Rolling Stone magazine has an article about Glyn Johns producing the latest Band of Horses album. Patrick Doyle interviews band member Ben Bridwell, who talks about what a big fan he is of the Stones. It includes a short video of Glyn Johns and Band of Horses.

[www.rollingstone.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-12 02:30 by latebloomer.

Keith Richard has asked that you include an 's' on the end of Glyn Johns' name for clarity.

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stonesnow
Keith Richard has asked that you include an 's' on the end of Glyn Johns' name for clarity.

Happy now, stonesnow? I do need an editor from time to time, StonesTod was in charge, but I guess he's fallen down on the job. I do hope that at least you read the article for my trouble.

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latebloomer

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stonesnow
Keith Richard has asked that you include an 's' on the end of Glyn Johns' name for clarity.

Happy now, stonesnow? I do need an editor from time to time, StonesTod was in charge, but I guess he's fallen down on the job. I do hope that at least you read the article for my trouble.

StonesTod is having trouble believing himself at the moment, but I'm sure it will pass. I'm delighted to read the article as well. Thanks for posting.

I like the video of Glyn on the couch discussing things with the band--he's every bit the distinguished gentleman and "coolest dude that exists" all in one. Who is the 'Phil' that Bridwell refers to as having produced them before Glyn? Not Phil Spector?

I think it's funny when Bridwell talks about Glyn being "a bit hands-off sometimes" because it brings to mind a funny story I read in the McCartney bio Fab of when Glyn was producing Wings in the early 70s and the band would get stoned and just jam for hours and Glyn would just sit there bored, reading the paper and not even rolling tape. Paul's reaction to Glyn when he discovers the jamming wasn't even being recorded is priceless, as is Glyn's response. I think I'll hunt down that excerpt and post it here, it really is hilarious!

OK, here a couple of excerpts from Howard Sounes' Macca bio Fab. The first is Glyn telling of how when he first got the call from McCartney asking him to work as producer on the Get Back sessions, he thought it was Mick Jagger calling [p. 235]:

[excerpt]"It was quite amusing, actually. I remember very distinctly taking the call and him saying, 'This is Paul McCartney,' and I thought it was Mick Jagger taking the piss, talking to me in a Liverpudlian accent...I said something like, 'Stop f*cking about, what do you want?' Because I worked with [Mick] all the time at that time. But it was Paul. So that was a bit embarrassing."[/excerpt]

And here is the excerpt of Glyn working as producer on Wing's 1973 album Red Rose Speedway [pp. 302-303]:

[excerpt]To try and create a collaborative atmosphere in Wings, Paul was experimenting with becoming just another member of the group, on a par with Lin, Laine, McCullough and Seiwell. "The first session he came into the control room and he said, 'Now I don't want you to think of me as Paul McCartney, I want you to think of me as the bass player in the band,'" recalls Glyn Johns, grimacing as he tells the story. "Well, you can imagine how long that lasted! The minute I started talking to him like the bass player in the band it was, you know, 'Who the bloody hell do you think you're talking to?'"

Following the Let It Be fiasco, Johns had gone on to become one of the foremost producers in rock, working successfully with Eric Clapton, the Eagles, Led Zeppelin and the Who. To his mind, Wings were not in the same league as these acts, couldn't really be considered a band at all. "It's called Wings, [but] it's Paul McCartney. It doesn't really make any difference who's in the band. They are all very competent, professional musicians, but they're not a band in my view--it's Paul McCartney [with] a bunch of guys."

The essential problem to Glyn's mind was that, despite the presence of Denny Laine, Paul lacked a musical equal in Wings. "I think that while the Beatles existed Paul had John Lennon keeping a beady eye on him, and he wouldn't let him get away with anything too syrupy, if you like. He'd take the piss out of him, he'd sit on him, he'd squash him," says Johns. Glyn had come to see Paul as an insecure person in some ways. "You've only got to look at his body language." Paul clearly needed people around him, like Linda, but Linda "just wasn't a musician. Period." The result was that Wings smoked dope and jammed in the studio to little effect. Johns didn't even bother to run tape. He sat in the control room and read the newspaper. One evening Laine and Seiwell remonstrated with him.

"They said, you know, 'We're not happy with you as a producer. You're not taking any interest in what we are doing.' I said, 'When you do something that's interesting, I'm there. But if you think because you are playing with Paul McCartney that everything you do is a gem of marvelous music, you're wrong, it isn't. It's shite. And if you want to sit and play shite and get stoned for a few hours that's your prerogative, but don't expect me to record everything you're doing, because frankly it's a waste of tape and it's a waste of my energy."

Paul joined the discussion, the band sitting in a semi-circle around the producer, who felt as though he were on trial. He didn't appreciate it, or the sycophantic atmosphere around Paul (despite the conceit of Paul just being the bass player in Wings). "The fact is that they were all obviously thrilled to be in a band with Paul McCartney...they all were up his bottom." So Johns quit Red Rose Speedway, describing the album Wings went on to make without him as "a load of rubbish," which is harsh, but in a record review one couldn't award it more than three out of five stars.[/excerpt]

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latebloomer
Rolling Stone magazine has an article about Glyn Johns

Thanks... interesting piece

I like that excerpt from "Fab", too. I guess McCartney really couldn't take the slightest myth-busting criticism. I can only think of Lennon, Johns and Nigel Godrich being like that around him. Glyn Johns' comments are very astute, it would be even more interesting to see the unedited version f his interview.

funny pic of jagger and glyn

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