Abbey Road - I lived here

Abbey Road has special significance for me, as it was where I met my wife. We shared a flat at Neville Court, the red brick mansion block directly across from the famous recording studios. 

That was back in the early 1990s. We would often see tourists ‘doing the crossing’ as we left for work, but nothing like the crowds you get there today.

And while I lived right across the road, it wasn’t until 2022 that I got to see inside Abbey Road Studios. 

It was the day the Queen died, 8 September 2022 and I was staying at my mother's place while on a visit to the UK. 

I have a friend who’s a sound engineer and does occasional sessions at Abbey Road. I'd asked him if there was ever an opportunity to come and see inside the studio, to let me know. He called me up that evening and just as I'm on the phone to him, my mum comes in and tells me "she's gone". 

The SSL 96-channel console in Studio 3

I felt a bit bad leaving my mum to grieve for the old Queen on her own, but she understood this was a unique opportunity for me. 

An hour later, I entered the courtyard of Abbey Road Studios and made my way up the steps to the studio reception. My mate Simon came to greet me and took me first of all to Studio Three, or 'Number 3' as AR insiders say. 

This is the smaller (relatively) performing space where, most famously, Pink Floyd recorded their classic albums including Dark Side Of The Moon, as seen in this clip from 1972.

Although the Beatles are most closely associated with Number 2 studio, they recorded several of their classic songs in Number 3, including Eleanor Rigby. Penny Lane, Let It Be and, from the Abbey Road album, Come Together, Something, I Want You (She’s So Heavy), You Never Give Me Your Money and Here Comes the Sun.

Back in 1966, Studio Three also hosted the famous tape-looping session for the Revolver album track Tomorrow Never Knows. I wrote about it here. There is also footage of them in Studio 3 used in the promo videos for Lady Madonna and Hey Bulldog.

Elgar on the podium of Number 1,
George Bernard Shaw on the stairs

Moving on, we went to Studio 1, the orchestral chamber where Sir Edward Elgar made many of his most famous recordings. It's a cavernous room. 

Elgar actually conducted the first-ever recording session at Abbey Road (then known as EMI Studios) in 1931, leading the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Pomp and Circumstance,  familiar to anyone who has watched the Last Night Of The Proms, as it includes Land of Hope and Glory.

Gilmour recording the Shine On riff in Number 1

Although Pink Floyd recorded mostly in Studio 3, for the track Shine On You Crazy Diamond, the band and engineers wanted to gain maximum ambience for the song's iconic guitar figure. So, the men in white coats placed David Gilmour's amps in Studio 1. I wrote about that here.

At the height of 1967's Summer Of Love, a few days after the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles recorded backing tracks at Olympic Studios for a new song by John, All You Need Is Love. This was premiered on 25 June in a television show, Our World, the first live global television link, broadcast via satellite and seen by an audience of over 400 million in 25 countries.

All You Need Is Love

Filmed in Studio One at Abbey Road, the Beatles were accompanied by a thirteen-piece orchestra and surrounded by friends and acquaintances seated on the floor, including Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Keith Moon.

Engineering the session and the live link was Geoff Emerick, who recalled the experience as "horrendous". 

"To attempt to record what he did, even without a link up, was ridiculous." George Martin had the band record a basic track for them to play along to on the live feed. Nonetheless, the vocals, bass guitar, George's lead solo, the drums and the orchestra were all done live. 

Studio One today

The pre-taped rhythm track went onto track one of the four-track tape. On to track two went the bass, lead guitar and drums; track three the orchestra and track four the vocals. 

While all this was going on, George Martin and Geoff Emerick did an instantaneous remix that was fed directly to the BBC and then to the world.

The market for new orchestral works stagnated somewhat in the 1970s and Studio One was utilised so little that it became an indoor sports venue for the musicians. 

Its fortunes were revived in the 1980s with the growth of orchestral recordings for films. Raiders of the Lost Ark being the first major film soundtrack recorded in Studio 1.

Yours truly in Studio 2

Studio 3 has been updated and modernised over the years, but the larger recording rooms have retained many of their period features, in large part because of the historical significance attached to the music that has been made there.

Number Two, the most renowned recording space, perhaps in the world, is similarly intact from its heyday, when The Beatles created many of their greatest songs.

Sixty years ago, they would record on four-track machines, often bouncing down four tracks onto one and sometimes using two four-track machines in sync. Today in Number Two, Abbey Road has a 60-track desk, while Number Three has a 96-track console. 

Amongst the vintage instruments still on the studio floor is the old Steinway Vertegrand upright piano that Paul McCartney would have used for Lady Madonna (actually recorded in Number 3) and the filming of Hey Jude is still there on the studio floor. 

Lab coats were standard
for technical staff 

The piano has seen better days and has some keys missing, but has been kept entirely because of its Beatle associations. 

In the 1950s, Abbey Road was a very traditional classical music and light entertainment studio. The men in white coats kept everything tickety-boo and the recording engineers wouldn't dream of seeing the volume meters edging into the red. 

A new era began in the late 1950s, when Studio 2 was remodeled; the control room was moved upstairs and the now-famous staircase was installed descending onto the studio floor. 

At that point, no one would have foreseen the pioneering musical explorations that would follow in the Sixties. The Beatles pushed at the boundaries of acceptable studio practice, encouraging others like The Pink Floyd, to express themselves fully, using psychedelics and the avant-garde as their inspiration. As a new generation of engineers came through the ranks, people like Geoff Emerick, Ken Scott and Alan Parsons, Abbey Road became a rock and roll studio, and the Beatles were the ground-breakers.

The 60-channel
Neve console in Studio 2

Given free-rein at Abbey Road, and having quit touring by 1966 to concentrate on studio work, the Beatles were way ahead of other groups at the time, in terms of composition and studio innovation.

While Tomorrow Never Knows, the final track on 1966's Revolver, had been a major leap in how bands could use primitive studio trickery, the final track on the 1967 follow-up album still stands as one of the most successful and iconic musical experiments.

Not only was it compositionally unconventional, joining two distinct songs into one cycle, it has a number of peaks and troughs, culminating in a final chaotic crescendo. The middle section is particularly inspired, with fairly obvious allusions to marijuana and LSD: "found my way upstairs and had a smoke; and somebody spoke and I went into a dream..."

John listening to a Sgt. Pepper play-back

The dream sequence that follows, with John singing the euphoric melody line, drenched in reverb is, I would contend, the high point of progressive popular music in the 1960s. 

The orchestral session for A Day In The Life confirms their influence by the avant-garde composers. They left 15 bars at the end of the song blank, telling the orchestra to start on their lowest note and be at their highest by the end of the 15 bars.

Paul recalls, "It was interesting, because the trumpet players - always famous for the fondness for a drink - didn't care, so they'd be up there at the note ahead of everyone. The strings all watched each other like sheep  'Are you going up?' 'Yes', 'So Am I'. 'A little more?' Yes. All very delicate and cosy. You listen to those trumpets. They're just freaking out."

It was the largest number of musicians ever heard on a Beatles track. According to Derek Taylor, the big orchestral session was "a riot of festive props, false noses, upside down glasses and imitation bald heads". Erich Gruenberg, the lead violinist, wore a gorilla's paw on his bowing hand.

Paul with the orchestra in Number One

The recording of the orchestra for A Day In The Life was engineered by Geoff Emerick. He said, "It was only by careful fader manipulation that I was able to get the crescendo of the orchestra at the right time. I was gradually bringing it up, and then slightly fading it back in without the listener being able to discern this was happening. Then I'd have about 4 dB's in hand at the end. It wouldn't have worked if I'd just shoved the level up to start with."

Mark Lewisohn's book, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, reveals how, at the end of the orchestra's tremendous crescendo, everyone in the studio broke into a spontaneous barrage of applause. 

This youtube clip includes rough footage of the orchestral sessions for A Day In The Life, in the typically psychedelic style of the times, with candid shots of the various band members and friends. 

Recording engineers will tell you the key to a successful session is the correct use of microphones and Abbey Road retains one of the greatest collections of vintage and modern microphones in the world; all still fitted with their original valves and regularly maintained.

Another unique aspect of the Studio One facility was the 'ambiophonics' speaker system, whereby 100 speakers were fitted symmetrically to all four walls, artificially tailoring the acoustics by feeding signals delayed at different intervals. 

The final 'eternal chord' on A Day In The Life came from all four Beatles and George Martin in the studio playing three pianos. All of them hit the chords simultaneously, as hard as possible, with the engineer pushing the volume input faders down on the moment of impact. Then, as the sound gradually diminished, the faders were pushed slowly up to the top. It took 45 seconds and it was done three or four times, piling sound upon sound. 

George Martin said of the Day In The Life sessions, "One part of me thought, we're being a bit self-indulgent here. The other part of me said, It's bloody marvellous".

You see that little green light on the left?
That's where I used to live

Also on this blog:

1966 - The Beatles escape the madness of the road to createRevolver

LIFE magazine reports on 'The New Far-out Beatles', 1967

 Sgt. Pepper Is The Beatles - Who Knew?

How Sgt Pepper disappeared from those lists of classicalbums

At Home With the Lennons, 1967

 A Night With John Lennon - The Fab Faux at Radio City MusicHall

Electric Ladyland - Genius At Work

I have been listening to Jimi Hendrix's 1968 magnum opus Electric Ladyland for over 50 years. There are periods where I haven't heard it for a while. Then I listen again and marvel at just what an amazing, visionary, unique musician it was who created this work. 

I've had another one of those epiphanies this week, writing about when Jimi first came to London and settled into the only period of domestic bliss he ever knew, with Kathy Etchingham. 

In 1968, when Jimi and Kathy were shifting from Ringo's flat in Montagu Square to the loft apartment on Brook Street, Jimi was working on his third album, the double LP that would become Electric Ladyland. His band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on bass, were out touring in the US and Europe. In between, Hendrix would spend time in studios on either side of the Atlantic. 

Hendrix's exploration of the recording studio as an instrument in itself, pushing the boundaries of the primitive eight-track recorders then available, with the patient help of his most loyal engineer Eddie Kramer and more recently the Record Plant's Gary Kellgren.

He told Disc magazine, "My music is my personal diary. - a release of all my inner feelings, aggression, tenderness, sympathy, everything."

Within the double album scope, Hendrix was able to express his range of emotions more fully. This tested the patience of some in his circle, who wanted him to follow a straighter course. 

Notably, his mentor and manager Chas Chandler withdrew from working with him during the slow gestation of Electric Ladyland, because Jimi wouldn't listen to his advice to keep it simple and give his audience more of the same. 

The finished album isn't perfect (find me a double album that is...) but then Hendrix wasn't perfect. Still a young man, not willing to be tied down in any way, he made missteps, allowed too many hangers-on into his sessions and probably abused true friendships and the support of those around him. But there's no denying his genius as a guitar player and musical visionary. 

Above all, it's important to assess Electric Ladyland in the context of what else was being produced at the time. In terms of musical innovation and imaginative use of the studio, it's hard to think of anything, apart from Sgt Pepper, that even comes close. From the opening sounds of And The Gods Made Love, you are being taken on a sonic and sensory trip. Hendrix used his guitar and effects in ways that no one else could even fathom at the time. 

The swirling guitar effects dissolve into the slow soulful Have You Ever Been...to Electric Ladyland. Jimi plays some wonderfully fluid guitar and sings high and handsome. He may not have had the smooth tones of Smokey Robinson - maybe closer to Curtis Mayfield - but he was a great soul singer when he wanted to be. 

Then, as if to say, OK that was nice, now dig this, he rocks out with Crosstown Traffic. Funky, melodic and psychedelic at the same time, Hendrix puts down a marker that this album is going to be a real step up in production terms. And before you know it, the mood has changed again. We're live in the studio, for a blues jam - Voodoo Chile - with a bunch of guests, including Steve Winwood on organ and Jack Cassady on bass. 

Everyone gets a chance to blow on this one. It's 15 minutes long. Jimi sings the blues and gets wild as the jam reaches its crescendo. Winwood is the master accompanist and helps the tune to build, but the guy who really drives the whole thing is Mitch. His groove is monumental and his soloing on this is some of the best he ever did on a Hendrix track. So ends side one of the vinyl album.

I'll be honest, side two doesn't match the invention and transcendence of side one. It starts off tamely with a Noel Redding tune, which is out of place in my view. The other tracks are all fine, but they don't hang together or match the overall quality of the other three sides. There is a suggestion that some of them, like the cover of Earl King's Come On, were just filler tracks and when you look at the four sides, there's some truth in that. 

The experimental and exploratory sounds on side three of the original vinyl take us further out still. The dreamy shuffle of Rainy Day, Dream Away features Buddy Miles on drums and Mike Finnigan on organ. Hendrix's guitar is drenched in wah-wah and he's clearly having fun with his lyrics. 

Well, I can see a bunch of wet creatures, look at 'em on the run
The carnival traffic noise it sinks into a splashy hum
Even the ducks can groove, rain bathing in the park side pool
And I'm leaning out my windowsill, digging everything
And you too

The shuffle groove fades slowly and in flows the underwater guitar and the gorgeous melody of 1983...A Merman I Should Turn To Be. Jimi's guitar carries the listener off to Atlantis, with Mitch alternating between a slow march and a kind of bolero snare drum pattern. His solos that link the various underwater dream passages show off his Elvin Jones-style chops to great effect. I don't know what you'd call this music, but I do know it's marvellous.

Easily the trippiest track on the album, the denouement of side three - Moon, turn the tides... gently, gently away, is Jimi taking you deeper underwater, or wherever your mind chooses to go, now he's got you under his spell.

Chas may not have been alone in wishing Jimi would stick to more conventional music, but Hendrix was adamant that he wasn't just playing around; this was serious music he was making. 

Steve Vai said something that I thought was pretty cool: "Everyone is a genius when they find what they love and they throw themselves into it without any excuses." That definitely applies here. 

Side Four showed Jimi still had plenty more of his singular music to share with us on this album, leaving two absolute masterpieces to the very last. 

All Along The Watchtower was recorded in January 1968, only a month or so after the release of the Bob Dylan album from which is was taken, John Wesley Harding. It showcased Hendrix's extraordinary range as a guitarist, with solos played on different guitars in different styles. Dylan reportedly said that Hendrix found things in the song that others people wouldn't think of finding there. 

Voodoo Chile - in his own handwriting

Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) once again defies categorisation because it's completely unique. There isn't a guitarist alive who could have come up with something as brilliant as that. Astonishing technique, amazing use of the studio, completely a one-off. 

I feel sorry for anyone who can't appreciate what Jimi was achieving on Electric Ladyland. Don't look on it as self indulgence. Consider it as the artist showing you the full breadth of what he or she can do. 

That goes for any double album you could name. The Beatles' White Album has people always trying to condense it down to a single album. There are other albums I can think of where only three of the four sides really work. The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway comes to mind.  

Of course, it's tragic his life was cut short at 27, especially when you listen to Electric Ladyland's touchstone moments and imagine what he would have been capable of if he could have got back on the straight and narrow on his return to London. But time ran out for Jimi, leaving this album as the most complete expression of his genius and vision. 

The reason guitar players and listeners still revere Jimi is because he was an innovator, with a completely unique musical vision. And yes, he was a fabulously inventive guitarist, who at his best had no equals at that time. 

Anyone coming to him now would be well-advised to stick to the records he released during his lifetime, as a true testament of his abilities and his legacy. 

If his reputation has suffered posthumously, it's because so many have sought to exploit the demand for 'new' Hendrix material with sub-standard recordings that Hendrix would never have approved.  

I am reading the booklet that came with the Experience Hendrix mid 1990s CD reissue of Electric Ladyland.

I'm intrigued by this passage in the notes to the CD: 

"For 16 days in May 1968, an ABC-TV film crew followed the Experience to stage and studio. Shooting began at the Record Plant on May 3....The footage begins with scenes of a groupie sketching Jimi as he records Voodoo Chile. The scene cuts to the control room where Eddie (Kramer) tells an interviewer 'Jimi's music is here to stay'. Mike Jeffrey and Chas Chandler were also interviewed while Jimi was filmed writing lyrics."

I think I know a fair amount about film footage of Jimi, but I have never heard or seen anything related to this ABC footage. Surely, it it does exist, it would have seen the light of day by now. But if it didn't exist, how could the Experience Hendrix CD notes be referencing it? 

The latest extended release of the Classic Albums program, now made available by Experience Hendrix as 'At last...the beginning: the making of Electric Ladyland' offers some glimpses of the Record Plant sessions, visuals only, no sound.

The DVD is worth getting for the extra footage, most of which features engineer Eddie Kramer peeling back the layers of the backing tracks to show the detail and the unique vision that Jimi applied to the album. Some of this is just beautiful, especially the rhythm tracks behind 'Have you ever been...'

Another thing this extended episode reveals is that on the original acetate of the album, the 'white-coated men at CBS' had got the name of the album wrong. Many years before Kirsty MacColl turned it into a joke album title of her own, here it is, Electric Landlady!

Here's a clip from the original Classic Albums program, which contains brief footage from the Record Plant sessions at the very beginning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2gdC99R93A

 

Also on this blog:

Jimi Hendrix - Sunday Night At The Saville Theatre

Handel and Hendrix - Neighbours in London

Jimi Hendrix - The Last Interview

Handel and Hendrix - neighbours in London

Music lovers in London have a wealth of options when it comes to visiting historical locations. Top of many people’s list, to judge from the ever-present crowds nowadays, is the crossing on Abbey Road in St. John’s Wood, made famous on the cover of the 1969 Beatles album. I wrote about my association with Abbey Road here.

This year, I paid a visit to the specially restored residences of George Frideric Handel and Jimi Hendrix, two musical geniuses who lived next door to each other, 200 years apart.

Handel lived in the four-storey terrace at 25 Brook Street, Mayfair from 1723 until his death in 1759. In 1968, Jimi Hendrix moved into an adjoining top-floor flat at number 23. He described it as “the only home I ever had".

Handel had moved to London in 1713, with Royal patronage and lived there for the rest of his life. Having established himself in English society, Handel took a lease on the house at 25 Brook Street in 1723.

Set in the heart of Mayfair, the poshest address in London, the Handel house is a splendid example of how a prosperous artist could live in relative comfort 250 years ago.

The decoration and furnishings are true to the period. A great deal of pride has been taken in the restoration, from the basement kitchen to the loft.

Here, in 1741, Handel composed his most famous work, Messiah. The exhibits at Brook Street include his harpsichord and manuscripts, along with a display of costumes, wigs and other personal items.

Accounts of the time show that the house was used frequently for recitals. Handel also had staff living in the loft rooms, with a kitchen/scullery in the basement (or the lower ground floor, in estate agent speak).  

The restoration of the house as it had been in the 18th century was greatly helped by the comprehensive inventory of his belongings that Handel prepared, right down to kitchen utensils.

Although none of Handel's original furniture has been found, pieces have been placed in the rooms which adhere as closely as possible to the inventory. The large full tester bed with its crimson hangings has been reconstructed, using a period bed. 

Handel also owned an extensive art collection. By the end of his life he possessed over 80 paintings and prints.

After periods of ill health and failing eyesight, Handel died at his home in Brook Street in April 1759 at the age of 74. In his will Handel left bequests to his servants, the Foundling Hospital and a number of charities. He also bequeathed £600 for his funeral and a memorial in Westminster Abbey, where he was buried.

The Jimi Hendrix flat is a more modest abode.

His girlfriend Kathy Etchingham said, "It wasn’t very grand, though the carpets and curtains were quite expensive. It was just right for a couple. 

The Hendrix flat at 23 Brook Street

"Jimi loved being able to go out and buy cigarettes or whatever and even if people recognised him they would not bother him. He could walk to the clubs with me and sometimes we went on the Tube. We went ice-skating at Queensway and lived a normal life."

The Brook Street location was perfect for Jimi, giving him proximity to the vibrant scene of clubs and music venues that had been a familiar environment for him in New York's Greenwich Village.

Jimi and Kathy Etchingham at Brook Street

In this flat, Jimi and Kathy were close to the West End and Soho. Their social circle consisted mainly of music business people. Kathy worked as a DJ at the top clubs in London, such as the Cromwellian in South Kensington and the Scotch of St. James.

So, while Chas Chandler was Jimi's manager and knew many of the British musicians, Kathy also knew the groups because they came to the clubs, and she was able to introduce Jimi to the scene in London.

As she put it, "Everyone in the business knew everyone else and socialised together." 

When Chas brought Jimi over from New York, they arrived at the Scotch on the first night, and a fight broke out; nothing to do with Jimi, who had already begun chatting up Kathy. 

Chas was concerned that the police might come in to the club and told Kathy to get Jimi away from the trouble, because he didn't yet have a visa. They went back to his hotel near Hyde Park.

In December '66, the couple moved into Ringo Starr's flat at 34 Montagu Square, occupying the basement flat, with Chas and his fiancee Lotte on the ground floor. This is where Hendrix composed The Wind Cries Mary, after an argument with Kathy.

As Kathy remembers, they were both hot-headed at times and neither would back away from an argument. She went out and when she returned, he had written the words:

After all the jacks are in their boxes
And the clowns have all gone to bed
You can hear happiness
Staggering on down the street
Footprints dressed in red
And the wind whispers
"Mary"

It became the second hit single for The Jimi HendrixExperience.

There is now a blue plaque outside 34 Montagu Square, but not for Jimi. It's for John Lennon, who lived there after Jimi, when he began his relationship with Yoko Ono.

This contact sheet was a guide 

In July 1968, Jimi and Kathy finally found a place they could call home, at 23 Brook Street. They occupied the top two floors of the house, where they could hide away if they wanted. "It was not as busy as you might think. Jimi and I both valued our privacy".

The flat at 23 is now accessed from an upper floor of the Handel house. The living room and bedroom have been assembled to look how they would have looked when Jimi lived there, as well as housing a permanent exhibition about his life and musical legacy in the back rooms.

Although not as extensive as the house next door, the restoration of the living room was so accurate Kathy said she felt disoriented when she attended the official opening of the flat in 2016, like she'd been transported back in time.

The attention to detail includes period dial phones, ashtrays, rugs, throws, an old radio, acoustic guitar, written lyrics and a tape recorder. 

There's a record player, amp and vintage 1960s stereo speakers, along with facsimiles of Jimi's actual record collection, including albums by Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Howlin' Wolf, Johnny Cash, Frank Zappa and, naturally, Handel.

See also on this blog:

Kathy Etchingham talks about her time with Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix wows Monterey 1967

Sunday Night at the Saville Theatre, 1967

Five Days of Drama at the Isle of Wight, 1970

Jimi's Last Interview, September 1970

Wish You Were Here - A Flawed Diamond

As Pink Floyd’s 1975 opus Wish You Were Here gets its obligatory 50^th anniversary re-release, I feel duty-bound to reflect that I've always been ambivalent about it.

It's undeniably an outstanding record in parts. Sonically, an advance on its predecessor, Dark Side Of The Moon, and containing two absolute Floyd classics in Shine On You Crazy Diamond and the title track.

I've just never warmed to the rest of it, despite the fact that I saw them perform it live twice in the mid-1970s and again 20 years later.

By 1974, having produced the aforementioned Dark Side - their masterpiece – and hit the big time, the members of Pink Floyd were in a bit of a bind. The record company wanted more product. The band freely admit they struggled coming to terms with having peaked creatively and commercially. Roger Waters especially, began to feel like he was being treated as a commodity to be exploited. 

Live at Wembley Arena, November 1974

In the course of working up new material and road testing it on tour in 1974, they came up with three new songs. It was clear that a cynical mood had descended.

"You gotta keep everyone buying this shit"
– lyrics from ‘You Gotta Be Crazy’, one of the new songs.

It’s well documented that Waters, as the chief lyricist and conceptualist, was increasingly at odds with David Gilmour over the material and arrangements. Having written all the lyrics for Dark Side Of The Moon, the sessions for Wish You Were Here mark the point at which Waters pushed for greater control.  

Of the songs being developed for what would become Wish You Were Here - Shine On You Crazy Diamond, You Gotta Be Crazy and Raving and Drooling - only the first one would make the cut. Despite Gilmour’s protestations, the latter two were held over, used in slightly different form on the 1977 album Animals. 

Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Waters' tribute to the Floyd's fallen leader, Syd Barrett - was certainly the most impressive of the new songs I heard when I saw them at Wembley's Empire Pool in November 1974.

In its early form, in those 1974 live shows, the four note guitar figure, the chiming signature motif at the start of the song, was already well on the way to being iconic. In the studio, the band and the engineers took it to another level.

Gilmour recording the Shine On riff in Studio 1 

The Floyd recorded mostly in Studio 3, the smaller of the studios at Abbey Road. To gain maximum ambience for Gilmour's iconic guitar figure, the engineers had his amps placed in the cavernous Studio 1, where Sir Edward Elgar had recorded many of his orchestral classics. 

Waters wanted the next album to have a thematic core, based around the  concept of isolation, the loss of friends and family. Shine On You Crazy Diamond was a heart-felt plea to a talented former colleague, brain-damaged and sidelined owing to his over-indulgence in LSD. The music more than does that tribute justice. It's a sad, mournful tune at times, but with a hopeful message, and stands as one of the top 5 Floyd tracks ever recorded. 

The song Wish You Were Here would also be in many people's top 5. Its universality is a stroke of genius. A simple guitar riff and words inspired by the loss of Waters' father in WW2 (not forgetting his grandfather who died in the Great War) and his friend Syd. But the lyric can be appreciated by everyone.

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange, a walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground, what have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here

lyrics © Roger Waters Music Overseas Ltd, Pink Floyd Music Publishers Ltd

The sessions at Abbey Road in 1975 were made all the more poignant by the strange episode of Syd Barrett's unexpected appearance. Fat, bald and with no eyebrows, he went unrecognised for a while; truly a stranger in their midst. Realising it was him must have been quite upsetting for them. 

The reason for Syd's visit was never fully explained and that was the last time some of them ever saw him. A tragic conclusion to their lives together and confirmation that the Syd they knew was gone, never to return.  

Waters' other main theme for the album was the sense of being manipulated by the system; reflective of Roger's sense that as a band they were now just "riding the gravy train".

The early lyrics to You Gotta Be Crazy (renamed Dogs on the Animals album) indicated a dark sarcasm already prevalent in the classroom.

Lyric page from '74 tour program

"You gotta keep climbing, you gotta keep fit, you gotta keep smiling, you gotta eat shit".

Although that seems fairly consistent with the 'riding the gravy train' sentiments expressed on WYWH, Waters was adamant You Gotta Be Crazy didn’t fit with his concept for the album. Having got his way, Waters then delivered Have A Cigar and Welcome To The Machine. This is where I start to have issues.

I like Roy Harper and he does a great job on Have A Cigar in conveying the insincerity and cynicism of a certain type of record business executive. But it's that very cynicism that makes the track so unedifying for me. The "by the way, which one's Pink?" line fits well, but only adds to the dark sarcasm at the root of the song.

Waters and Gilmour fought over the inclusion of Harper’s vocal and on this occasion Gilmour prevailed. Roger Waters dislikes the vocal to this day, saying Harper laid the smarminess on too thick. 

The tune itself is charmless, and this mood of relentless cynicism is compounded by Welcome To The Machine, a clear indication of where Pink Floyd's music would go on their next two albums, Animals and The Wall.

One of Scarfe's images for
Welcome To The Machine

Enhanced in their live shows by the nightmarish visualisations of Gerald Scarfe, Welcome To The Machine is a doom-laden dirge, sonically brilliant but not remotely uplifting lyrically or melodically.

Which was the point, I suppose, and I think this is my issue with the album. I have always found it hard to empathise with Waters’ protestations that he was now a slave to the music business – a business that had supported him and the band for several years in the late 60s and early 70s when Pink Floyd were noodling about looking for a fresh direction, after their initial success with Syd.  

The contrast with Dark Side Of The Moon is striking - there's an empathy behind the cod philosophy of Water's lyrics on their 1973 masterwork. But by 1975, there was only despair and rage. Woe is me, I'm a millionaire rock star tied to a life of mass adulation and million-selling albums (regardless of their quality). 

So, for me, Wish You Were Here is a good album, but not their masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination.

I'll be checking out the new mixes of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, though. That's definitely worth a listen. 

Here's the full audio of the Pink Floyd show at Wembley Empire Pool in November 1974
Starts off with everyone's first hearing of Shine On You Crazy Diamond and continues with Dark Side of the Moon, in full and an encore of Echoes. What a treat, and I was there. 

Also On This Blog:
Pink Floyd On Tour in 1974 and 1977

Reviewing Pink Floyd at the V&A: Their Mortal Remains

March 1973 - 'Dark Side of the Moon' enters the charts

Vegetable Man - Syd Barrett's last Floyd recordings

Bob Dylan's Idiot Wind marks his re-emergence, 1975

When Bob Dylan went to ground in 1966, it would be eight years before he returned to live performance. Eight momentous years, during which the singer's words became entwined with astonishing events - freedom marches, assassinations, the war in Vietnam, the moon landings.

The poet and author Daniel Mark Epstein witnessed Dylan's return to the stage at Madison Square Garden in 1974. He had last seen Dylan perform live in 1963.

"Since then, his words had become prophetic."

And now, "Bob Dylan returned to the spotlight, with his guitar and harmonica, riding waves of applause. He launched into 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' and the audience cheered as they recognised the words."

Dylan getting used to playing live again, 1974

Come gather round people wherever you roam
And admit that waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone.

But Dylan was nervous, understandably after such a long period away from the stage. He sang at a breakneck speed, "as if he couldn't wait to put it behind him, with all that burden of personal and shared history." 

As the set progressed though, he warmed to his task, resurrecting many of his most iconic songs and showing that he still had the fire in his belly; his ability to memorise lyrics in full display.

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon

It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding runs to 113 lines and almost 700 words. The darkness at the edge of noon is a metaphor for mankind's interference with nature. Dylan takes aim at the pillars of society and, in a radical lyrical change, received with great applause, he takes aim at Richard Nixon, at the time accused of criminal conspiracy to steal secrets from his political opponents.

"...even the President of the United States, sometimes must have to stand naked"

Dylan's last studio album, Planet Waves, was a collection of pleasant songs, including one genuine contender in Forever Young. But fans still yearned for the poetry and social conscience that marked Dylan out as the voice of a generation in the 1960s.

The 1974 concerts with The Band showed Dylan where he needed to be. As his cosy family life dissolved and he embraced his music fully once again, he produced a masterpiece.

Blood On The Tracks contains some beautiful, graceful songs of love lost, tender moments shared and trust betrayed. It's arguably his most romantic album, apart from perhaps Blonde On Blonde, but it's also in parts his most angry.

Idiot Wind is the centrepiece song from side one. It's the tale of a man misunderstood, interwoven with bitterness and personal attacks on a former lover.

With typical obtuseness, Dylan denied the lyrics are in any way autobiographical, but it is very hard to believe him, given the proximity to his break up with wife Sara, and the sheer bile he invests in the lyrics.

On Idiot Wind, a poison pen letter to an estranged lover and confidante, Dylan lashes out at his partner and laments his predicament as a misunderstood public figure.

"People see me all the time, and they just can't remember how to act."

The line, "I haven't known peace and quiet, for so long I can't remember what it's like," is so pointedly personal it's hard to believe he isn't talking about himself.

Domestic bliss in Woodstock

He then seems to acknowledge that despite his life of family contentment, he wasn't cut out for it:
"You tamed the lion in my cage, but it just wasn't enough to change my heart."

So much anger and hate in these lines, it feels like intruding on private grief:

"I can't feel you anymore
I can't even touch the books you've read"

And the final dismissal:

"I've been double-crossed now
For the very last time and now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast
On the borderline which separated you from me
You'll never know the hurt I suffered
Nor the pain I rise above
And I'll never know the same about you
Your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry."

Idiot Wind....

Great songs and all, truly, but the reason I think Blood On The Tracks was so successful artistically and commercially, was that it was relatable. Anyone who has gone through a bitter break-up could empathise with the protagonist of Idiot Wind. The anger and spite in that song is not typical of the remainder of the album, which has some of the most romantic and heart-felt songs in Dylan's entire repertoire. Who amongst us cannot relate to the emotions expressed in "If You See Her, Say Hello" or "Simple Twist of Fate"?

Is it wrong to get enjoyment from a famous artist dissing their ex so publicly? The answer lies in how we project ourselves onto these words.

The clip featured here is from the second leg of the RollingThunder Revue tour - the 1976 stadium tour rather than the small club tour featured in Martin Scorsese's movie. 

This clip, while not of the greatest visual quality, packs a punch on the musical front. The band gives the song a bouncier feel but there is nothing bouncy about Dylan's delivery. It captures the anger of the recorded version very well, which is perhaps a reflection that has reconciliation with Sara around this time wasn't working out. 

The recording is from a TV special aired in September 1976 but dating from May 23 in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was the penultimate show of the Rolling Thunder tour. Reviews at the time noted how the initial charm of Dylan's travelling show had largely worn off. This performance was also released as part of the Hard Rain live album. Apart from bassist and band leader Rob Stoner, the band at this late stage of the tour consisted of T-Bone Burnett, Steven Soles and David Mansfield on guitar, Scarlet Rivera on violin and Gary Burke on drums.

Someone's got it in for me
They're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out quick
But when they will I can only guess
They say I shot a man named Gray
And took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks
And when she died it came to me
I can't help it if I'm lucky

People see me all the time
And they just can't remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas
Images and distorted facts
Even you, yesterday
You had to ask me where it was at
I couldn't believe after all these years
You didn't know me better than that
Sweet lady

Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your mouth
Blowing down the back roads headin' south
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I ran into the fortune-teller
Who said, "beware of lightning that might strike"
I haven't known peace and quiet
For so long I can't remember what it's like

There's a lone soldier on the cross
Smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door
You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done
In the final end he won the wars
After losin' every battle

I woke up on the roadside
Daydreamin' 'bout the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare
Shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars
You hurt the ones that I love best
And cover up the truth with lies
One day you'll be in the ditch
Flies buzzin' around your eyes
Blood on your saddle

Idiot wind
Blowing through the flowers on your tomb
Blowing through the curtains in your room
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

It was gravity which pulled us down
And destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage
But it just wasn't enough to change my heart

Now everything's a little upside down
As a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What's good is bad, what's bad is good
You'll find out when you reach the top
You're on the bottom

I noticed at the ceremony
Your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can't remember your face anymore
Your mouth has changed
Your eyes don't look into mine

The priest wore black on the seventh day
And sat stone-faced while the building burned
I waited for you on the running boards
Near the cypress trees, while the springtime turned
Slowly into autumn

Idiot wind
Blowing like a circle around my skull
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I can't feel you anymore
I can't even touch the books you've read
Every time I crawl past your door
I been wishin' I was somebody else instead

Down the highway, down the tracks
Down the road to ecstasy
I followed you beneath the stars
Hounded by your memory
And all your ragin' glory

I been double-crossed now
For the very last time and now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast
On the borderline which separated you from me

You'll never know the hurt I suffered
Nor the pain I rise above
And I'll never know the same about you
Your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry

Idiot wind
Blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind
Blowing through the dust upon our shelves
We're idiots, babe
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves

- Bob Dylan 1975

Also on this blog:

Bob and Joan and Scarlett and Joni... The Rolling Thunder Revue

Joan Baez, Bob Dylan - I Shall Be Released - RollingThunder Revue, 1975

Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan's artistic peak in the 1960s

A Complete Unknown - movie trailer

A Complete Unknown featurette

Bob Dylan & Joan Baez - It Ain't Me Babe (Live 1964)

Joan performs Dylan's Percy's Song, 1965

Bob Dylan & Joan Baez - 2009 Documentary

Bob and Joan chat about their relationship, 1975

The Lady Who Edited Woodstock

Michael Wadleigh filming Richie Havens

I'm kind of obsessed with the 1969 Woodstock Festival. Not just the movie and the music, but how the event came together in bizarre circumstances - how it was both a triumph and a disaster. Perish the thought, but if I was ever to appear on the quiz show Mastermind, this would be my specialist subject.

Here's a wonderful story from someone who was right there in 1969.

My favourite podcast is This Cultural Life on BBC Sounds. Fascinating interviews by John Wilson with artists, writers and film-makers and not one that I haven’t enjoyed over about 50 episodes. In this episode, Wilson interviewed renowned film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, who has worked closely with Martin Scorsese for over 50 years.

Marty and Thelma in 1969

Thelma, now 85, reveals the process of working with Scorsese in the cutting room and how, through him, she met her late husband Michael Powell, whose films with Emeric Pressburger, both she and Scorsese had so admired from childhood.

The most remarkable part of the interview for me - and my long-held fascination with Woodstock - is when Thelma recalls how she and Scorsese were part of the filming and editing team on the Woodstock festival movie, for which she received her first Oscar nomination for Best Film Editing - the first documentary ever to be nominated in that category.

She tells how the team of documentary makers acquired a new editing machine that would allow them to have three images displayed at once. “We thought, why don’t we make a movie like this," said Schoonmaker. 

Thelma with Wadleigh and the editing team

"With great bravery, Michael Wadleigh, the director, decided to go for broke and spend his own money to get us all up at Woodstock, filming. That was just an amazing experience."

What they encountered at the site of the festival was not what they had expected.

"We had rented motel rooms. We thought we would drive back there after the evening performances. But we couldn’t even get out. It was jammed with traffic and people. So for three days we didn’t have a place to sleep. We slept on the ground – tics in our hair – no food. Every once in a while, someone would come up with a frankfurter, if you were lucky."

"Marty felt we were going to be able to go out to dinner. He had brought cufflinks."

"The Who kicked us off the stage"

Although Woodstock was an ordeal, they found it tremendously exciting as the festival unfolded, with a bonded crowd of 400,000 young people entertained by many of the greatest acts of the 1960s. The film-makers' challenge was how to document it as closely as possible, in very difficult conditions.

"We had six cameramen on the stage; 15 out in the audience. We had no idea what we were getting. We were hoping it was OK because we couldn’t send the film out to be developed," said Schoonmaker.

"The main cameraman was Michael Wadleigh, who was looking through a lens for three days solid – no sleep, no food – doing these amazing shots of people like The Who."

Scorsese at Woodstock

Scorsese was helping Wadleigh decide what songs to shoot and negotiating with managers for the rights to do it. Sometimes they would get kicked off the stage.

"The Who actually kicked us off the stage, but then they didn’t even notice – they were putting on such a great show - that we snuck back on."

Thelma was mainly underneath the stage, trying to load the film magazines. "It was raining a lot and the cameras were jamming, so they would throw the magazine under the stage and we would try and reload it. It was a mammoth, absolutely back-breaking job, but so exciting.

“The great moment was the last day. It was dawn; we had been shooting all night, again. We were completely exhausted and then Jimi Hendrix came on. I thought, is this really him, or am I dreaming? And he did this incredible job of playing The Star Spangled Banner and massacre-ing it to show what was happening in Vietnam. It was a transformative moment.”

Hendrix performing to a thinned-out crowd

And then suddenly, it was all over.

"Everyone had left and there was just mud and detritus everywhere. We packed up and on the way home we stopped and ate. Michael Wadleigh was so tired his head just crashed into his spaghetti. When I got home, I had big whelts on my pants because I’d been wearing the same thing for three days.

In the BBC interview, John Wilson points to the visceral excitement that comes across in the movie, which Schoonmaker says was helped by the fact that she, as the editor, was there and she knew how it felt.

“Of course, we hadn’t seen all the footage we had of the people who were out in the field. There were so many wonderful interviews that we didn’t even know we had."

However, Warner Brothers were not interested in the film. "They said it’s a news event, just get it out quickly. We said no, you don’t understand, we have something very special here; a breakthrough in how to film festivals, how to film music."

It took an act of thievery to prevent them from cutting the movie back.

"A breakthrough in how to film music"

"We were supposed to bring the movie to New York City to show the press. Warner Bros were saying you have to cut the movie, you have to cut it down; we said no.

"Dale Bell, who was one of the producers, and I, stole the soundtrack from the vaults, to keep them from cutting it. So they had no choice but to send the version we wanted to New York.

"They had Pinkerton guards in the projection booth. I wasn’t allowed to go in, because they knew we had stolen the tracks. At one point I was standing watching the press reviewers and they were getting up and dancing in the aisles, which I’ve never seen. So we knew we had something special."

As the credits rolled, Ted Ashley, the head of Warners Bros, came up and touched Thelma on the shoulder. "OK, you’re right," he said. "We won’t cut it."

My Woodstock 50th Anniversary Diary

Also on this blog:

2-Tone and possibly my best gig ever

Queen's 1976 Free Concert in Hyde Park

Memories of the Reading Festival, 1975

Five Days of High Drama at the Isle of Wight, 1970

From Pinner to LA - Elton's Big Breakthrough, 1970

A Wizard, A True Star - my all-time favourite album

Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan's Artistic Peak in the 1960s

 Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns