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Word In Your Ear

In the studio with Nick Drake, Fairport, John Martyn & the String Band: John Wood remembers a golden age

Ep. 681
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“There was no Command-Zed back then!” John Wood engineered or produced some of the most magical, timeless and affecting records ever made - by Nick Drake, John Martyn, the McGarrigles, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, John Cale, Squeeze and many more. He’s 85 now and looks back here at a luminous career that started with mastering singles at Decca and transferred to Sound Techniques, the mecca he co-founded in an old cowshed in Chelsea when takes were spontaneous and even the tape-op was part of the performance. He misses those days, when albums were organic and the labels had less control, and talks here about …

 

… “the age when sound had perspective and seemed three-dimensional”.

 

… Nick Drake’s confidence and his guiding lights - eg the Beach Boys and Randy Newman (“who I’d never heard of”). And his final nighttime sessions.

 

… the way Fairport recorded – “We’re only going to do it once” – and why they could make three albums a year.

 

…managing the girls in the Incredible String Band, “especially when Licorice played drums”.

 

… John Cale in “maniac mode” and his sudden and unexpected friendship with Nick Drake.

 

… Cale and Nico at the Chelsea Hotel.

 

… and why ‘Geoff Muldaur Is Having A Wonderful Time’ was the job he remembers the fondest.

 

Also mentioned: the Downliners Sect, Judy Collins, The Marmalade, Graham Gouldman and Squeeze.

 

John’s got nothing to plug and just wanted to talk to us. Thanks, John, and bless your cotton socks.


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