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    Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits With the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces…
    Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits With the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces…
    Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits With the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces…
    Audiobook6 hours

    Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits With the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces…

    Written by Glyn Johns

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Born just outside London in 1942, Glyn Johns was sixteen years old at the dawn of rock and roll. His big break as a producer came on the Steve Miller Band's debut album, Children of the Future, and he went on to engineer or produce iconic albums for the best in the business including Abbey Road with the Beatles. Even more impressive, Johns was perhaps the only person on a given day in the studio who was entirely sober, and so he is one of the most reliable and clear-eyed insiders to tell these stories today.

    In this entertaining and observant memoir, Johns takes us on a tour of his world during the heady years of the sixties. He remembers helping to get the Steve Miller Band released from jail shortly after their arrival in London, he recalls his impressions of John and Yoko during the Let It Be sessions, and he recounts running into Bob Dylan at JFK and being asked to work on a collaborative album with him, the Stones, and the Beatles, which never came to pass. Johns was there during some of the most iconic moments in rock history, including the Stones' first European tour, and the Beatles' final performance on the roof of their Savile Row recording studio.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 26, 2015
    ISBN9781494583026
    Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits With the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces…

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    Reviews for Sound Man

    4/5

    51 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 4/5
      A very quick book to listen to. Some fun behind the scenes rock music history plus a great POV from someone who has been in the business their entire life. If you love music and history, I think you will enjoy this book.
    • 5/5
      Well written, with knowledgeable insight into music business and personalities.
    • 2/5
      Well, I was hoping...

      When someone with almost six decades of experience in the music recording field writes a book about his time engineering most of the biggest and most influential bands on the planet, this is an opportunity to really dig down into those experiences. I mean, this is the guy that sat at the board while the Beatles were breaking up, while the Who recorded Won't Get Fooled Again, while Led Zeppelin and the Eagles recorded their first albums, and the Stones were putting out albums like Sticky Fingers...

      It takes an almost conscious effort to actually make these events uninteresting and unentertaining, yet Johns manages it.

      How?

      By giving an almost bullet-list overview of who he worked with and when, and a small, anecdotal toss-off of one event from the recording. Mostly about how he had a mistaken impression about one of the artists, who turned out to be better in some way than he originally expected.

      This could have easily been three spellbinding books. Instead, it's a wasted opportunity from Johns, and mostly a wasted experience for the reader.
    • 4/5
      Some interesting stories here but he’s too much of a gentleman to dish much dirt.
    • 3/5
      How can a man with John’s experience and background have nothing interesting whatsoever to say about it? He passes over Hendrix and Zeppelin in a sentence, and doesn’t even have much to say about the Rolling Stones whom he worked closely with at the peak of their notoriety. It seems like he is mortally afraid of upsettting anybody and mostly sticks to lists of names and dates. We don’t even learn anything of much consequence about the author himself. Yawn.
    • 3/5
      An enjoyable memoir by the recording engineer/producer who worked with some of the most important artists in the history of rock 'n' roll. Johns's behind-the-scenes observations are interesting but he never goes much beyond the "I was there" recollections. I would have liked to have known more about his actual involvement in creating so much great music over the decades.
    • 3/5
      Legendary rock producer Glyn John's memoir, "Sound Man," is a good book, but it could have been much better. It's full of interesting stories about some of popular music's giants from the 60's, 70's and into the 80's (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Who, Eagles, Steve Miller Band, Wings, and the Clash are just some of the artists whose recordings Johns engineered or produced). Most of the stories lack much depth, though, and the whole book needs the touch of a skilled editor. In other words, ironically enough, this book could have used a good producer. Still, for fans of Johns' work and the artists he collaborated with during a crucial era in popular music, "Sound Man" is worth reading.
    • 3/5
      Reviewing memoirs is always a challenge for me. Obviously the "story" is personal, and I don't feel it's my place to judge the content the writer chooses to include or leave out. That being said, this book wasn't what I expected. While Johns worked with some of the best known early rock bands, we learn little about what those bands were like to work with or even Johns' opinion of them and their music.Before I go further into that, I do want to say the writing itself flows well. Johns' style is conversational, and reading this book is much like sitting down listening to him talk. There is nothing pretentious here.Of all the bands mentioned, Johns seems to favor The Rolling Stones. This is the only band that he shares details about beyond the mixing of their albums. We get some behind the scenes insight, as well as a few funny anecdotes. Though even here he stops short of anything too personal. He tells us that Mick Jagger rented a plane to bring Johns and many others to his wedding to Bianca in Nice, but tells us absolutely nothing about that experience. Almost every other band and musician mentioned offers us nothing more than a look at the songs and albums worked on, the studio used, and the techniques. For instance, he mentions abruptly quitting his work on Paul McCartney's Red Rose Speedway album, though he does not give even a hint as to why. He worked on Led Zeppelin's first album, but says nothing about what the band was like in those early days. And despite the information on albums he worked on with the Eagles, all I learned about his experiences with them is that Glenn Frey was irritated because Johns didn't allow alcohol or drugs in the studio. During a time when alcohol and drugs were in prominent use, particularly within the music industry, I would have liked to know a little more about why Johns made such a stand against using himself and against allowing anyone around him to use. I also never got a clear sense of Johns' own musical taste, nor did Johns share how or if certain music affected him. His career climbed alongside some of the best, most influential bands in history, but I closed the book without knowing what that was like for the man in the mixing booth. The couple of times he did make a personal observation had more to do with travel than the music. And, given his broad and derogatory remarks, readers in New York and a couple other areas might find his words offensive. Throughout this book, I would have liked more substance. I would have liked more personal insight, something that would make this more a memoir and less a chronology of events. But, as I said at the start, this was not my story to tell. While it didn't quite work for me, I'm sure other readers will find the content fascinating.** I received this book free from Blue Rider Press via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. **