WHAM BAM THANK YOU, MA’AM!
“WE HAD TWO WEEKS TO MAKE AN ALBUM!”
Even a cursory glance at producer/engineer Ken Scott’s resume is bound to fill someone with a sense of awe. Among the iconic artists he’s worked with are the likes of the Beatles, Elton John, Jeff Beck, Lou Reed and Harry Nilsson. During the early ’70s, Scott was the go-to man behind the console for the crème de la crème of British rock royalty. George Harrison tapped him to engineer his classic All Things Must Pass, and John Lennon followed suit for his Imagine album.
Astonishingly, if one were to have told Scott in 1972 that a half-century later he would be reminiscing about any of the albums he was recording, he would have laughed his head off. “I think I would have found the whole thing ludicrous,” he says. “We never thought anything we were doing had any kind of longevity,” he says. “It’s not that we didn’t think the music was any good; it’s just that we were constantly moving on to the next thing.”
Among the records Scott had a hand in during those heady days of the early ’70s are four epochal (and star-making) David Bowie albums that he engineered and co-produced with the singer-songwriter: 1971’s Hunky Dory, 1972’s The Rise and, and 1973’s and s. Viewed in the rearview mirror, the variety of musical styles that mercurial artist flirted with, absorbed and even pioneered on these records — there’s folk, dancehall, pop, art rock, glam, garage rock and proto-punk — now feels nothing less than remarkable. But as Scott recalls, “The idea that we were doing something historic never entered our minds. Back then, recording contracts called for two albums a year. When we made a record, we thought, If this lasts for six months, then we’ve done our job correctly.”
