Behind the Tracks - Stories of Producers

Behind the Tracks is a new space telling the stories of producers who made a record greater. A way to tell the story of records through the work of producers who helped shape the history of rock. A tribute to those who work behind the scenes, all day, every day.

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“I've just signed a new management deal and I'd like to put out a new record. I'd love to produce it, but I don't know if I'm capable. Would you be up for producing it with me?”. Ken Scott had just finished telling David about his frustration at being seen merely as the sound engineer who ran the machines and fixed the problems. His experience with the Beatles at EMI Studios (on “Magical Mystery Tour” and the “White Album“) had been thrilling and formative, and his current stint at Trident (also working as engineer on “Space Oddity”) was a way to grow further still, but what he wanted most now was to get behind the mixing desk and finally see his own name in the credits of a record.

The sudden proposal from David Bowie, who was coming off three commercially unsuccessful records (two of which produced by Tony Visconti), had taken him by surprise. After all, it was the first time Scott had confided to an artist his desire to work as a producer.

The two struck a deal, each seeing a potential advantage in it: Bowie no longer wanted to work with Visconti, after some friction between them (Visconti didn't like manager Defries, while Bowie didn't like the fact that Visconti was focused on producing Marc Bolan); Ken knew that, since this was the record of an artist who was still only partially famous (despite the breakthrough of "Space Oddity", no. 5 on the UK charts), he would have a fair amount of creative freedom, without risking sinking the Titanic if it flopped.

The sessions for "Hunky Dory" began in June 1971 at Trident Studios (one of the most important independent recording studios in the UK).

Ken sensed even during pre-production that Bowie's new songs marked a decisive step forward, both in terms of songwriting and expressive maturity, and the quality of the project became clear to him when he heard the new band at work, made up of two "old" collaborators (Mick Ronson on guitar, "Woody" Woodmansey on drums) and new bassist Trevor Bolder.

Throughout the two weeks of recording, Scott limited himself to facilitating the creative process, mostly trying to translate into sound whatever Bowie had in mind, and always making sure the right number of tracks was available on tape for him.

David would introduce the new songs to the others one at a time, letting them play for the short while before hitting the so-called "right take" (usually reached on the second or third attempt), then he'd stop and move on to the next track.

It might sound like a rather rigid method (Woodmansey has said the band was always operating a bit on edge, which gave the music a certain freshness that gets lost when material is rehearsed too many times), but the team worked extremely well together, and there were no hiccups even when Ronson had to explain the piano arrangements to top session player Rick Wakeman, in fact one of the most booked musicians in England at the time (and who would soon after take the call to join Yes). Things went even better with the vocal takes, in the sense that it was typical of David's talent and preparation to nail an entire song correctly on the very first attempt (all the lead vocal tracks on "Hunky Dory" are thus the result of the so-called "first take's the charm" method).

Ken Scott's real work came into play during mixing. And it was demanding work. In an era when automation for effects and volume hadn't been invented yet, the entire mix was almost always carried out with the artists present in the control room, each of them lending a hand on the controls when needed (a genuinely synchronized dance of moves on the mixing desk, reverbs and compressors).

With Bowie things went in exactly the opposite way, since he showed up in the studio as little as possible. Once the recording was done, he'd vanish, leaving Scott alone with his tapes.

With only two hands to work with, Scott was forced to mix each song section by section (just the first verse, just the first chorus, and so on) and then splice together the tapes of the various sections to arrive at the finished track, hoping for a cohesive result. Every mistake meant having to re-splice the tapes of the various sections after fixing whatever had gone wrong.

The upside was that he essentially had free rein over the decisions, and after another two weeks, the final result was satisfying (or rather, excellent, as the album's title itself suggests) in every respect.

A moment of important decisions came up on "Life On Mars?", with its piano outro and a phone ringing in the background. That phone sat in a small bathroom next to the studio, and it never rang (it was only there for the artists to make calls during breaks). During one of the takes, for whatever reason, it suddenly started ringing, and the sound was of course picked up by the microphones, along with a few annoyed remarks from Ronson, who was in the control room with Wakeman. The take was redone and Ken overdubbed the tape, but the new take turned out to be a few seconds shorter, and that's how a fragment of the earlier phone mishap suddenly popped up at the end of the playback. The result was so lovely and surprising that everyone agreed to keep it, and it became the cherry on top in the story of an already unforgettable song.

Even the spoken intro to "Andy Warhol" came about by accident, sparked by a recorded line of Bowie correcting Scott on how to pronounce "Warhol". "It's War-hole, like when you say 'hole'." During playback, Ken fumbled clumsily with the tape sync, causing jumps in the conversation. Once again, the unexpected result went down very well, and Scott added a part played on the Arp 2500 synthesizer to tie it all into the previous track.

"Hunky Dory", like its predecessors, was not a commercial success, despite excellent reviews. The public only reassessed it after the massive breakthrough of the following "Ziggy Stardust" (whose early signs can already be heard in "Queen Bitch").

It was, however, undoubtedly the start of an enormously important collaboration, one that led to the creation of one of the most successful alter-egos in rock history along with his band (the Spiders From Mars), and which continued through to "Pin Ups", allowing Bowie to carve out his role as an essential glam icon. Ken Scott's sharp eye and ear (he also produced Elton John and Supertramp around that time) and his proverbial calm in handling mishaps at Trident were key ingredients of that adventure.

A small curiosity: contrary to a fairly widespread habit at the time (including in recording studios), the making of "Hunky Dory" was not marked by the use of drugs or alcohol. Scott claims that the closest thing to excess was probably watching Ronson knock back a couple of beers. The perfect demonstration that rock'n'roll, even when it denies one of its own clichés, can still come out of the battle victorious.

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