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Shel Talmy
Digger:
It's not going to happen with the music from the
90s and more recently, is it? They're not going to say
"Do you remember such and such?".
Shel:
Certainly not the 90s and there's even less today.
Digger: And any good stuff today is either heavily influenced
by the earlier stuff or just a re-hash of earlier stuff.
Shel:
Absolutely, which is kind of an indictment of the
entire music business, but unfortunately it's true.
Digger: It's not just us getting old and sounding
like our parents is it?
Shel:
I really don't think so. I have spoken to a lot of
twenty-somethings and a lot of them feel the same way.
Digger: I think that has answered my next question, which
was 'Has the music business, now run by lawyers and
accountants and dominated by computers and electronics
changed for the worse forever?'
Shel: Absolutely. It's now
strictly a money game. There's
no soul whatsoever and there are virtually no music
people left in the business.
Digger:
Do you think there might be another explosion at
some time. I know that you talked at one point about why the
explosion happened in London at that time and I think you
said that it had also happened in Paris and
New York in times past.
Shel:
Do I see it happening at any time in the foreseeable
future? No. I think we had the decade of France in the 40s
and New York in the 50s and England in the 60s and there
really hasn't been anything since then.
Digger: So it's about time, isn't
it?
Shel:
It is about time, but I don't see it happening. I think
that one of the problems is that everybody now knows
everything instantly. If there is something
happening it
will get overrun before it has a chance to get started.
Because
everyone starts flooding there because they think it's
the cool thing to do.
Digger: What is it about the music business that seems
to waste, abuse or under-value so much talent? I'm
thinking of bands like The Action, Badfinger, The Creation
who all suffered through bad contracts, poor management,
bad marketing. Did you ever listen to The Action?
Shel: Yeah. A great band.
Digger: And why the hell
weren't The Creation
up there? Incredible.
Shel:
Well, in Creation's case because they broke up.
I had a huge deal pending for them in America which
would have made them superstars.
Digger: I
know that Eddie didn't like travel.
Shel: He didn't like Kenny Pickett either!
Digger:
It was a love-hate relationship, surely?
Shel:
For the most part, yeah. They really, in many ways,
were much better together. I would say that the problems
with the business centre around money, egotism, and
basically politics, where self-aggrandisement is more
important
than the art. The people in record companies now are strictly
out for themselves. They consider their stock options, their
salaries, their expense accounts and screw the artists.
Digger: Unfortunately, I
think that's right. .... Can you give
some examples of great production and poor
production in your view?
Shel: Yeah.... The ones that
stand out for me are Crosby,
Stills, Nash and Young. The Eagles, Credence Clearwater
were great productions. Bad productions - The Searchers,
Herman's Hermits - a lot of their stuff just used to
make me ill. ( Digger laughs )
Digger: But you said that
Mickie Most was great
at choosing the material.
Shel: HE WAS. But some of his early productions
left something to be desired.
Digger: Was it that
mock-Englishness that you hated?
Shel: They weren't a good band. That
also has a lot to do
with it. The Monkees are, I think, are pretty much bad
production. The songs are wonderful but the
productions aren't very good.
Digger: That was Kirshner, wasn't
it?
Shel: Yup. Another one who could pick
songs wonderfully.
Digger: They had some great writers
like........
Shel: Neil Diamond. Yup,
but I don't think the production was good.
Digger: Could you please paint a
picture for us of the
production process? On a track like My Generation, for
example, how would that have gone from when you
first saw a manuscript..........
Shel: I heard the song originally as a
demo or live. We
decided "Yeah, we'll do that" and they came to the
studio
and did a rehearsal. Always did a rehearsal, because I
wanted to be 90% sure of what was happening and leave
10% for spontaneous stuff. And then go in, the order being
firstly to get the best sound I can out of the instruments
with proper miking and all that kind of stuff and then go
for the takes. I already knew what to expect.
Digger: Would Roger Daltrey
already have had the
"F-f-f-f-fade away" on there or would that evolve?
Pentangle
Shel: That happened by accident.
Digger: Oh really?!
Shel: As far as I remember, he
did that as a joke and
I said keep it in. It helped us a lot because the BBC banned
it. Saying it was detrimental to stutterers and stammereres!
So from the moment that happened, everybody bought it.
Digger: ( Laughs ) Typical BBC! Giving
your record a boost
by banning it. Can you give us some of your 'fingerprints'
on some of the classic tracks.
Shel: My fingerprint, I'm told is
in my sound. Specifically,
I was very keen on strong bass and drums and I spent a
lot of hours as an engineer doing that. When I first got to
London, most people were miking drums, for example, with
four mikes. I started doing it with a dozen - they said
"You
can't do that because it will phase" and all that and I
said "Just let me do that" and three months later
everybody
was using a dozen mikes. ( Digger laughs ) That, I think, is
my
fingerprint, and certainly I did all the arrangements for
virtually everything. That again is what I think a producer
should be able to do and that is have a feel for a beginning,
middle and end of a song.
Digger: Do you think music
reflects the times it's in or does it
have the power to change the times?
Shel: Well, I think 'Generation'
certainly changed the times.
I think rock changed the times. But it was due. It was a
culmination of all the crap that everybody went through,
particularly in England, after world war two and the sixties
was the turning point with people saying "We've had
enough of this crap, let's move on".
Digger: What productions are you most proud of?
Shel: The stuff you know. I'm
proud of 'Generation,
Sunny Afternoon, Friday On My Mind'.
Digger: Strange question, but do you
play those much?
Shel: NO! ( Digger laughs ) I don't play my own stuff.
Digger: I thought you may say "Oh,
I haven't heard that
for years" and put it on the machine.
Shel: I do occasionally.
Actually, the stuff I really still
like listening to is The Pentangle. I'm very proud of that.
Digger: Whatever happened to
them, as they say?
Shel: They're still around. They
got together briefly two
years back and they're all doing solos still. I talk to
Danny Thompson, the bass player, a lot. He's the best stand
up bass player for that genre of music I've ever recorded.
Digger: They should have been
bigger - very different from
the other stuff that was around and that you did. But
didn't you say that you were more at home
with that style of music?
Shel: Well, I grew up with folk
music so that was right
up my alley, yeah. They were three folk people and
two jazz people. They were possibly greater than
the sum of their parts.
Digger: As so often happens with
bands.......... What has
been your biggest disappointment?
Shel: First, The Creation.
Secondly, I recorded Chris
White, not the one from The Zombies but another one
who did Spanish Wine, and I thought his follow-up would
be a huge smash and it did nothing ( laughs ).
A BIG disappointment.
Digger: Was it marketed properly?
Shel: Who knows? It was on 'Strats' label Charisma.
It just didn't happen.
Digger: Who would you have liked to have
produced that you didn't?
Shel: Emmy-Lou Harris, Credence
Clearwater,
The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt.
Digger: Crosby Stills?.......
Shel: Yes and no. They didn't do
a lot of that stuff together
as I'm sure you know. They wound up hating each other so
they weren't in the studio at the same time. So that would
have been extremely difficult.
Digger: They were like one of the
first supergroups,
even before Cream.
The
Fortunes
Shel: Yeah, a different type of
music. One of
the great harmony groups.
Digger: Who were the best
musicians and writers of the
sixties and which albums and singles stand out as the best
in your view? You've covered some of those already.
Shel: Obviously The Beatles. I
liked things like Tubular
Bells, which I thought was terrific and a real breakthrough.
Certainly some of The Stones. Oh Queen, but I
guess they're really seventies.
Digger:
Not a problem. They call it 'the long sixties',
don't they? And they were probably honing their craft in
the sixties anyway. I remember seeing them supporting
Mott The Hoople when Queen had never been heard of.
That soon changed!........ What would you still like to
achieve?
Shel: Oh...... I don't know. In
the best of all possible
worlds I'd like to find a really great band, but if I
did I don't think they'd be marketed. This is the problem.
I'd still like to do Emmy-Lou Harris because she's one of
the great female singers of all time.
Digger: But you've done that with bands
and you're
still hungry to do it again?
Shel: I still like being in the
studio. I've always kept up
with the technology and love that aspect of it. I love
what you're able to accomplish now with so little effort.
Digger: Before, you were saying that you
couldn't
enjoy yourself because you were behaving and
disciplined in the studio. You don't want to go on
the road with a band this time?.....
Shel: I never wanted to go on the
road.
Digger: What about the 'being famous' thing, because
you mentioned that Andrew Loog-Oldham was up-front
and almost as famous, if not as famous, as his people.
Would you have liked to have done that?
Shel: It's something that I
SHOULD have done, not that
I would have LIKED to have done it. I guess that's the
reason why I didn't do it. I should have done it from a
monetary point of view. But I didn't do it. So consequently
that's why people say "Shel Talmy, who's that?"
Digger: Are there certain formulae that can be applied
to hits? Could you look at a dozen manuscripts and say
that's what made this or that one popular?
Shel: Well, there are certainly -
in particular genres of
music - hooks, and people like Diane Warren have
exploited that today. And prior to that certainly Leiber
and Stoller became as good at that as you can get. So did
Carole King. Certain things that when you talked about
Manfred Mann, from the Doo Wah Diddy days, Manfred
had a very good nose for what would be a single.
Digger:
Very formulaic, wasn't it?
Shel:
Totally.
Digger:
And then you listen to their jazzy/bluesy stuff like
'I Put A Spell On You' and you think
"That's not the same band".
Shel: No, I did some jazzy things
with them and
it was totally different.
Digger: What caused the explosion
of talent in Britain in
'63/'64? You mentioned the post-war.
Shel: I think it was the putting the war
behind everybody.
Rationing had finally gone, you had a group of
disenchanted and, in their opinion, disenfranchised kids
aged 14, 15, 16 and listening to American music. Because
English music sucked. And the whole thing just exploded.
Digger: Does that mean that in
other generations in other
decades there has been that level of talent but it hasn't
come to fruition because there was no impetus?
Shel: I think talent can
certainly focus more when there's
a vacuum, and there's less of a vacuum now.
Digger: There were HUGE names in
the sixties. I mean I could
rattle off a hundred names just off the top of my head
of BIG heroes from pop culture. Now if I went to the
eighties I could probably think of about fifteen.
Shel: No, there were few in the
eighties and
virtually nobody in the nineties.
Digger: There were a few in the
seventies - Bowie, Rod
Stewart, Elton John, but they'd done all their groundwork
in the sixties. Why was there so much talent?
Shel: Nobody really has come up
with a definitive answer.
London certainly became the focal point that all the kids
from other parts of England, Scotland and Wales,
descended upon.
Digger: I've asked musicians from
Britain why they managed
to replicate that American sound so authentically and
they can't answer that either.
Shel: I don't think they totally did. I think they put their
own spin on it. It took a breakthrough - The Beatles were
obviously responsible for the British Invasion, but, once
it happened, everybody piled through, which was great.
Digger: Including a few rubbishy
ones as well ( laughs ).
Shel: In the wake of something good you'll
pick up some sludge!
Digger: Just makes the good stuff look better.
Shel: Right.
Digger: Except to the less
discerning.
Shel: There's a lot of those
around. Still a lot around today.
I don't know, I think what's really worrying is the demise
of the songwriter. I can't think of anybody in the last
fifteen years who's really been head and shoulders above
anybody - who even comes close to Lennon & McCartney,
Pete Townshend or Ray Davies. There's just nobody out
there. Carole King, Leiber and Stoller - there's just nobody.
I can only repeat the fact that Oasis have copied EVERYBODY
from the sixties and altered a few notes here and there
and come up with stuff that any one of the people I just
discussed could have done and probably did do. ( Laughs )
The
Small Faces
Digger:
What about Michael Jackson?
Shel: I've never been a huge
Michael Jackson fan. I liked
him better when he was twelve years old. I don't like
androgynous artists - they just don't do it for me.
Digger:
Would you say that David Bowie
was one of those?
Shel: David Bowie - when I
recorded him when he was
seventeen, I thought he was one of the brightest kids and
I knew he was going to make it and unfortunately I was
six years too soon ( Digger laughs ) 'Cos eventually what
he ended-up doing was no different to what I did except
that then there was a window open for what he was
doing. Most everything he did was calculated,
he's extremely bright.
Digger: Can you describe your
happiest memories
of the sixties scene?
Shel: I loved the entire
experience. I should say that I always
maintained that I was the only straight life producer in the
whole of London, and as nobody disputed it, I
think it has a good chance to be true! I didn't do drugs
because they didn't interest me.
Digger: Did you go to the clubs
though?
Shel: Absolutely. And I did drink. But
I've always been
a moderate drinker. So I actually remember the sixties.
( Laughs ) And I knew at the time that it was a unique
situation and I loved every second of it. I was
really unhappy when it was over.
Digger: Did it actually feel like
that in December
'69 - as if something was finishing?
Shel: When it turned 1970 it was pretty
much the end
of an era. It lingered on for a year or so in a kind of
half-assed way and then totally died.
Digger: If you could record a fantasy sixties British
supergroup of members living or dead,
who would be in it?
Shel: Eddie Phillips or Hendrix
on guitar, Moonie on drums,
John Paul Jones or Herbie Flowers on bass, probably
Nicky Hopkins on piano, Stevie Winwood on organ and
Rod Stewart because he's a fine singer.
Digger: One hell of a
group............ Why do you think the British
don't celebrate their heroes like the Americans do?
Shel: I think it's a kind of reverse
snobbery. combined with
proverbial British reserve. "Fans" seem to be
more effusive
and more emotional in America. Even the groupies during
the
Beatlemania era didn't seem as frenetic or extreme as
they were in the States.
Digger: You heard about the
argument here when they
were trying to put a plaque up for Hendrix?
Shel: No I didn't.
Digger:
It was next to the house where Handel had lived.
And all the establishment were complaining and protesting
but eventually it happened. They were saying "Who is this
Hendrix, what has he ever done for music" ( Shel laughs
).
A real snobbery. But they should have statues where
these guys were born.....
Shel: Nah! I think that's way
over the top.
I think that's gross.
Digger: They used to do it for
political and military heroes
and they were the 'stars' of the Victorian day.
Shel: Maybe so, but I don't
really think you can equate
genuine heroes like Wellington and Churchill with
"pop icons" like Lennon and McCartney who I don't
believe
merit statues. In any event, the only creatures that
seem to
love statues are pigeons.
Digger: In LA you have the Chinese theatre with
handprints and so on.
Shel: Footprints and handprints
but not statues.
I'm all for that.
Digger: They've got museums and
buildings dedicated
to a lot of stars over there.
Shel: The rock and roll museum -
the one in Seattle mainly
for Hendrix and Gracelands. I can't think of any others.
Digger: Maybe I'm exaggerating then!
Shel: Well, you are and you
aren't. I mean there are those
in America who have sanctified their heroes. If they
happen to be rock and roll heroes.....
Digger:
I'm not saying they're Gods, but just that they had
such a positive influence on so many people's lives for
a whole generation. And for some sort
of permanent record.........
Shel: I agree with plaques. The
Chinese theatre idea is a cool
idea and it's lasting. But that's not a statue or some
huge edifice which I don't think is deserved.
Digger: What advice would you
give to young
musicians and producers today?
Shel: Apart from "Forget
it!" ( both laugh ) I really
don't know what to say.
Digger: That says volumes, I
think.
Shel: I don't envy them because
they're coming up now
in a business that is dominated by a bunch of w****rs.
I don't know how they should handle that. It was always
kind of like that, but at least there were SOME music people
involved. However, we are now at the stage which has
happened about four, five or six times in the last thirty
years where we're down to four or five companies.
So we're about to have an explosion of independent
labels again. That should be good news.
Digger:
Like the punk thing.
Shel: Yeah. But hopefully better!
Digger:
Punk did generate a few good groups.
Shel: Yes, but I'm talking about
like when I first came
to London and the conglomerates dominated and then
the 'Indies' started to spring up. And the whole cycle
starts over again. And it's due about now.
Digger:
Well, Shel, it's been fascinating. And you've been
very generous with your time. And very generous with
your views and very easy to talk to.
It's been a delight talking to you.
The
Small Faces
Shel: Thank you!
Digger: Your name crops up so
often. If it's shameful
that The Creation weren't up there, I think it's also shameful
that your name wasn't up there and that you are not a
household name. Let's see what we can do about that
by putting this on the website!
Shel: Better late than never!
Digger:
And thanks for the link, by the way.
Shel: Sure.
Digger: What do you think of the
Internet actually?
Shel: I LOVE it. I've been on it
since way before it was
the Internet. I got on it in 1985......
Digger: God. What was it then?
Shel: 'Arpenet'. It was
originally a military net and
then hived off to a civilian one. And I was doing some
consulting for the Rand corporation, like a huge think-tank.
It was fabulous then. There was no web, of course, but
there was a sort of email and there were special interest
newsgroups like there are today. But a lot less of them, so,
between email and newsgroups, it was like a whole new world.
Digger: I've spoken to quite a
few people from the sixties
from music, TV and so on and it's interesting to see the
different views on the Internet. Some are horrified by
it and say "There's a lot of bad on the
Internet"........
Shel: What's bad?
Digger: I know that one lady I
spoke to didn't like the way
that people were communicating by keyboard and with
emoticons. She preferred telephone, letter and so on
thinking that they were more personal and human. And the
idea of on-line shopping also appalled her that people didn't
actually go down to the shops to buy their groceries.
Shel: It gives you the freedom to do
both. I adore the
Internet but I don't spend my entire day on it.
Digger: I agree with you, but
it's very difficult to persuade
people like that when they have a fear.
Shel: There are tons of
technophobes around who will
find any reason in the world to put it down.
Digger: I wanted to tell her that
going to the shops
in the car was more harmful.....
Shel: The greenhouse effect.....
Digger: But that would have
developed into a
very heavy discussion!..... What do you think of Bush's take
on the greenhouse gases?
Shel: Well, the big issues at the
moment are the missile defence,
which I'm all for and if people are against I say F*** 'em.
And the people that are being executed deserve to be
executed. As far as the greenhouse gases are concerned,
I know that America is..........
Digger: On it's own ( laughs )
Shel: .... Well, painted as the
great evil. The great polluter of
the world, which is bulls**t. What about China and
Russia who are far bigger polluters than we are. And the
greenhouse thing, I still think that the jury's out on that.
I don't think there's any definite proof that it is
happening.......
Digger: Isn't that a bit like the
cigarette companies
until recently saying that there's no conclusive
proof that it causes cancer?
Shel: No, I think there's a
difference there. I think everybody
EXCEPT the tobacco companies knew that cigarettes
caused emphysema and so on. When I smoked, I knew
it and I didn't care. What I do think - and you can put
this in the same category, is that secondhand smoke is
responsible. I think that's bulls**t. To my knowledge
there's not a legitimate case of somebody dying
of second hand smoking
Digger: You heard of the case of
Roy Castle
over here, didn't you?
Shel: No, what was that?
Digger: He was a general all-round
performer and he used
to play the trumpet I think it was. And he used to do lots
of smoky clubs in the sixties and seventies and he never
smoked. He died of lung cancer. They said
it was secondary smoking.
Shel: Of course they did. What
else
are they going to say?
Digger:
When you're playing an instrument like that
you're breathing in deeply a lot.
Shel: He might have been hanging
around where there was
asbestos. Could've been anything. I don't believe it and
if it really was then we're talking about something
as rare as hen's teeth. In my opinion, I don't think there's
any proof that secondhand smoke is bad - it's not GOOD
'cos it stinks. Do I think it's doing any harm? No. Smoking,
yes, that was definitely doing me some harm.
Digger:
You're an 'Ex' as well are you?
Shel: I am an ex. I always said (
laughs ) not really meaning it,
that if I am given a death sentence and I've got six
months to live, the first thing I do is go out and
buy a packet of cigarettes.
Amen
Corner
Digger:
( Laughs ) A positive out of a negative.
Shel: If it was a fait accompli
then I'd go back to it.
Digger:
If they came up with cigarettes which were guaranteed
not to be a health risk, weren't anti-social and were
very cheap then I'd go back.
Shel: What actually amazes me is
that they have NOT come
up with something like that where the cigarette is beneficial.
Because it is one of the great transports of distributing
agents to the body. Cigarettes that were both satisfying and
which distributed vitamins and all kinds of good stuff -
then everybody would be smoking.
Digger: They did try healthy type cigarettes
in the 70s, didn't they?
Shel: They weren't actually
healthy.......
Digger:
They were just less unhealthy.
Shel: They were no nicotine, no
taste. That's why they
died - because they were like sucking on a cardboard
tube. I never smoked those. I was into Pall Malls and when
I couldn't afford those I was into Players and
Senior Service. Heavy duty stuff.
Digger: Okay Shel. I won't detain
you any longer. Thanks a
lot for your time. It's been really fascinating.
I'll type this up and get it off to you..........
Shel: What do you get out of this
thing by the way?
Digger: Sweet........... nothing.
Apart from............
Shel: Satisfaction.
Digger: A lot of that. And it's
just a hobby that's turned
into a passion. And it's great fun running the website
and the people that you meet and the messages and
comments that you receive. It's got a lot of press coverage
which is very pleasing. And you never know, at the end
of the day something might come out of it.
Shel: I just wondered if you were
benefiting out of
it financially, as I think you should do at some point.
Digger: Well, Shel. Many thanks again.
Shel: Okay. Bye.
Digger: Thanks. Bye.
Many thanks to Shel for the interview.
www.sheltalmy.com
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