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Rare classic rock interview with the namesake British recording engineer/producer of the Alan Parsons Project, whose 1977 second album in collaboration with composer the late Eric Woolfson was once again based on a famous literary work, this time the Isaac Asimov science fiction classic “I, Robot”.
Preparing this interview with Black Crowes co-founders singer Chris Robinson and his younger guitar-playing brother Rich Robinson to mark their second release, “The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion”, the deja vu was uncanny and not a little bit unsettling. Constantly I had to remind myself that the trends these Atlanta natives were seeing in the mid-1990s, and the predictions they made then, sound eerily like today’s headlines. Peering now into their spyglass in reverse, it is both remarkable in its accuracy but, I must admit, troubling in its sense of creeping inevitability.
The Black Crowes’ finest hour may have been their benefit performance for the shell-shocked innocent citizens of Oklahoma City following the worst terrorist attack in the US April 19,1995.
Jimi Hendrix mutated rock’s DNA & we have been trying to decode the Hendrix genome for more than half a century ever since “Are You Experienced?” was released in the UK May 1967. Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer the late Mitch Mitchell, Hendrix recording engineer Eddie Kramer, & expert Hendrix biographer/ archive producer John McDermott are my guests In the Studio..
Former singer/ songwriter co-founder Donnie Van Zant and original 38 Special lead guitarist Jeff Carlisi recall band headquarters in an abandoned auto parts garage in a swamp to work up songs, all paying dues that would result in their fifth album,”Special Forces”, selling multi-platinum in May 1982. Donnie Van Zant & Jeff Carlisi recall “Caught Up in You”,”You Keep Running Away”,”Back Door Stranger”, & “Chain Lightning” In the Studio.
British blues-rock foursome Foghat’s “Fool for the City” album 50 years ago, with the title song plus “Slow Ride”, dominated American FM airplay from its release in September 1975 all through the following year (#20 Billboard). Foghat were four British electric bluesmen who comprised the most successful limb of the sprawling Savoy Brown musical family tree, albeit that success almost exclusively in North America. This is a bittersweet edition of In the Studio as both of my guests in this classic rock interview, Foghat co-founding guitarist/singer/songwriter Lonesome Dave Peverett and slide guitarist/songwriter Rod Price, have since passed away.
It was the latter-Eighties, and rolling the streets of Dallas/Ft.Worth at night felt less like a big-block muscle car and just right in a fire-engine red BMW M3, moonroof open, with The Cult “Love” cassette alternatelyly jammed in the dash player blasting “She Sells Sanctuary”and “Rain” with the follow up in April 1987, “Electric”, slamming “Love Removal Machine”,”Wild Flower”, and “Lil Devil”. The Cult guitarist/songwriter Billy Duffy is my guest In the Studio.
When artist manager-turned-media mogul David Geffen started his first Los Angeles-based record label Asylum Records, his first signing was Jackson Browne and his third deal was with the Eagles. Who was Geffen’s second signing? Hometown heroes Jo Jo Gunne. marking the golden anniversary of that first ( and in songwriting, their best ) 1972 album Jo Jo Gunne, singer/songwrite/pianist Jay Ferguson reveals all kinds of influences when he told me, “If Sly and the Family Stone and Little Feat had a love child, it would have been Jo Jo Gunne!” Here In the Studio Jay tells the innocent tale of “Run Run Run”,”Shake That Fat”,”Babylon”,” 99 Days”,”Barstow Blue Eyes”, and”Take It Easy”.
“So Happy It Hurts” is the Canadian rocker’s fifteenth (!) studio album, and he’s not even old enough to get the Early Bird Special down at Denny’s. Adams became a star way back in late 1984 with “Reckless”, one of the Eighties’ biggest sellers, then in 1991 absolutely crushed it with “Waking Up the Neighbours”, an all-time biggest selling album in history. Bryan Adams’ seventh studio album, “18 ‘Til I Die” , was a #1 seller in the UK and Top Five sales internationally. But when “18 ‘Til I Die” came out in June 1996, US rock radio programmers decided, in spite of the music actually on the album to the contrary, to brand Bryan Adams a love song balladeer, not rock enough, not alternative enough, not cool enough. Adams finally addresses the issue with tongue firmly in cheek on the song “Kick Ass” from “So Happy It Hurts” with the help of the brilliant British pillar of Python humor, John Cleese, who has been skewering pompous pundits for half a century. Also listen to the infectious “Never Gonna Rain Again” which could be Bryan Adams’ next big hit.
Asia was the 1980s’ first “supergroup”, including Emerson Lake and Palmer drummer Carl Palmer, former King Crimson/ Roxy Music / UK singer/ bass player the late John Wetton, Buggles vid-kid Geoff Downes on keyboards, and YES guitarist Steve Howe. Their March 1982 debut hit #1 in America on both the album sales chart and the singles for “Heat of the Moment”. Asia debut #1 album of 1982 here In the Studio with Carl Palmer,Geoff Downes, the late John Wetton.