"Good afternoon. Sunset Zoo. To whom do you wish to speak?"
It took several moments for me to establish that this was indeed the correct number for Sunset Sound studios, in Hollywood, California. And while the receptionist left me to my own devices on "Hold," and sought English Producer, Gus Dudgeon, somewheres off deep in the electronic bowels at that location, my brain patiently wandered over the few scraps of real information that I knew about this man:
That he'd begun many years ago as a tape operator, at Olympic Studios, in London, working with such legendary giants of British Rock as the Rolling Stones, and the Zombies. That he'd also worked with people like Mantovani. That he'd gone out on his own producing LPs for the Bonzo Dog Band, and the Strawbs. That held had a string of English hits (like Sha La La La Lee, which he'd engineered for the Small Faces), long before he'd met the songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. And that he'd produced all of their LPs (except Empty Sky) to date, of course. And now he was putting the finishing touches on Elton's live release, Here and There (on MCA).
As my mind soberly sped over numerous other facets of the man's history, like his brilliant production of an early David Bowie single, Space Oddity, a receiver clicked into my ear, and the background sounds of a party in-progress invaded my factual musings. But the astonishing thing was the voice that greeted my question, "Is this Gus Dudgeon?"
It was decidedly not that of an Englishman, nor any other nationality that I could immediately fathom, or believe. It was obviously a woman's, and she was trying without much success to sound very British. Too British, in fact. Finally, through the background laughter, came the clearly American tones of an undisguised New York accent, as the lady asked none too shyly:
"Hey, how'd you like to make a bootleg of me giggling for you over the phone?" And I suddenly realized who my mystery lady was. Carly Simon.
It was at this point that a clearly-English voice took up the narrative:
"Goodbye Carly, goodbye, James, Come back and see us anytime. Okay now, which of the two new Elton albums do you want to discuss?"
Suddenly, I felt like the great pass receiver, who ran uncovered into the end zone, only to turn and see two footballs zooming through the air towards him. I took a deep breath, and tried for the nearest one.
"Let's hear about both of them. The live set first."
As the "real" Gus Dudgeon began speaking, I realized that I couldn't really understand very much of what he was saying, owing to the fact that, obviously, I did not understand the Queen's English. But, my cassette recorder, which was firmly attached to the phone receiver on my end of the conversation, had no such problems. It has an excellent memory.
"Side One comes from a charity benefit that Elton did for one of Princess Margaret's favorite charities, and was done three and a half years ago in England, at Royal Festival Hall. It starts off with Skyline Pigeon, then Border Song, Honky Cat, Love Song, and the side finishes with Crocodile Rock. Love Song has Lesley Duncan, doing a fine guest vocal. And Honky Cat features Ray Cooper on congas. That was the first time he appeared with the band.
"Side Two was recorded at Madison Square Garden, Thanksgiving, 1974. That was the concert that John Lennon sat in on. It starts off with Keep Your Love Light Beating [should be Love Lies Bleeding], Rocket Man, Bennie and the Jets, and Take Me to the Pilot."
As if reading my mind, three thousand miles away, through the Ma Bell hookup, Gus continued, without waiting for the next question to be asked.
"See, originally, how this whole live thing came up now was, that Elton owed one more album on his first recording contract. And that album could be anything. But what it couldn't be, which would've been too easy, was a repackage of things already on the catalogue. What I wanted to do, originally, with the live set idea, was to be able to record all the gigs over a six or seven year period, and then go in and skim off the best of them, for a really great two or three album set. Things Elton'd done throughout his entire stage career. With all the groups represented. Like a complete history of the finest of his stage work. Then this thing popped up, and really surprised us. And really screwed that original idea for me. So we had to settle for this single package.
"To be perfectly honest, when this whole thing surfaced, Elton really just didn't want to hear about it. All he would actually say about it was, 'Let's get the bloody thing out of the way so we can concentrate on the new double album.' Which is understandable since most live sets are a bloody bore. I think the only ones that can stand up after even a few listenings, much less lot of playing, are Joni's, and that Dylan and The Band one. I don't think that there are very many listenable ones around anyhow.
"I was the only one who was prepared to put any amount of time into the project. So I went off with a big pile of tapes, and began working. I soon realized that the best idea was to have an English side, and an American aide. That each would be of strong interest to the other country of listeners. And the whole set would probably interest both markets. The atmosphere on the American side is fantastic. See, English audiences don't behave in such a free and rowdy way as the people do over here. Those folks at Madison Square Garden were incredible! Really fabulous. So I thought we'd use that side to show the English audiences how to react to really hot music. It's sort-of a learning experience record for those English fans. I hope it'll teach them some correct audience participation."
On the question of who backs Elton up on this live set, Dudgeon was quick to answer with not a little vigor.
"Both sides of this LP are played by the original band that started with him when we made that first album. There's Nigel, Davey, Dee, and Ray.
"But the really weird thing about this album is that after I put it all together, and mixed it down, and packaged it out, I took the tapes up to Toronto with me. We were just about to start doing the new album, up there, at Eastern Sound. And nobody would even spend five seconds listening to the live one. They just kept putting it off, and putting it off. Until finally, I got a desperate call from the record company, saying that they couldn't get all the music on there, onto their 8-Track tapes. The last songs on either side were too long. They wanted me to cut it down somehow. So I went into a control room up there and soon people began floating in from the double album sessions. And I thought, 'Well, so long as I've got a captive audience, fuck it, I'll play them the tapes anyhow.' And as the tapes rolled, everybody just loved it.
"Bernie liked it so much he began dancing around the studio. Elton came in to see what all the noise was about, and was he surprised when he really liked it too. See, up until then he'd only heard tiny snatches of it. And it turned out that everybody was enjoyably surprised.
"One thing that really stands out in my memory of those final tapes, is Dee Murray's performance on Rocket Man. That is easily worth the price of the whole thing. A really exceptional performance. I know it's sort of crazy of me to say so, because I'm so involved in it, but I really think it's a great album. A great live set of tunes."
Dudgeon is a producer reknowned for working on a project from the ground up: adding just the right touches here and there, in the sweetening, the overdubs, the frothy doctoring that goes on after the-basic tracks have been laid down and the subtle shadings are dabbed into place. But according to him, none of that was needed on this set.
"Hell," he sighed, "sure, there's a few bum notes, but that's just the way people are onstage, not perfect. Sometimes it's the mistakes as much as the perfections that make a great album. Nobody is perfect onstage. Just real.
"And another thing that's very pleasing about this disc is the sound itself. Which is just great. Fantastic. A lot of people who have already heard those tapes thought I did doctor it up a lot, to get that superb quality. That clarity. It just sounds too bloody good."
Now about that new double album.
"It's done with the new band. And there's no comparison I can make about working with these people, between them and the old group. Its. really like working with a whole new artist.
"There are 20 songs on the new LP. It took three weeks to do, up in Toronto. Where we were cautioned not to go. We were told the studios sucked, but we found it just the opposite. It was the quickest, most fun album we've done to date. That's the great thing about it all."
As I began to ask why they didn't just go back to Colorado, and the Caribou Ranch, Gus answered the question before I could even ask it all the way through. Again.
"The real reason is that there's been a drastic change for the worse here in the tax laws."
How about the title?
"We've just gotten the basic tracks down, all of Elton's vocals, and we're just getting to the sweetening. In fact, we're working on a string section this afternoon. The title will probably be the last thing we consider. And frankly, I don't remember any of the names of the titles of the songs. But the big difference that I can see in this album, as contrasted to all the others is that there's a lot more instrumental elbow room. There's even one purely instrumental track, no words at all. Which we've not tried before. A really long one, too.
There's a lot more instrumental space all the way around. Loads of long passages, of just music. But they are arranged passages. None of that six minute bullshit, where somebody plays a self-indulgent guitar solo. And I'm talking about proper sections, which have been entirely worked out. Much like what we did with the first album. Only much more open, and diversified than we did back then.
"I suppose that you could say we've brought to flower here, the promise of much better things to come that one got from The Rock of the Westies. I really think it comes true on this LP."
The only question left on the torn piece of brown wrapping paper, that I'd been using to refer to, was if Gus Dudgeon ever gave a thought to doing an album of Gus Dudgeon, himself.
His surprise was only immediately surpassed by a sizable loud belly-laugh.
"Me? My music? Say, I don't know a Z-flat note from an A-blunt one."
Which is something I find very hard to believe.
Return to the magazine listing.