Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust
By Ken Scott and Bobby Owsinski
Alfred Music Publishing 2012, $24.99, ppxvii-414
All
things considered, selling books in the current climate is never gonna
be easy anyway, but things get really difficult when the book in question
is the autobiography of somebody whose one and only claim to fame is his
large contribution to the creation of a lot of music that’s now history,
a role he fulfilled working "from the other side of the glass" as
a record producer and engineer. Things get even more difficult if we take
into consideration the fact that this man’s fame is "of the old kind",
which means quite "selective", and reflected from the quality
of the works he helped come to life, not the kind that goes hand-in-hand
with being a media figure who combines high sales and "a colourful
personality"
(think: Kanye West and Jay-Z, right now; or, if we look back: Phil Spector).
While
at the same time making a promise that his story will be thoroughly investigated
(just have a look at the simple but elegant graphic design which chromatically
highlights "A to Z"), the cover of Ken Scott’s autobiography
chooses Abbey Road – which here obviously stands for "EMI Studios",
and so: "The Beatles" – and the world-famous, extremely influential
album Ziggy Stardust, while adding the easy-to-recognize
"lightning" straight off the cover of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane – as
its main selling points. It goes without saying that the book’s release is
tied to the release of the 40th Anniversary edition of the album The Rise
And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, the new releases –
with new/old mastering on CD, vinyl, and DVD by the album’s original producer
and engineer: Ken Scott – inundating shops all over the world (ok, I exaggerate;
let’s say one can easily find the album all over the Web, and also in a few
"selected shops").
And
talking about Ziggy Stardust (the album), there’s a funny thing that comes
to mind: that while Tony Visconti is the first name to appear when the
topic at hand is Bowie & his Producers, it’s on those albums produced
and engineered by Ken Scott that Bowie’s career firmly stands (the same
being true, say, of Supertramp’s Crime Of The Century and Missing Persons’
Spring Session M; readers fill find the whole list in a Discography appearing
at the end of the book).
Ken
Scott’s career has been a long one – which in a way it’s only logical,
given the fact that his "fingerprint" is quite transparent, an
"invisible" meticulousness being a strong feature of his work –
and it’s in a way surprising to notice the sheer variety of the music styles
he was involved with (here I think a parallel can be drawn between Ken Scott
and Chris Thomas); I still remember my surprise when I noticed the name Ken
Scott – who at the time I strongly associated with artists such as David
Bowie, Elton John, and Supertramp – appearing on the cover of albums by "New
Wave"
groups such as The Tubes, Devo, and Missing Persons.
"Well",
I hear you say, "Who’s gonna buy this book?". As a joke, my answer
could be "Adults", given the fact of the print size being quite
large: "No need to wear glasses, Sir!". The narration here makes
use of two font sizes: a larger one for the main story, with (as it’s customary
for technical magazines such as Sound On Sound) a tiny one reserved for
those technical details which appear inside boxes and that only a certain
type of readers – this writer included – will regard as being of interest.
Those
technical detail inside the boxes, the tale flows smoothly, with a nice
balance of notes about past times, curious stuff, anecdotes, facts, tales
about the act of creating music in the studio, some (minor) technical details,
and a few
"ex post" musings. In my opinion Ken Scott – here ably assisted
by co-writer Bobby Owsinski – is not terribly interested in narrating a vision
that’s "king size" – or at least, not overtly so, since by the
end of the book one can clearly detect his ideas about the way the music
world has changed. I have to confess I would have liked to find a few more
thoughts about the production side of the way music is made nowadays – the
Pro Tools de facto standard, the sound of those plug-ins, the home dimension
of creating music
"in the box" – but there are a few thoughts here and there.
There’s
one important aspect of this book that is not to be forgotten, and which
can be easily talked about by describing my reaction to a specific episode.
Ken Scott was the sound engineer on my favourite album by Procol Harum,
A Salty Dog (which I bought at the time of its original release). Since
this is an album that’s seldom mentioned and discussed, I have to confess
that it was the first thing I looked for in the general index. Well, there’s
almost nothing of interest about it, the same being true of albums – by
groups such as Happy The Man and Dixie Dregs – that I would have preferred
to see discussed at length. It turns out Scott decided only to talk about
stuff he remembers with a certain degree of certainty – and by having his
recollections corroborated by means of independent sources being interrogated.
(Here it’s my impression that this is the consequence of seeing a book
by Geoff Emerick about The Beatles published a few years ago, Here, There
And Everywhere, carrying quite a few mistakes – hence, the pandemonium
in the Beatles community.)
I
have a feeling the only readers who will find the book not being entirely
to their satisfaction will be those who have spent quite a long time reading
Ken Scott’s past interviews (they’re not many, but I suspect they can be
easily found on the Web) won’t find here tons of revelations and new facts.
The rest will have a lot of fun. Quite a few fine, also interesting, old
photos appear.
Let’s
have a quick look at what’s inside. There’s a fine – also useful when talking
about the history of the craft – narration about Ken Scott’s apprenticeship
period at EMI recording studios. There are excellent chapters about The
Beatles, both as a group – just check the parts about the album The Beatles,
aka The White Album – and as individual artists, with a few insights about
John Lennon and George Harrison. After a fundamental chapter about the
famous Trident Studios, it’s with the appearance of David Bowie that the
book really takes off (it has to be noticed that it’s at this time that
Ken Scott made the transition from engineer to producer). There are fine
chapters about Elton John; more than a few jazz-rock albums by familiar
names such as The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Billy Cobham, and Stanley Clarke
are talked about. There are long chapters about the group Supertramp and
their albums Crime Of The Century and Crisis? What Crisis? (fans of the
group will have a lot to read), while for this writer it was the chapter
about The Tubes that proved to be the funniest in the book. Another extended
narration features US group of former Frank Zappa sidemen Missing Persons,
whose members also offer more than a few new (to me, at least) details
reminiscing about those times and those albums (it has to be noted that
Ken Scott was also the group’s manager).
From
now on – it’s 1982 – there’s really not too much that’s as good as what
went before, when it comes to both the narrative and the main characters.
A cycle goes to its conclusion, but we’re quite lucky to have Mr. Scott
himself tell of those times.
In closing, it’s time for me to add a few personal observations. I’d like to
stress the fact that in my opinion this is an important book, for two main
reasons. First, because the lively first-hand recollections that appear
in the book bring us back to a time when music was created collectively;
which is a fact that was quite a common notion in those days but which
for a long series of reasons – think: money – it’s quite likely will be
totally new to the majority of today’s listeners, who are unaware that
a process that gets interrupted – studios closing, microphones and desks
getting rusty, the apprenticeship tradition being no more – can’t be restarted
at will.
And there’s also another main aspect, which is common to all narratives that
share this framework. This book talks about creation as a process, and
music as a "thing" whose creation, though obviously
"artistically driven", can be filed under "rational endeavor" –
just think about the notion called "the intention behind the result".
This is simple stuff that nowadays appears as being difficult due to the
change for the worse in the critic profession and to present times which
prize irrationality, hence Scott’s work with David Bowie being reduced to
articles bearing titles such as "Bowie the Chameleon". Bringing
the music back to a more empirical plane won’t be easy, but – given the fact
that readers will find themselves quite familiar with at least a few albums
featured in this book – here Ken Scott presents attentive listeners with
a whole series of points of entry which will greatly help them achieve a
change of perspective.
Beppe Colli
© Beppe Colli 2012
CloudsandClocks.net | July 4, 2012