Tony Visconti: The Autobiography: Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy

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‘Charts!’ said Denny. ‘There are no charts. I’m going to ask them to “busk it”.’

For the first time in our conversation I looked a little bewildered. It turned out that this meant that they would ‘fake it’—it was the first of many lessons in British English.

‘You’ll be crucified financially if you expect an eight-piece session band to make up an arrangement. This is New York, and obviously things are different in London but here everything is “union this, union that”. Clark Terry will charge you a fortune to sit down and sketch out a trumpet part while the studio clock is ticking. Before you know it you’ll be paying overtime. Do you normally “busk it” in London?’

‘Well, I suppose you could say that. I’ll book the studio for a whole day and we’ll record an A-side and then do a quick B-side. Everyone will hang out, smoke a few spliffs, and then we’ll record it after each musician has kind of worked out what they’ll do. By midnight we’ll have our take.’

Oh, I loved this. It explained how, and why, the Beatles took nine weeks to record their album Revolver. In America albums were almost always recorded in less than a week, sometimes in one day. After this brief introduction to British recording techniques Denny became pensive. As he slowly turned a whiter shade of pale he said, ‘The session is taking place in an hour. What am I going to do?’

I felt responsible for delivering such bleak news so I asked to hear the demo of Georgie’s song. He put the acetate on the deck and I heard the British version of ‘Because I Love You’. It was good but Denny was correct in his hunch that a group of New York musicians could give it a more authentic feel. What irony, he wanted to record in New York and I wanted to record in London—for that ‘feel’ thing.

‘I think I can probably write a decent sketch of the arrangement in an hour.’ Denny looked very relieved.

All my years of paying attention in my high school music dictation classes paid off in that hour. I am fortunate that once I know the key of a song I can write out the notes without reference to a piano. I first transcribed the chord changes to the song and then added a guide bass part, a simpler version than the one on the record. I added a few indications for the drummer of where to play fills, and when to stop and start. Then I wrote the two trumpet parts on top of the same staff. With minutes to spare I had all the important ingredients of the arrangement written out on several pieces of manuscript paper. The same pages would suffice for all the different instruments. I rushed around to the Xerox copier—a cool new gadget in the ’60s—seconds later we were running down 48th Street, demo and charts in our hands.

When we got to the studio everyone was set up and waiting for us. Denny had asked Harvey Brooks, a member of the group Electric Flag, to help with the production. Harvey had the band playing some 12-bar blues to warm up, while at the same time giving the engineer a chance to adjust the individual microphone settings.

‘Can I have the charts?’ asked Harvey of Denny.

‘Well, Tony here wrote some parts out, I hope they’ll be okay.’

I knew they would be fine but I couldn’t help feeling very nervous—I had just crashed a party of musicians I had only dreamed about working with. I mean—Clark Terry. Come on.

Denny’s acetate played as the band scanned my instant all-in-one arrangement. No one questioned anything; they just silently imagined how they’d interpret the music as they listened to the British version. Leaving the control room they took their places in front of the microphones. The drummer counted in and I immediately heard the efforts of my dictation pulsing through the air. (God bless you Dr Silberman, head of the New Utrecht High School Music Department, your protégé is finally having his moment of glory.) It sounded okay, a little stiff maybe, but Harvey and Denny immediately began to refine the band’s interpretation. I was so impressed by their ideas and clarity. This was the first big time, class-A recording session I was really a part of. I had also saved Denny at least two hours of studio time and extra musicians’ fees and he was going to get a killer backing track in the three hours he had booked.

After an hour it became clear that things were not quite going to plan. It wasn’t in the total groove it needed to be. Turning to King Arthur I asked, ‘How do you feel?’ ‘Apprehensive,’ he pensively answered in a Shakespearian voice that would’ve impressed Sir Larry. While this kid from Brooklyn had seen that word in print, he’d never heard it uttered aloud. ‘Apprehensive’ was never in my spoken vocabulary and I had to think about its meaning in this context. Quickly I surmised that he wasn’t happy.

A break was called during which Denny and Harvey talked about what to do.

‘It’s the bass player,’ said Harvey, ‘I’ve not worked with the guy and to me he’s out of his league.’ Brooks suggested that he should play the bass instead. Denny and I (having written the ‘chart’ I now included myself in the production ‘team’) thought this would hurt the bass player’s feelings. Harvey ruthlessly waived our considerations aside. ‘Fuck that! I’ll play the fucking bass!’

Denny was getting the full-on New York City experience…all in one day. Brooks diplomatically told the bass player to sit it out, and asked if he could borrow the bass. The improved bass groove seemed to be what was missing after all! This was a big lesson for us, and even for the rejected bass player who sat in the control room as we were all caught up in the infectious groove. What was also so cool about this session was that everyone played at the same time. Shortly this ensemble method of recording would come to an end, the dawn of the ‘piecemeal’ approach was just around the corner; a method that continues to this day, for the most part. I was witness to the end of an era.

Denny was to take the backing track to London for Georgie Fame to record his vocal. This was like science fiction at the time—the music recorded on one continent and the vocal recorded on another.

‘Tony, you’ve done a great job. I’m impressed with your expertise. I’m looking for an American arranger to be my production assistant back in London. I’m very much in demand and don’t want to lose out on any opportunities because of the restraints of only being able to be in one place at a time.’

Denny went on to explain what the role of his deputized assistant would entail, which as far as I could gather was to do the basics when he was elsewhere. ‘I need someone who is an accomplished musician who can interpret my thoughts. I only know a few chords on the guitar,’ said Denny.

In the flush of today’s minor glory I told him to look no further, I was his man. But Denny had other plans. He wanted to lure a really big name to England, and then said the most preposterous thing I’d heard all day, or any day for that matter.

‘I’m flying to Los Angeles tomorrow to meet Phil Spector, to ask him to be my assistant.’ Given Phil’s track record of hits this put a whole new spin on chutzpah. I gave Denny my phone number just in case Phil Spector declined the job. Afterwards as I made my way home I tried to imagine the conversation between the two producers:

‘Phil, I’m a little apprehensive about asking you this, old boy, but would you mind coming back to London with me to work as my assistant?’

‘Denny, what are you smoking, man?’

My experience with Denny seemed like a dream; Siegrid could scarcely believe what I told her. Later I told Ellen about my Englishman and what had happened. ‘It was probably a false alarm because he was looking for someone with more experience than me.’

‘No!’ said Ellen very adamantly. ‘He’s the one! He’s the Englishman who will change your life. He will ask you to work with him in England.’

As much as I wanted to believe it, I felt that my psychic energy was only good enough to make cabs appear at three in the morning. What happened with Denny was a false start, a one-off experience at best, a good barstool story.

‘Stay hopeful,’ was all that Ellen would say.

A few days later our phone ringing at 11 a.m. interrupted our morning idyll, which was far from ideal as we had only got to bed at 6 or 7 a.m., as was our habit. Not just any call, it was a call from overseas, the first I’d ever received. The voice on the other end sounded like it was coming out of a short-wave radio, with whistles and pops as the backing track. ‘Phil Spector didn’t work out’ were Denny’s opening words, ‘I’ve also tried to get Artie Butler but he’s also said no.’

Artie was an old buddy of mine who had worked with the legendary producer Shadow Morton as well as playing the piano on ‘Remember (Walking In The Sand)’ and ‘Leader of The Pack’ by the Shangri-Las. ‘Who does this fucking Limey think he is?’ is how I imagine Artie with his Flatbush arrogance would have put it.

‘Tony, I was wondering if you’re still interested in the job?’ This woke me up completely, but I still had to ask Denny several times if he was serious. He kept repeating, ‘Yes’.

‘How will we do it?’ I asked.

‘I’ve spoken with Howard (Richmond) and he’ll arrange the airfare,’ said Denny.

‘When do you want me over there?’ was all I could think of to say.

He explained how very overworked he was and that he needed me there as soon as possible. Somehow I came up with the arbitrary answer, ‘How about in two weeks?’ Quite honestly, if I didn’t have some explaining to do to Siegrid, I would’ve left immediately. I stared at my beautiful wife as she slept, seemingly oblivious to the phone call. With blinding insight it dawned on me that things would never be the same. This is the lucky break everyone dreams of, but it didn’t necessarily include her. For starters Denny didn’t even know I had a wife.

I gently woke her up. She asked who had been on the phone and I said, ‘It was the Englishman, the ENGLISHMAN. And we’re moving to London.’

‘Oh no,’ she groaned, and went back to sleep.

Later I went to see a sceptical Howard Richmond about my plans and to further convince him it was a good idea to let me go to London, ‘to learn how the Brits do it.’ His plan had been for me to develop local New York talent for his forthcoming label, but to be honest I really didn’t know how to do that. I explained that I needed to learn how the Brits did it and bring that secret knowledge back to TRO. Howard finally agreed that I could have two months of a recording education in London. Little did he know that I intended to stay longer; my fingers were crossed behind my back. The next day I called Denny and said I’d be there by the end of April, which pleased him greatly. I told him that I had just collected some car accident insurance money and I was going to buy some cool clothes for London. Unphased by that non sequitur, Denny just said to make sure I got there, and to bring my guitars. He’d supply me with an office and a demo studio.

In the two years Siegrid and I had been together we’d hardly spent any time apart. She understood how much I wanted to go to London, because as a little girl in Germany all she’d wanted to do was to live in America. We agreed that I should go to London first because it would take a month for Siegrid to get rid of our apartment, during which time I would find us a place to live in London. I couldn’t bear it if she didn’t agree to go to London. So I said goodbye to my longhaired beauty, my lover, my ancient Indian temple dancer, and my partner in virtually everything. Both excitement and gloom accompanied me on my flight to London.

In the morning after my ordeal with Customs and Immigration I met the rest of the Cordells: Mia, Denny’s wife, and his children Tarka and Barney. Wow, even the little kids had English accents. Like Denny, Mia was prematurely grey, but an English Rose, and Tarka and Barney were two of the cutest kids I’d ever seen. For breakfast, only toast with marmalade and tea was offered. That was fine by me, as I was not yet a coffee snob, but the marmalade was strangely bitter for a jam.

Soon we were motoring to 68 Oxford Street, to Dumbarton House, the office of Essex Music. It was also home to Denny’s boldly named company, New Breed Productions. The language confusion persisted when I tried to fathom why the suite of offices was on the first floor, when we’d clearly gone up one flight of stairs to get there. In New York, we’d be on the second floor. It was explained to me that the floor I took to be the first floor was called the ground floor in England. Fine! I’m getting it—the first floor is the ground floor, the couch is a settee and a bathrobe is a dressing gown. I expected to be told later in the day that a vest was an undershirt. It is: I was.

Denny introduced me to the girls at the reception desk—all ‘dolly birds’ in miniskirts—exactly what I expected from pictures in magazines, a pleasant surprise on my first day. Then I was ushered into an office, that of David Platz, the President of Essex Music International (Howard Richmond’s equivalent in London). He was also Denny’s equal partner in New Breed Productions Ltd and couldn’t have been any more different in appearance and demeanour. Denny Cordell might look and speak like King Arthur but he wore ripped jeans, moccasins and an Afghan waistcoat. David Platz was bespectacled, dressed in classic British tweeds, had a short conventional hairstyle and puffed on a briar pipe—a Basil Rathbone look-a-like. He spoke through his nose, or rather down his nose at me, and had a disarming way of invading one’s comfort zone as he spoke a few inches from my face. I had not encountered this nose-to-nose, smooth-talking, passive-aggressive style before but soon learned that, unlike a brash American big shot CEO, David Platz had developed subtle means to keep you in your place.

I immediately got the distinct impression that bringing me here was all Denny’s idea and that, perhaps, David had a ‘thing’ about Americans: a negative ‘thing’. This was confirmed later when I had one-to-one meetings with Platz. Ironically, as I was to learn, he wasn’t English at all, but came to England as a young Jewish refugee during the Second World War. He had tragically lost his parents in Germany, but his aunt, Mrs Harvey, the chief accountant at Essex Music, fostered him. Mrs Harvey was soon to become my ‘aunt’ too. But in every other way, David Platz was quite the upper-crust Englishman.

Our initial meeting was brief, just an exchange of pleasantries really, but it had an ominous feeling. He was a proud man, and it is no accident that the initials of Essex Music International are EMI, and that David Platz’s idol was Sir Joseph Lockwood, president of the other, iconic British record company EMI. To the young hippie I was, David Platz represented The Man, everything that was bad about the corporate world. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning.

Afterwards Denny took me to his small office, which was in stark contrast to the grandeur of the oak panelled walls of Platz’s huge office. Denny’s office was about 8 by 11 feet with walls that were a yellowish colour, which I assumed had once been white; it contained one, by necessity small, functional desk. Into this space of less than a hundred square feet were crammed Denny, his assistant and budding songwriter Richard Kerr, and a publisher who worked there part time called Jon Fenton. In a few months a record plugger and a team of African-American songwriters, including Richard Henry, joined us and somehow or another we all shared this space. As the day went by some of the other Essex Music employees poked their heads in the doorway to meet the new Yank on the block. Graham Churchill, David Barnes and Don Paul all greeted me warmly. They were all song pluggers (they pitched songs to singers and producers to record) and all three eventually went on to greater things in the British music biz. Don discovered the street busker Don Partridge, who had a big hit with ‘Rosie’. Richard Kerr went on to have a solo singing career and wrote many hit songs, included ‘Mandy’, a huge hit for Barry Manilow. Graham and David became big executives in the music business. They all made me feel very welcome, in contrast to my cool reception from Mr Platz.

Essex Music was described as the ‘sister’ organization of The Richmond Organization, but in actual fact I learned that Howard Richmond outranked David Platz; each company administered the other’s catalogue in their own country. Platz had some early success in the UK with songwriters that included Lionel Bart (he wrote the musical Oliver!) and Anthony Newley (‘What Kind Of Fool Am I?’). He also had the King of British Skiffle, Lonnie Donegan, who signed a young writer called Justin Hayward to his own publishing company. Justin, as a member of The Moody Blues, wrote ‘Nights In White Satin’ at the age of 19; we would later become firm friends. A year or so later Gus Dudgeon, a recording engineer, who after doing some satisfactory production work for Platz, was rewarded with a production company of his own, with Platz, again, the equal partner. Unfortunately for Platz, Gus moved on prior to producing all the early Elton John albums. Platz seemed incapable of holding onto his discoveries for more than brief periods in their careers. His excuse would usually be, ‘I’m only a publisher, and I don’t understand the record business.’

With barely enough time to acquaint myself with my new surroundings Denny announced that we had a recording session with Manfred Mann at 2 p.m. My first day. And I was about to meet my first famous British group. Denny had agreed to produce their next single and that’s why I had to be there. He was fully occupied working on Procol Harum’s debut album in order to satisfy the demand created by ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’, which was on its way to becoming a smash hit. Interestingly, the demo that Denny played for me in New York could not be bettered by re-recording, so they released it as it was. He also had to start work on the Move’s album, as their single ‘I Can Hear The Grass Grow’ was heading towards the top ten. While Manfred Mann was almost a burden on his workload he didn’t want to turn them down.

Denny drove to the Phillips recording studio, just off Marble Arch, like he was in a Grand Prix—we were travelling at dangerous speeds in this ridiculously small car, a ‘Mini’. To make matters worse, the steering wheel was on the wrong side AND we were driving on the wrong side of the road. The Mini’s tiny dashboard could, at any moment, have been the recipient of my head because there were no seat belts in this toy car—nor were there any seat belt laws. Instinctively my foot stamped down on a nonexistent brake pedal as Denny weaved in and out of traffic along Oxford Street. Finally we arrived, and to my disbelief Denny parked the car in a space the size of a yoga mat. My stomach was like a butterfly cage. I was not sure whether it was in anticipation of what was to come or what had just happened.

On the way there Denny announced, ‘I shall need to leave you in charge for a few hours after we get started.’

So, after just three hours in a New York studio with Denny, and with my limited experience, I was to be a ‘producer’. As a musician I had never been allowed inside the control room, as oddly it was forbidden in those days. I barely knew what to say let alone do. Walking from the car to the studio I began to feel queasier, like I imagined I’d feel if I were being led to my execution. I assumed that I was just going to watch and learn during the first few days.

The studio turned out to be clean and pretty, unlike the squalid ones I had worked in back home, and by the standards of 1967 the console was huge. The Manfreds were warmed up and had been waiting somewhat impatiently for Denny; I sensed an unmistakable hostility in the air. I was introduced but instantly ignored, probably regarded by them as ‘something the cat dragged in’. As a keen student of British bands the first thing I noticed was a change in personnel: Mike D’Abo had replaced Paul Jones (actually Mike was the kindest to me, maybe because we were the two new kids on the block). They had been rehearsing ‘So Long Dad’, a darkly humorous and cynical song by the American writer Randy Newman. Denny quickly changed the mood in the studio and started making suggestions. I quickly saw why this man was so respected as the group hung on his every word. King Arthur was in full swing; it was something that I’d only glimpsed in New York.

After a couple of hours of recording Denny was satisfied with a great take by the drummer and bassist. I must emphasize that it was Denny who’d decided what the best take was, after the group wanted to call an earlier attempt a great take. I could see that Denny’s standards were incredibly high. He was relentless as he made them play the song again and again until it had all the elements and subtleties he deemed perfect. He was super critical with the engineer, making him tweak the console controls and adjust the microphones until the sound was as perfect as possible. In fact the sound was amazing, even better than what I had heard on Beatles’ albums, my personal criteria of great sound. It was the confirmation I had been seeking—Brits did do it better. I was overwhelmed by this crash course as I watched Denny make his engineer jump through hoops; it was something you’d never have got an American engineer to do back then.

During a break Denny turned to me and said, within earshot of the band, ‘I have to go to Olympic Studios in Barnes for a Procol Harum session. I’m not sure about that take; I think I would like you to try for an even better one. When you’ve done that guide the group through the overdubs’, the ‘fiddly bits’ of guitar parts, keyboard parts and vocals.

‘No problem,’ said I. As scary as this all seemed I decided to ‘do or die’. If Denny thought I was up to it then I was determined not to let him down. This desire to live up to the belief people have in me has been running my life since.

With Denny gone the hostility returned—the Manfreds obviously felt that Denny was fobbing me off on them. In their minds they were paying for Denny Cordell but were getting Tony ‘Nobody’. However, they begrudgingly got behind their instruments and played six lacklustre takes; I could see I was in trouble. Having little experience with this kind of situation I drew upon that of one of my few recording sessions. As a 15-year-old bass player, when things had been going badly the mysterious voice coming from the control room would say things to cheer us up and put us at ease. I had to be cheerful in the face of adversity. Leaning into the talkback mic I announced, ‘Hey, this is take seven, lucky take seven. We’ll get it now.’

My ‘jolly hockey sticks’ tactic was received with audible groans and we never did get that ‘better take’; the magic created by Denny had left with him.

Undaunted we proceeded to use what Denny had considered the best take. We were using a 4-track tape and had used up two tracks for the backing. The entire drum kit and bass guitar were recorded on track one and a rudimentary keyboard part was on track two, which we replaced with a carefully played one. On the two remaining tracks we had to record the guitar solo, vocals and some special effects noises. Since the tracks had to be shared, the additional parts had to be carefully dropped into the same tracks. The guitar solo was recorded on the vocal track with fractions of a second to spare. Dropping in too early would erase part of the vocal, as would dropping out too late. In America, the same procedures are called ‘punch-ins’ and ‘punchouts’; no doubt a psychiatrist would find this mildly amusing.

Slowly the band dropped their hostility towards me, or maybe I had taken their comments too seriously. This was my introduction to ‘taking the piss’, or ‘taking the Mickey’. What I assumed to be very hurtful insults were just good-natured British sarcasm. We managed to get everything on tape: a guitar solo, coins jingling, hand claps, backing vocals, lead vocal, a second keyboard part—all on the remaining two tracks. Denny returned later in the evening and was thrilled with what he heard. The band was visibly relieved and I had a little invisible halo over my head. First blood. A few days later, after Denny mixed the track to mono, he said I’d done an amazing job with the overdubs, but left him with a very difficult mix because there were so many different elements on the two busy tracks. I think this was a compliment.

That was my first day under my belt. If this wasn’t exciting enough Denny told me I was going to meet, and work with, Procol Harum the next day. What I didn’t know was that I would bump into Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones in a corridor at Olympic Studios, and I would also see Jimi Hendrix jam later that evening at the Speakeasy in Margaret Street—a club that was the epicentre of the music industry during the early summer of ’67. God knows what would happen on my third day.