accused of nepotism, but John insisted, saying it was not open for discussion. I don’t know who was more nervous on the first session, Ethan or me. The first song we cut was “Child of the Wild Blue Yonder” and John threw Ethan right in at the deep end by suggesting that the song should start with four bars of drums. I cannot tell you how relieved and proud I was when he pulled it off. Not trying to impress or show off but playing just what was required. He went on to play a blistering solo on electric guitar that put the icing on the cake. After that John and I used him wherever possible on the rest of the album, playing acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin, and percussion. Having the experience of playing with and being encouraged by John and the elite musicians Richie Hayward, Pat Donaldson, Mike Landau, Wix, and Chuck Leavell was the making of him, and started a relationship between us that very few parents are fortunate enough to experience—working together in a creative environment on several albums over the next few years.
Just like Eric Clapton and me, John was a huge fan of JJ Cale. In conversation one day I mentioned that I had always wanted to work with Mac Gayden, the amazing slide guitar player on Cale’s album Naturally. We were close to finishing the record and John suggested that we find him and bring him to L.A. to overdub him on the last two tracks that needed work. John told me that Mr. Gayden had had an unfortunate experience with LSD from which he had never quite recovered and had become something of a recluse. In any event, he was tracked down and he agreed to come and play, much to my excitement.
On his arrival at the studio, it quickly became apparent that while remaining polite and softly spoken, Mac was living in his own mental space, which made communication tricky. Additionally, he struggled to comprehend the arrangement or contribute anything that made much sense for either of the two songs we wanted him to play on.
I had the most enormous respect for this man and it was terribly sad to witness what he had become. John was so embarrassed that he left me to it. So, determined to give Mac every opportunity, I gave him a cassette of the two songs and made him comfortable in the lounge with a sound system, telling him to take all the time he needed to familiarize himself with the songs, while I returned to the control room and started to mix the rest of the album.
Woody Allen once said, “Leave the artist alone and you will get a performance from them that came from the reason you booked them.” It is a principle I have always tried to adhere to. The reason for booking any musician is to facilitate their natural skills with respect and hope that their chemistry works with others. There is little point in getting a dog and barking yourself.
After a couple of hours I asked Mac if he would like to make another attempt at “Thirty Years of Tears.” He agreed and we set him up in the studio and played him the song. After running it through a few times nothing much had changed and he still did not have anything close to a grasp of it. So I brought him into the control room, thinking that might make him feel more comfortable and so that I could talk to him face-to-face rather than through the somewhat impersonal use of earphones. After several more attempts, the situation remained the same and it looked like we were going to have to abandon the session.
Now, I love this song. The lyric relates to a tragic event in the past that is never emotionally dealt with and as a result subconsciously creates a barrier of anger that prevents any possibility of true happiness until confronted and dealt with. Something I identify with from my own past.
In one last attempt I said to Mac, “Look, I just want you to make me cry.” I ran the tape and he proceeded to play the most amazing, heart-wrenching guitar part. Climaxing with a solo that still brings a tear to my eye whenever I hear it. With one simple sentence I had finally found a way to get through to him in his altered state, and he proved what I had believed all along, that there was still an amazing musician in there fighting to get out.
I am really proud of the two albums I made with John. It was a treat and a privilege to work with him and I learned a great deal from the experience.
At Ken Levitan’s suggestion, we got together one more time in 2001 to record the songs John wrote for the Disney movie The Country Bears. John’s material, performance, and input were exemplary, and although the script looked great, the film was a disaster of massive incompetence in every other respect. The only positives to come out of it were working with John again and the music supervisor Nora Felder and her pal from Disney’s music production office, Monica Zierhut, who were anything but incompetent and made the job almost bearable. However, the whole experience convinced me that the movie business and I were definitely not suited.
Then there came an album with Crosby, Stills & Nash in L.A., with Ethan playing drums and guitars. This came about because we had cut a couple of tracks with Crosby for a solo album at my studio in England and he insisted that Ethan play on the album with CSN. This resulted in Ethan going on the road with them for the next year, with Graham Nash keeping a fatherly eye on him for me. For which I shall be eternally grateful.
I saw out the tail end of the twentieth century by making albums with Tanya Donelly’s band Belly, at Chris Blackwell’s Compass Point Studios in Nassau; the extraordinary guitar player Joe Satriani; and a solo album with Linda Ronstadt at the fabulous residential studio the Site in Northern California. Then I produced a duet album with Linda and Emmylou Harris at a house in the grounds of a hotel in Tucson, Arizona, and produced and mixed tracks of duets with Emmylou Harris and Sheryl Crow in L.A., Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield in Boston, Lucinda Williams and David Crosby in Nashville, and a solo performance with Elvis Costello for an album in tribute to Gram Parsons for Jerry Moss’s new label, Almo Sounds. A diverse and stimulating mix of talen
t.
Still feeling that my sound was dated, I relied on Jack Puig and my incredibly overqualified assistant from Ocean Way, Steve “Idle Toad” Holroyd, to engineer these sessions, in an attempt to try and keep me contemporary, calling on my son Ethan, Andy Fairweather Low, Bernie Leadon, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Carlos Vega, Nathan East, Manu Katché, Greg Leisz, Wix, the McGarrigle sisters, Neil Young, and Helen Watson, among others, to contribute their collective skills in the process.
I was a little intimidated by the fact that my brother Andy had already made a fantastic-sounding album with Joe and the Bissonette brothers. I put together the finest guys that I could find in order to both keep up with and challenge Joe for the self-titled Joe Satriani album. They sure did the job and Joe rose to the occasion brilliantly, playing live with the rhythm section for the majority of the record. Not something he was used to doing.
I was invited to produce this record by Joe’s manager, Mick Brigden. Having become good friends while working on the ARMS tour in America, we had kept in touch. By this time, Bill Graham had been killed in a helicopter accident and his business eventually sold, leaving Mick to manage Joe and go on to establish a vineyard in Sonoma Valley along with his gorgeous wife Julia, or “Girl” as she is affectionately known. Some twenty-five years previously I had produced “Quicksilver Girl,” a song that had been written by Steve Miller about her, as she had once been married to David Freiberg, the bass player and singer with the band Quicksilver Messenger Service.
It was while staying at Mick and Julia’s that the idea for this book was first put to me over lunch. It was their enthusiasm, along with much encouragement and bullying from my friend Keryn Kaplan in New York, that gave me the courage to even attempt it.
WITH CROSBY, STILLS & NASH. ALL FOUR OF US TRYING TO EXPRESS OUR OPINIONS MORE CONVINCINGLY THAN ANYONE ELSE. FROM LEFT: STEPHEN STILLS, DAVID CROSBY, GRAHAM NASH AND ME.
Fred Walecki
In the summer of 2000, Bernie Leadon called me in England with the terrible news that our mutual friend Fred Walecki had been diagnosed with throat cancer. Bernie had introduced me to Fred in the early seventies as the guy for acoustic guitars. He owned a store on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles that was frequented by everyone who was anyone in the music community. The first time we met, I bought three fantastic guitars and made a friend for life. I was bowled over by this genial, gentle man with an extraordinary vocabulary that was very rarely allowed to rest. He could talk the hind leg off a donkey. This making it all the worse when we were informed that as part of his treatment he was to have his voice box removed. I was aware that business had not been so good for the store for a while and suspected that one of the first cutbacks that Freddie may have had to make was his health insurance. Bernie and I decided to put on a concert to raise the substantial amount of money his treatment would cost. This proved really simple to do as he was known and loved by so many artists and musicians who he had gone out of his way to help over the years.
Pretty soon we had a star-studded cast of thousands: Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, Crosby and Nash, Bonnie Raitt, Colin Hay from Men at Work, the amazing actor Jeff Bridges (who went to school with Fred), Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Randy Meisner, Spinal Tap, and Don Henley. The solo artists were supported by a house band consisting of Ry Cooder, Jennifer Condos, Ethan Johns, Albert Lee, Andy Fairweather Low, Paul “Wix” Wickens, and Bernie. There are few individuals who could summon such a response from so many to a call for help, and it is a fair testament to the man, who may be the only true Christian soul I have ever come across.
We rehearsed for a few days, everyone working tirelessly to make the show the remarkable success it became. As with the ARMS concert, there was never a glimmer of ego from anyone involved. I have one outstanding memory of the rehearsals: Ry Cooder turning up driving a flatbed truck with his guitar and amp in the back, and him quietly, without fuss, unloading and setting up his own gear in the room. This may not seem like much, but normally artists of his stature have a team that arrive ahead of time to set everything up so that they can arrive and pick up their already tuned instrument and start playing. He played guitar for Jackson Browne and was the highlight of the entire concert for me.
We sold out the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium for two nights. The audience certainly got great value for their money. Particularly on the first night, when Roger McGuinn turned up, resulting in The Byrds getting together for the first time since 1990 and singing “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which caused the audience to take the roof off the place.
Freddie bravely took the stage at the end of each night to thank the artists and audience alike, using a device that is held to the throat and quietly emits a monotone machine-like voice. You could have heard a pin drop in the auditorium. The silence only being broken by the great bursts of laughter in reaction to his hysterically funny speech, with him effortlessly managing to use humor to deflect any thought of sympathy for his newfound condition.
FRED THANKING THE ENSEMBLE FOR THEIR EFFORTS AT THE END OF THE SHOW AT SANTA MONICA CIVIC AUDITORIUM.
Ashes and Fire
The entire music business seemed to slowly drift further and further away from me over the next few years. While never considering myself retired, I happily came to terms with my new life of leisure. Always believing that it was not quite over yet.
In early 2011, I received a surprise call from Ryan Adams, asking me if I would be at all interested in making an album with him. Ryan had made three of my favorite albums: Pneumonia, with his band Whiskeytown, in 1999; Heartbreaker in 2000; and finally Gold in 2001. All produced by my son. Unfortunately, Ryan’s alcohol and substance abuse at the time brought their working relationship to a premature end. I was a huge fan of these records and over the next few years I did all I could to encourage Ethan to patch it up and work with him again, as they were a formidable team. I visited many of their sessions and became a huge fan of Ryan, believing him to be head and shoulders above his songwriting contemporaries.
So here we are ten years later. A reformed character on the phone. Clean, straight, married to the gorgeous Mandy Moore, and ready to make a new album. He had already spoken to Ethan, who was booked for some months, and so at Ethan’s suggestion had decided to give me a call. I jumped at the opportunity and we went ahead and made Ashes & Fire at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. The first musician I booked was Jeremy Stacey, the genius drummer who was recommended to me by Ethan. In turn, Jeremy recommended two bass players, neither of whom I knew. Gus Seyffert, who played brilliantly, and Sam Dixon, who only got to play on one song but really did himself proud. Ryan asked his friend Norah Jones to play piano, and I asked Benmont Tench to come and play Hammond organ and electric piano. Everyone was excited about the idea of working with Ryan and with one another. The perfect environment in which to make a record.
It was a blast. All of the musicians stepping up to the plate and delivering superb support for Ryan, with Norah and Benmont adding wonderful textures while still managing to respectfully stay out of each other’s way. For his part, Ryan delivered breathtaking live performances. All of which were achieved in only one or two takes.
With encouragement from others, I decided that my sound was no longer dated and after a gap of many years reverted back to recording what I produced. Much to my relief, I fell straight back into it, just like riding a bike.
WITH RYAN ADAMS AND NORAH JONES AT THE ASHES & FIRE SESSIONS AT SUNSET SOUND, LOS ANGELES.
We finished up the sessions by adding the Section, a string quartet consisting of Daphne Chen, Lauren Chipman, and Richard Dodd, and led by Eric Gorfain. Ryan had worked with them before and strongly recommended them. I had never done a string session without the arrangement having been written beforehand, but Ryan assured me this was not necessary as they were quite accustomed to doing one on the spot. They proved to be every bit as good as he said, writing an
d performing beautiful string parts on four of the songs.
ME, EXPRESSING MY OPINION LOUDER THAN ANYONE ELSE TO THE WONDERFUL BEN BRIDWELL OF BAND OF HORSES AT SUNSET SOUND IN L.A.
The release of this album came a few months later, Ryan’s huge fan base putting it in the Top 10 in England and America. I was back in the saddle and really enjoying myself.
Next came an album with Ben Bridwell’s Band of Horses. A nicer bunch of guys you could not wish to meet. We worked hard and made an album that we were all proud of. Ben and I made a really good connection. I really admire his conviction and work ethic and hope that one day we will get the opportunity to work together again.
Surprisingly, for the first time in my memory, there are two guys running record companies that are musicians. Dan McCarroll and Don Was. A more genuine and talented rhythm section you will not find. Whether they will survive the battering their integrity will receive in the dog-eat-dog world they have landed in, we will have to wait and see. I really wish them well. I would not be in their shoes for all the tea in China.
Dan was responsible for releasing Ryan’s record Ashes & Fire on Capitol, and I recently had the pleasure of mixing the Aaron Neville album My True Story and a couple of tracks for the Stones’ fiftieth-anniversary album for Don. He, in return, came and played bass for me on some Ryan Adams songs and on an album that I produced with my pal Benmont Tench, the genius keyboard player with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, that he ended up acquiring for release on Blue Note.