Rick Clark's Music I Love Blog: Producer Gus Dudgeon reflects on Elton John
Left to Right: Elton John, Gus Dudgeon and Bernie Taupin in the studio
During the early 70’s, Gus Dudgeon produced some of my favorite albums, particularly Elton John’s greatest albums. Gus and I got to be long-distance phone buddies during the last few years of his life. He had originally reached out to me because he was a fan of my work on the Oxford American Magazine CDs. At times, we spent hours on the phone. I eventually ask him if he would let me interview him for Mix Magazine and he agreed. We did three interviews.
I recently found a 69-page transcript from one of the interviews and thought it would be a crime not to share some of this for those into early Elton John. We talked about producing, the music industry and working with artists ranging from Audience and Bonzo Dog Band to XTC, but for now …. early Elton John, particularly Tumbleweed Connection. There is plenty more Elton than what I’ve included here. I’ll dig deeper if there is interest.
Back cover of Elton John, the 1st Elton album produced by Gus Dudgeon
Rick Clark: How did you begin working with Elton?
Gus Dudgeon: Basically, Steve Brown (who produced Elton’s first album Empty Sky) said to Elton, “It was great producing your first album but I’m not really a producer and I think if we’re going to move this thing on, we really ought to be looking for a professional producer to take on the next album.” I think it was admirable that Steve had the balls to admit it.
So they started looking around for a producer and one of the songs they kept talking about was “Space Oddity.” Steve, Elton, and Bernie really liked the production of that and thought Paul Buckmaster’s orchestral arrangements on it were really good, so they rang Paul up to see if he’d be interested in working with Elton John. So, Bucker rang me and said, “Do you know of Elton John?” I said, “Yes. He’s got this great record out called “Lady Samantha.” It’s not a hit but it’s getting a lot of play.” At that point I hadn’t heard the album Empty Sky. He said, “Well, if he offers you a job I suggest you take it. I think it would be well worth doing it. He’s obviously a good writer.”
They decided they wanted George Martin to produce their record. Everyone wanted George Martin to produce their records those days. So they went to George and apparently they turned him down because he wanted to do too much and he wanted to do the arrangements as well. They said, “Well we’ve already hired Paul Buckmaster to do that. He’s working on three charts now.” This was incredible. No one turns George Martin down!
So they went back to the office and apparently were talking about it and rang Bucker up and they said, “Well, disappointing news, Paul, you’re not going to be working with George Martin.” And of course Paul was very touched that they would stick with him because he was relatively untried as arranger. So they were talking to him about who they should approach to produce and he said, “Well seeing as you like “Space Oddity” that much, why don’t you approach Gus?” And they seemed to like that idea.
Dick James’ office was a five-minute walk from my office, so they came over and played me 12 songs off a demo and I just couldn’t believe it. All of them floored me. Basically, my prayers were answered. Although I’d produced four hits, it was with four different artists. What I really wanted was an artist that I could work with on a consistent basis. I was kind of used to seeing that dynamic working at Decca and it seemed to be a sensible way to work. It meant that everyone was very comfortable. So I was like, “Yeah, I’m going to do this for sure.”
The whole album was done in a week and was just extraordinary. We could never stop grinning. We’d get to the end of the session and head to the pub and go, “Fuck me. That was amazing. What an amazing day. I can’t believe it!” Then we’d go back into the studio and put the tape on thinking maybe it wasn’t really that good. But when I played it back and I’d go, “Fuck me, it is!” (laughs)
With all that going on, I still thought I couldn’t possibly assume any of it would get on the radio or that it would be acceptable to the public at large. I was still in that period in my life that I didn’t have that much confidence in what I was doing. In fact, that first album wasn’t really made to launch Elton as an artist; it was really made as a very glamorous series of demos for other people to record his songs. It was kind of like Jimmy Webb makes an album and everyone rushes in and covers all the songs on it. That was kind of the plan behind it. That was why they were initially so reluctant to go to America.
Rick Clark: I remember by the time Tumbleweed Connection came out, Elton was promoted over here as this dynamic stage persona. The handstands on the piano kind of thing.
Gus Dudgeon: Yeah. But that was a surprise to all of us because I wasn’t on that first tour. They would send photographs back to us at the London office and we’re going, “What the hell is he doing? Handstands on the piano? The man’s gone mad!” I had seen him do two or three gigs before he went over to the United States but he hadn’t done anything like that over here. I think that is partially why the Dick James people didn’t think they were launching a major act.
So Elton does this big album with orchestras all over it and synthesizers — one of the very first albums to have synthesizers on it at all because it was a very new instrument which was something Paul Buckmaster brought into play. After that, Elton goes over to America with a three-piece band and he doesn’t even take a guitar. It’s like, “Is he mad? What is he doing?” To tell you the truth, I’ve never actually talked to him about it. I never actually asked him why he went out there without a guitarist.
But, then again, he was always a big fan of Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard and all those great pianists of that era. Those guys are pretty flamboyant so I guess Elton probably thought in the back of his mind, “If I just sit here and play the piano, they’ll probably think, ‘how boring.’ I better do something memorable you know.”
Rick Clark: So the live album, 11/17/70 was recorded right after the self-titled debut?
Gus Dudgeon: Yeah, that was a classic Dick James situation. That was done as a radio broadcast up at Phil Ramone’s little A&R studio in New York. It was done to an audience of maybe a hundred people or so. It was being bootlegged like mad so Dick rang me up and said, “Look, if I send you a tape over of this broadcast, do you think there is an album in there?” So I managed to find about 20 minutes to fill each side and he said, “Go ahead and mix it and we’ll put it out as an album.” And we did. We got four albums out in one year, which was ridiculous. That included the soundtrack Friends, as well.
Rick Clark: Oh, that’s right. I loved that song “Friends.”
Gus Dudgeon: Yeah, it’s not a bad little song. Tumbleweed Connection was the official follow-up to the black album. Well, he was doing two albums a year because his contract certified two albums a year. That was normal back then. And his attitude was, “If I have to make two albums a year, I’ll make two albums a year. Simple as that.” And he stuck to it.
This was somebody who decided this right at the beginning of his career. I do know that a lot of people get at the end of their contracts and find that they owe their record companies five albums or something. They get into a terrible situation where they stick out some piece of crap and some awfully recorded live album and then they have to put out a greatest hits and blah, blah, blah. He said, “I never want to be in that situation. I want to get to the end of my contract, and if I get to the end of my contract and somebody else wants to pick me up, I know that I can go into that contract free as a bird.”
Elton John and Gus Dudgeon in the studio
Rick Clark: I loved how Tumbleweed Connection contained country music elements like pedal steel with these sweeping orchestrations. It was cinematic Americana.
Gus Dudgeon: The thing was that if the record had been made in America with American musicians, it would have turned out very very differently. The difference was we were using English guys who loved American playing as I did. 99% of my records were American anyway and the same with all those people I was working with. Hookfoot, who played on a lot of the Tumbleweed Connection tracks, were freaks for American music. They just loved it. They introduced me to Little Feet and those kinds of acts, which I didn’t know about then. I just loved that stuff straight off. Obviously I loved The Band. They, to me, still are one of the finest collections of players ever put together in one group.
Rick Clark: The bass playing on Tumbleweed Connection, particularly “Burn Down the Mission” is astonishing.
Gus Dudgeon: Pretty amazing, I know. Herbie Flowers with Dave Glover, who was from the band Hookfoot, both had a similar style. They always sounded like they were messing around trying to find the ideal note and were always playing great notes in between. They were always looking for somewhere else to go instead of just sitting there and playing the root or the most obvious notes. Listening to them was like a journey.
If you were to take Herbie Flowers’ part from “Space Oddity’ and examine how many notes he played, he probably played 10 more notes than anybody else in the entire orchestra. Weaving in and out, digging around, never playing a wrong note just looking for somewhere else to go. By the time the chord had changed he had to go somewhere else then. I love that kind of playing.
When I was working for Decca as an engineer, it was very difficult in that room to get a good bass sound. So, more often that not, in probably six out of 10 sessions, we would have two bass players on it. The parts were written out. One playing a string bass and one playing with a pick on the electric bass playing the identical part. You’d combine the two sounds. You’d take the string bass sound and the click of the electric bass and create one sound.
Rick Clark: So they’d be playing in unison?
Gus Dudgeon: Yes. This used to happen a lot because it was a problem in the studios. It was quite normal to have two bass players on a session. That was OK, but it didn’t allow any freedom.
Once I got into a studio where I could get a decent bass sound, when bass players started worrying whether they were sticking straight to the bass drum I’d say ”Don’t worry about it. Go somewhere else. Look for something else.”
I’m a freak for bass, I just love bass anyway and I think it was because when I was a kid I wasn’t allowed to go into any dodgy coffee bars. I used to hang around outside and listen to the juke box. Most of the time you couldn’t hear the voice or anything else but you could always hear the bass. The bass would travel though the walls, the floor, and the pavement. I could recognize almost any hit record when I was a kid from just the bassline.
I hate listening to records that are bass-light. It drives me crazy if there isn’t a full enough sound. A lot of bass players, when they come in sessions, will say, “I have this really great bass that’s great for the stage, but I can never use it on sessions.” I say, “Why?” And they say, “Because engineers also tell me it’s too big a sound.” And I say, “Get it out. Let’s hear it.” And nine times out of ten they play it and I go, “Thank you. That’s the sound I want. I’m up for it.”
Elton John “Burn Down The Mission” - Live on BBC TV May 22, 1970
Mix: One of the defining things of those great Elton albums were the big orchestrations by Paul Buckmaster.
Gus Dudgeon: Oh absolutely. I remember we decided to use 12 cellos on a track — I can’t remember what it was. The thing is, we decide we have to go for a certain thing on this and we really must have a big enough orchestra to do it. That, in itself, was always a thrill. There’s nothing like hearing an orchestra play a great arrangement. The bottom line was Paul was a terrific arranger, I was always trying to get him to write more cello parts, but he was always saying, “Gus, they’ll get lost.” And I was saying, “No they won’t.” And he’d say, “No they will. They are going to get muddied into where the bass is.” And I’d say, “No they’re not because if we pitch them in the right register they are going to be perfectly audible. I can promise you that.” And I would almost always book Arco basses as well. I would never have one Arco bass, I would have two or four as well as the cello to add the real weight to the bottom end. I’d tape jockeyed on quite a few classical sessions before and I knew what came from that kind of beef. I was confident I could make it work. The challenge we made for ourselves was to try and marry a big orchestra with a Rock and Roll section and make it work not have one of them lose out to another. But also make sure the piano, which is a difficult instrument to get through sometimes, still stood out on top.
I remember when Paul and I lie on the floor of his flat for hours going over little sections of songs and talking about lines, and me coming up with a line and then him coming up with it, him writing things down and then us forgetting something, and going, “Oh Christ, what was it I sang there?” Then you finally go into the studio and all of a sudden this orchestra starts running through the parts and you know the track so well you’re going, “OK, we’re going to run through the intro section.” So they run the intro and you actually hear it being played by twenty or thirty other amazing musicians. You think, “Wow, this is just magic!” Because that’s the first time anybody actually heard it. Up until that point it was an idea. It was something scribbled on paper. It was lines thought up weeks before hand that you’d forgotten about if they were any good or not. Then you finally marry the string parts up with the orchestra and it’s such a buzz. All that excitement! All that white-knuckle ride! It’s like, there is nothing like it.
One of the things I really loved about Tumbleweed Connection was Elton’s funky piano playing.
”Amoreena” is an excellent example of this particular piano approach of his.
“Love Song” isn’t a John/Taupin original, but its presence on Tumbleweed Connection gives the album a special cinematic quality. For a few minutes, you feel like you are transported into another world. It is a favorite track for many longtime fans of Elton work.
Below is a good live solo performance of Elton doing “Where To Now St. Peter?” and a live trio performance of “Sixty Years On.” Enjoy!