In 1969, DJM Records hired Gus Dudgeon to produce the second album by a struggling pianist and songwriter who did sessions to make ends meet: Elton John.
"He saw himself as a songwriter," Dudgeon recalls. "I was primarily commissioned to do the Elton John album as sort of a glamorous demo. We cut the album in a week, and I never stopped grinning from beginning to end because it all fell into place so brilliantly."
With such tracks as Your Song, Take Me To The Pilot, and Sixty Years On, the Elton John album was the start of a fruitful partnership that resulted in a multitude of classic singles in the '70s: Rocket Man, Daniel, Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me, Someone Saved My Life Tonight, and Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word, among them.
"Once Elton had done what he had to do, which was play the piano and sing, he left," Dudgeon explains, adding that John gave him complete freedom to craft the finished tracks. "Whatever you hear on the records that's over and above the essential construction of the song is down to myself and whoever else was working in the studio.
"I also used to dub things onto the record that he actually didn't hear until the record came out," adds Dudgeon mischievously. "It became a bit of a game. I Think I'm Gonna Kill Myself wound up with a tap dancer on it," he says with a laugh.
Born September 30, 1942, in Surrey, England, Dudgeon started his career in the early '60s as a "tea boy" at the original Olympic Studios in London before landing at Decca Records' studios in West Hampstead, London. At Decca, Dudgeon engineered the Zombies' classic She's Not There, a task given to him when the first engineer was unable to complete the session.
"The producer [Ken Jones] just turned around and said, 'Right, it's time for you to take over.' I wound up continuing to do all their sessions after that. As an engineer, that was my first No. 1 hit."
Dudgeon also was responsible for engineering one of the groundbreaking albums of the '60s: John Mayall With Eric Clapton: Blues Breakers. Dudgeon went on to engineer a number of other Mike Vernon-produced recordings for Decca, including discs by Ten Years After and Savoy Brown.
"I never really classified myself as a great engineer. I just loved music," Dudgeon says, adding that he really wanted to become a producer. "I was interested in the construction of songs and the combination of sounds" of different instruments, he says.
Dudgeon's first production job was an album for EMI by Zoot Money's Big Roll Band, a group that included future members of the Animals and Police guitarist Andy Summers. Dudgeon became an independent producer in 1968, working with such acts as Ralph McTell, the Strawbs, and the Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band, the legendary musical comedy troupe that included Neil Innes and "Legs" Larry Smith. He also produced David Bowie's epic 1968 single Space Oddity.
After the Elton John album in 1970, Dudgeon produced Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across The Water, albums that demonstrated Dudgeon's ability to reveal the drama in John's music on such tracks as Burn Down The Mission, Tiny Dancer, and Madman Across The Water.
By 1972, John was making so much money that he began to work offshore for tax purposes, so Dudgeon moved recording to a studio in France, the Chateau, for Honky Chateau, Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only The Piano Player, and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
Dudgeon says John was so prolific he needed only five days to write music for an album. "He would arrive five days before anyone else and write all the songs," Dudgeon recalls. Moreover, Dudgeon points out that Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was started in Jamaica but was moved to France because the Jamaican studio was deemed inadequate. In the meantime, John had written a second album's worth of material.
"The only reason Yellow Brick Road became a double was simply because of the disaster in Jamaica, otherwise we'd have done a single album," Dudgeon muses.
When Dudgeon and John parted company in the late '70s, Dudgeon intended to work on a variety of projects. However, he first had to convince potential clients that he was not one-dimensional.
"We all get pigeonholed," Dudgeon says. "When I quit working with Elton, all I got offered to work with were piano players."
Eventually, Dudgeon hit the charts with Fool If You Think It's Over by Chris Rea and Run For Home by Lindisfarne. He also produced albums by Elkie Brooks, Audience, and XTC. In the '80s he built Sol Studios, now owned by Jimmy Page.
Dudgeon's recent productions include a 1997 European release by veteran Danish pop/country singer Henning Staerk for BMG Ariola, Somewhere Someone's Falling In Love, a project that includes master guitarist Jerry Donahue. "It's five great musicians doing 10 great songs," Dudgeon says proudly.
Moreover, Dudgeon is working on a tribute album to the Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band that will include George Harrison and Ringo Starr. "We're doing a demo of Jollity Farm with Ringo on vocals and George playing ukulele," says Dudgeon.
Dudgeon's success in finding good songs and fostering great performances has been his hallmark for 30 years, enabling him to move effortlessly from rock and pop to country and blues. "I love musicians and I love great songwriters," Dudgeon explains. "To me they are the lifeblood of the whole thing."
The article was published in the April 26 1997 issue of Billboard.