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Eric Burdon (front) and the Animals

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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The Making Of The Animals' "The House Of The Rising Sun"

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Singer/songwriter Eric Burdon discusses the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame recording that may have inspired Dylan to go electric
Eric Burdon
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 4:06 pm

(Since its inception in 1973, the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame has enshrined nearly 1,000 recordings across all genres. The Making Of … series presents firsthand accounts of the creative process behind some of the essential recordings of the 20th century. You can read more Making Of … accounts, and in-depth insight into the recordings and artists represented in the Hall, in the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition book.)

 

 

"The House Of The Rising Sun"
The Animals
MGM (1964)
Single
Inducted 1999

(As told to Tammy La Gorce) 

We started playing "[The] House Of The Rising Sun" [in 1964]. We were touring with Chuck Berry, and all of the other bands on the bill — I don't know why they're so strangely brainless in such a situation — all they did was try to outdo Chuck by doing the same kinds of songs he did, and we thought that was insanity. I went searching for something that would not be in Chuck Berry's field of vision.  

I can't say exactly when the first time I heard "…Rising Sun" was because before we recorded it every folk artist I knew would play the opening chord sequence. They all loved that opening chord sequence, as does every guitar player in the world.

But I started thinking, "Wow, there's got to be more than this, than what I'm hearing from these opening chords." I got Bob Dylan's [1962 self-titled debut] album and I found out there was a lot more to it, that ["The House Of The Rising Sun"] had probably been rewritten. I thought, "Yeah, wow, yippee — there's more to the story than I think there is." Josh White had recorded it early on, and so had other blues luminaries.

Anyway, we were on a tour with Chuck Berry, and we were performing "…Rising Sun" live and we were finding out how much of an effect it was having on the audience. It was actually drawing people away from the magic of Chuck Berry, who we considered the master. If we were able to do that with the song, we knew it needed to be recorded right away.

So we had a day off on a Sunday, and we got on a train from Manchester with our equipment and arrived at [King's] Cross [Railway] Station, and we liberated a British Airways push wagon and loaded everything onto it and made our way through the early morning streets of London, which were devoid of people. The studio, De Lane Lea Studios, was two flights downstairs. We took all our stuff down there and while we were setting it up I met the engineer.

We were talking to him, and I thought, "This is going to be a monumental test of skills and wills," because to my surprise he had never recorded anything electric before.

So we offloaded and we set up and we did a soundcheck and one take, and that was it. The recording took about 15 minutes.

Years later I was at [bassist] Chas Chandler's house going through some drawers looking for some cigarette papers, and I came across some contracts. There was a contract there that said that the studio recording session for "[The] House Of The Rising Sun" cost 34 pounds. That would be about $70.

When we recorded it, [producer] Mickie Most was not in attendance. I'm pointing this out because everybody told us that recording "…Rising Sun" was wrong — it was too long, the wrong subject matter — and it wouldn't do well in the pop market. Well, a few weeks later it knocked the Beatles off the top of the chart, and the Beatles had been commandeering the charts for two years. We did it with that recording.

Back then, the folk world was the only world we knew because rock and roll was in the process of being discovered. Folk music ruled. "[The] House Of The Rising Sun" was known as a folk song and many folk artists recorded it. Bob Dylan was one of them. The thing that made this situation unique was [Dylan] was about to go into the studio and record it, and he heard that one of his compatriots in New York was about to record it as well. Bob Dylan got in touch with this guy and he said, "Oh, please don't record it."

Then we did it. We dropped the bomb on everybody. As far as I know it may be what inspired Bob to go electric. There's been a quote about that from Bob himself.

(Tammy La Gorce is a freelance writer whose work appears regularly in The New York Times.)

The Moody Blues' Mike Pinder, Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Ray Thomas, and Graeme Edge

(l-r) The Moody Blues' Mike Pinder, Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Ray Thomas, and Graeme Edge

Photo: Michael Putland/Getty Images

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The making of the Moody Blues' 'Nights In White Satin'

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Justin Hayward details the making of the Moody Blues' 1972 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame-inducted hit
Justin Hayward
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

(Since its inception in 1973, the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame has enshrined nearly 1,000 recordings across all genres. The Making Of … series presents firsthand accounts of the creative process behind some of the essential recordings of the 20th century. You can read more Making Of … accounts, and in-depth insight into the recordings and artists represented in the Hall, in the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition book.)

"Nights In White Satin"
The Moody Blues
Deram (1972)
Single
Inducted 1999

(As told to John Sutton-Smith)

I came to the band as a songwriter trying to find an outlet for my songs. They had only been together for a short time and cut "Go Now" and that was about it. The three guys that were left, after [bassist] Clint [Warwick] and [singer/guitarist] Denny [Laine] left, their heart wasn't into the rhythm & blues stuff. Mike [Pinder] was into doing new material and so was I, so we stopped wearing the blue suits and overnight it changed for us.

I got back from a gig about 4 in the morning, sat on the edge of the bed and just wrote down the basic thing. I was at the end of one love affair and at the beginning of another. And I do write letters never meaning to send, so there's quite a lot of truth to that song. When I played "Nights [In White Satin]" initially to the other guys, they were quite unimpressed until Mike did that phrase on the mellotron. I have to give him a lot of credit for that.

[Producer] Tony Clarke gave me a wonderful guitar sound and he knew how to record my voice, and with Mike he got that mellotron sound that is so sensational. The recording was a very happy relaxed time, because we didn't think we were under any pressure. It wasn't a huge career thing. We just wanted to get our stage act recorded, really, and here was this opportunity to make this stereo demonstration record for Decca. Hardly anyone had stereo, so it would only appeal to a few people, but it gave us a chance. Peter Knight the orchestral arranger had seen us and liked our material and said the best way to do it was to record the orchestral breaks between our songs.

I was the only one in the studio when they recorded the London Festival Orchestra. They only did it once. They did a rehearsal with Tony Clarke, and prepared the tape long enough with blank tape onto a 4-track, with Peter Knight, counting down. It's unbelievable how they did this. They'd already put the songs in the right order with the gaps in between, and then Peter would conduct the orchestra to his own voice counting. They rehearsed it once without [recording] it, no alternative take or anything, then took a break for a cup of tea, then they did a take and that was it; it was over.

We first heard ["Nights In White Satin"] in our transit van, going to a gig up north. They played it on the radio, and we pulled over. It was, like, spooky. There was something strange about it, that we hadn't really heard when we were playing it, but you got when you listened to it.

I had no idea that FM radio in America would pick it up and that "Nights…" would happen. I often wonder to this day what it is about the record that people like, because there's hardly anything on it. I mean we double-tracked the guitar, Mike did some double-tracking on his mellotron, and we were really only bouncing between two-track and four-track anyway. There's some fabulous Decca echoes on it, but there's really nothing else. 

(John Sutton-Smith is a music journalist and TV producer who helped establish the GRAMMY Foundation's GRAMMY Living Histories oral history program, currently comprising almost 200 interviews.)

GRAMMYs

Bob Ezrin

Photo: Chris So/Toronto Star/Getty Images

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The Making Of Pink Floyd's The Wall

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Producer Bob Ezrin recalls the building blocks of Pink Floyd's GRAMMY Hall Of Fame-inducted album
Bob Ezrin
GRAMMYs
Jan 5, 2015 - 10:07 am

(Since its inception in 1973, the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame has enshrined nearly 1,000 recordings across all genres. The Making Of … series presents firsthand accounts of the creative process behind some of the essential recordings of the 20th century. You can read more Making Of … accounts, and in-depth insight into the recordings and artists represented in the Hall, in the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition book.)

 

The Wall
Pink Floyd
Columbia (1979)
Album
Inducted 2008

(As told to Tammy La Gorce)

It was Roger [Waters'] wife, Carolyne [Christie], who approached me about doing The Wall. She had actually worked with me on an Alice Cooper project years before in London. The idea was, because this was so much Roger's own project and not a group effort, he needed a kind of referee between him and the rest of the band — someone who could help him realize his vision and deal with the rest of the band without creating problems between him and them.  

In the beginning we had a very long demo that Roger had written. We started to separate out the pieces, and when we looked at the storyline we realized what we needed was a through line, something to get us from start to finish.

I started writing, and in the process of doing that I began to realize, "I'm writing a script." It took one night in my flat in London. I closed my eyes and wrote out the movie that would become The Wall.

The next day in the studio, we made copies of the script and handed them out, and we all sat down for a table read.

We laid down the bits of music we had from the demo, and obviously there were songs missing, bits of the script where we didn't yet have a song. We'd mark those "TBW" — "to be written." "Comfortably Numb" was a TBW song. With the screenplay, we had a real framework for how things would go, and it proved crucial.

I think it was remarkable how fast we finished it. When you add it all up, we spent maybe seven or eight months in the studio. We started in England, then we went to the South of France, and we finished up in Los Angeles. Think about it: You can read stories about some of the more indulgent albums, like [Guns N' Roses'] Chinese Democracy, where 10 or 12 years were spent on something that ends up with a whimper and not a bang. When you think about that, we worked pretty quick.

Overall, [The Wall] was a fantastic experience. An amazing accomplishment.

(Tammy La Gorce is a freelance writer whose work appears regularly in The New York Times.)

GRAMMYs

The Young Rascals' Eddie Brigati, Felix Cavaliere, Dino Danelli, and Gene Cornish

Photo: K & K Ulf Kruger OHG/Redferns

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The Making Of The Young Rascals' "Groovin'"

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Eddie Brigati details the making of the Young Rascals' 1967 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame-inducted hit
Eddie Brigati
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 4:06 pm

(Since its inception in 1973, the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame has enshrined nearly 1,000 recordings across all genres. The Making Of … series presents firsthand accounts of the creative process behind some of the essential recordings of the 20th century. You can read more Making Of … accounts, and in-depth insight into the recordings and artists represented in the Hall, in the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition book.)

 

 

Groovin'
The Young Rascals
Atlantic (1967)
Single
Inducted 1999 

(As told to Tammy La Gorce)

The story behind "Groovin'" is different depending on who you want to deal with, who you want to listen to. But from my perspective, how we designed this song is [the Young Rascals' singer] Felix [Cavaliere] said to me, "I can't write lyrics." So he'd get a song going and I'd develop a thing where I said to him, "In a sentence, or in a word or two, what would you call that [song]?" With "Groovin'" he said, "groovin'."

And he was right. That was what it sounded like.

At the time we were living in a hotel [in New York City] right upstairs from the Copacabana [nightclub], right off Central Park — this was 50, 48 years ago. And you'd go out your door, and you'd walk down the block, and there was Central Park. So you were on a crowded avenue. And you were doing anything you wanted to do, being anyone you wanted to be.

I ended up writing 23 verses. I still have them somewhere in our archives, but nobody knows where they are.

Felix at the time was motivated by what was going on in his personal life, so he threw me the ball to write and I was writing about what was surrounding me, where I was. We took one or two of those verses, and we linked another verse to it, and then my brother David [Brigati, lead singer of Joey Dee & The Starliters] came in and sang harmonies, which lent a lot to it.

The singing was important because the human voice is the first thing people relate to. Don't tell the musicians that, but it's true. I learned that from [Atlantic Records head] Jerry Wexler. With ["Groovin'"], the Young Rascals were able to reach people with our words and our singing. 

And that was it, a short story. It became that simple little summer song everybody knows.     

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The Making Of Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced?

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Engineer Eddie Kramer remembers the brilliance of guitarist Jimi Hendrix on the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame-inducted album
Eddie Kramer
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 4:06 pm

(Since its inception in 1973, the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame has enshrined nearly 1,000 recordings across all genres. The Making Of … series presents firsthand accounts of the creative process behind some of the essential recordings of the 20th century. You can read more Making Of … accounts, and in-depth insight into the recordings and artists represented in the Hall, in the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition book.)

 

Are You Experienced?
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Reprise (1967)
Album
Inducted 1999

(As told to Alan di Perna)

By January 1967, when we started work on Are You Experienced?, Jimi Hendrix had already had a run of successful singles in the UK with "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze" and "The Wind Cries Mary." A lot of that work, as well as some other tracks, had been recorded at De Lane Lea Studios in London, but Jimi and the Experience had to get out of there because there was a bank above the studio and they couldn't play loud. But they'd heard about Olympic Studios, where I was a staff engineer. It had just opened up and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were really one of Olympic's first clients. It was brand-new and it was the hippest recording studio in the UK, if not all the world. The Helios mixing console we had was like nothing else around.

Jimi was very shy when he first came into the studio. He just sat quietly in the corner and waited for the amps to arrive. He didn't say much until the amps were situated and the drums set up. Then he plugged in and we were off to the races! The sheer volume set me back a bit. But that's what you deal with as an engineer.

We took the original tapes that they'd recorded elsewhere and overdubbed, fixed and tweaked what had been done previously. Then we just kept on recording and adding more tracks. Jimi was writing material with his producer and manager, Chas Chandler. He was living in Chas' apartment in London and they'd stay up all night working on lyrics, chords and the rest of that. And they'd come into the studio with a completely written song.

We were recording on 4-track tape back then and it was quite a process. You'd cut your initial basic four tracks and then you'd have to mix that down in stereo and transfer it to another 4-track machine. You'd fill up the two free tracks and mix all of that back down to the first machine. There was a lot of bouncing back and forth.

We were lucky to get what we got, especially as the budget was still pretty tight back then. There was no time to mess around, and Jimi was very disciplined. The album's title song is a perfect case in point. There are a lot of backwards tape tracks on that one — drums, bass and guitar. We cut basic tracks and then flipped the tape over. At the end of the session, I made Jimi a copy of the backwards tracks. He went home and rehearsed himself all night to figure out what the guitar was going to do. He came in the next day, said, "OK, roll the tape from this point. ..." And he knew from the downbeat precisely what the guitar was going to sound like and what the melody was going to be. He was playing the melody in real time, but he'd figured out how it was going to sound backwards. He was brilliant that way.

(Veteran music journalist Alan di Perna is a contributing editor for Guitar World and Guitar Aficionado. His liner notes credits include Santana Live At The Fillmore East, the deluxe reissue of AC/DC's The Razor's Edge and Rhino Records' Heavy Metal Hits Of The '80s [Vols. 1 and 3].)