Well, chalk and cheese really. Elvis is Back was recorded in the newest, state-of-the-art studio I had entered up to that point with the best equipment available, while Joan Baez was essentially thrown together in the ballroom of a hotel. I’m referring to the album with the same title, not the woman herself. Please don’t assume I believe Ms Baez was constructed in a hotel ballroom.
I knew what you meant.
The boffins simply placed a large rug on the floor, erected a stool with two microphones and she sang into one and played into the other and they had a record.
It proves you don’t need technology to make great music.
Does it? All I know is it made my job significantly less burdensome. Elvis had musicians and backing singers and hangers-on and a detestable Danish person all swarming around him dropping cigarette butts and traipsing mud on the carpet and Joan Baez just had a guitar and a producer. There was nothing much for me to do except sit around and enjoy her lovely voice. Except on Thursday of course.
What happened on Thursday?
Well, we were recording in a hotel ballroom and on Wednesday nights they used it for Bingo*. So we had to pack up everything and put it away while the Bingo caller and the old ladies came in. Which subsequently meant I spent Thursday morning cleaning up old bingo cards and toffee wrappers in preparation for Ms Baez to return that evening and sing House of the Rising Sun again. I believe if you listen to the master tapes you can hear an aborted take that had to be curtailed when an old dear stuck her wrinkly, blue-rinsed head into the studio and asked if it was Bingo night. You didn’t get that on an Elvis Presley session.
But she could have been in a state of the art studio somewhere.
This is true. She was courted by Columbia Records, who later signed Bob Dylan, but decided to throw her lot in with Vanguard records, a smaller independent label. Which I feel is an admirable sentiment for a folk singer. Instead of the shiny and polished interior of a Columbia studio, she was performing her music on an elderly carpet in a ballroom.
A smelly ballroom, she’s quoted as saying.
An artistic embellishment on her part I assure you. No facility I have ever worked in has been anything other than clean smelling and odour free. I’m sure if Ms Baez was pressed for further details she would make it clear that the room in question was in a state of disrepair but expertly maintained and possessed of a citrus fragrance created by the judicious use of carefully chosen cleaning agents.
I’m sure she’s said that somewhere. I’ll look for a quote.
Please do.#
* This is true. Joan Baez is the only great album which was disrupted by a bingo night.
# I did. She never said this.
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