Duane Allman's amp on Layla?
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twangking
Friend of Leo's
I think a tweed Princeton and Eric used a tweed champ.
I heard they both (EC and Duane) used tweed Champs.
Yeah, one of those Fender beginner amps for sure.
I read an interview (from decades later) where I think Clapton was asked if they both used Tweed Champs as the rumors all said for years, and his story was they both arrived having assumed the other would bring a great amp. But neither brought any amp.
So the interview story was that they sent somebody to a local guitar shop for a small Fender amp and what they got was a SF Princeton Reverb.
I repeated the story of Tweed Champs for years because it seems like a cool story and makes sense, those little screamers are great studio amps.
But later direct questioning got a conflicting answer.
Depending on the studio, could have been something like a Neve mic pre added to the sound.
So the interview story was that they sent somebody to a local guitar shop for a small Fender amp and what they got was a SF Princeton Reverb.
I repeated the story of Tweed Champs for years because it seems like a cool story and makes sense, those little screamers are great studio amps.
But later direct questioning got a conflicting answer.
Depending on the studio, could have been something like a Neve mic pre added to the sound.
Yeah I “knew Clapton used a tweed champ on Layla” for decades, but can we identify the source of that popularly known fact?
What I read later has to have been a pre internet GP mag interview by Molenda or one of those guys and maybe with Clapton, certainly not with long deceased Duane, while it could also have been an interview with someone else in the studio.
I just remember being surprised and annoyed to read it was some brand new SF amp.
After knowing something for a long time it’s hard to un-know it!
Could also be the interview saying new SF Princeton was a mistaken memory.
But what is the origin of everyone knowing it was a tweed champ?
Solid documented fact?
Or repeated plausible myth?
I have to say after listening to this clip, the Princeton seems more likely to my ear, even though the clip is not "Layla-ish" at all. I think even the story about both using the same model amp is plausible based on how different the Les Paul sounds thru it.
I guess the next question is how different a SF Princeton is from a Tweed version.
The legend I read was that for much of the album Eric and Duane used the same Tweed Champ at the same time- they each plugged into one of the inputs and then they put the volume on Full Tilt.
Note that I read it on the Internet, which is never ever wrong.
It sounds like a great story, but it doesn't seem very plausible.
Note that I read it on the Internet, which is never ever wrong.
It sounds like a great story, but it doesn't seem very plausible.
keithb7
Poster Extraordinaire
Experimenting:
rdjones
Tele-Afflicted
Delaney Bramlett hot-rodded VibroChamp with 6L6 and 10" speaker.
Last edited:
Bob Womack
Friend of Leo's
Some quotes from the Internet:
Quote:
In the Vintage Guitar article with Joe Bonamassa awhile back Joe says Tom Dowd told him the Layla album was a blackface Vibro-Champ running into a blackface Princeton Reverb with the volume all the way up, treble all the way up and bass all the way down.. I happen to love the guitar tones on that album.
OK, I found that quote. First time I've heard of that setup. It sounds like jumpered in parallel:
Quote:
He describes his blackface Fender Vibro-Champ and Princeton Reverb amps as "...my Layla rig. Tom Dowd said (Eric) Clapton used those two models to do the Layla album - he [connected] one to the other, turned the volume all the way up, treble all the way up, and the bass all the way down; that's the 'Layla' tone."
Then from an actual interview with Tom Dowd that was done by Alan Paul:
Quote:
Clapton and Allman were set up in the studio facing each other, looking one another in the eyes and playing live through small Fender amps--a Princeton and a Deluxe. “These guys weren’t wearing earphones,” Dowd recalls. “They were just playing softly through those little Fenders. If they talked while they were recording, you would have heard it over the amplifier. It’s funny, too because when I did Cream, Eric was playing through double stacks of Marshalls and it literally hurt to be in the room with those guys. When Eric showed up for Layla, he had a Champ under one arm and a Princeton under the other and that was it. He and Duane used those amps, switching back and forth.”
The two also often swapped guitars, with Clapton primarily playing a Strat, Allman a Les Paul. “They did whatever seemed best at the moment for a given part,” Dowd recalls. “It was never gonna happen again. It just happened and if you didn’t catch it, you blew it. The spontaneity of that whole session was absolutely frightening. A lot of it flew and then when they heard it, they’d say, ‘Oh man, here’s a part I gotta put in there.’ But it was not because it was misplaced the first time, but because they would have another flight of inspiration when they could step back and hear it. They had all this positive feedback to add. There was no jealousy or ego-type thing at all among them.”
Also, Dowd adds, contrary to ever-growing legend, there was no excessive drug use during the album’s actual recording: “We started sessions every day at 2:00 and everyone arrived clear eyed and ready to work. As I dismissed people, they may have floated away, but it did not interfere with the album. Even in his wildest moments, Eric arrived at the studio on time with his instrument in tune, ready to play -- and he would give absolute hell to anyone who didn’t. Eric and Duane shared that. They didn’t know each other from Adam before the sessions began, but they were both taskmasters. They didn’t give a damn what anyone did on their own time, but when they were in the studio, it was their time, and you better be ready to go.”
After approximately two weeks of recording, the band went out on the road and Duane returned to the Brothers, leaving Dowd to mix the album on his own. “I sent them cassettes and then Eric called and said they wanted to come back to alter a part on one or two songs and remix one song. When they returned--with Duane--among the things they had in mind was adding a piano part to ‘Layla’ and I thought, ‘Oh my god, where does it go? The song is tight as a drum’ I played them the cut, mixed, and they said, ‘Okay it’s going to go here and we’re going to do this and that.’
“I thought, ‘You’re all absolutely stark-raving mad. How are we going to get everyone to match the brilliance of what they did the first time and make it fit?’ But I had no choice, so we gave it a go.”
Drummer Jim Gordon, who played the coda’s piano part is credited with writing it as well, a fact which has been disputed over the years. Dowd says that no one ever explicitly told him who wrote the music, but Gordon played it beautifully, in one take.
“When I set up, I expected Bobby Whitlock to play the piano, but [drummer] Jim Gordon played it. I can’t say whether or not he wrote it, but he had it mastered; that part was in the end of his fingers. Duane’s guitar part on that coda is just absolutely intense and, of course, I was absolutely wrong about not being able to make the new part fit. We spliced it right in and it made the song. I knew immediately that we had something really, really special –as anyone would have.
“The whole session was just so damn impromptu and fly-by-the-seat-of-your- pants brilliant. It was just a wonderful experience to witness such meshing of musical minds, such telepathic sympathies. When we walked out, I told the band, ‘This is the best damn album I have done since The Genius of Ray Charles.’ And then the damn album didn’t sell for a year. We all knew how great it was --including everyone at Atlantic --but we couldn’t get arrested with it. That was very hard to understand, and very disappointing. Then a year later ‘Layla’ was like the national anthem. And that seemed appropriate.”
Then from a Sound on Sound interview with Dowd's apprentice engineer brothers Ron and Howard Albert:
Quote:
With their backs to the nine-foot Baldwin piano, Clapton and Allman sat side by side during the session. And what with the three other band members and all of their equipment, conditions were pretty cramped inside Criteria's Studio B live room.
"If you looked through the control-room glass, the piano was to the left," Howard Albert recalls, "and on top of the piano, which had the lid closed, were our [Fender Tweed] Champ amps that Eric and Duane both used."
"We had to be inventive," adds Ron. "The room was not a large space, so what we had to do was figure out a way to get everybody in there. The piano took up most of the space along one wall, and cue systems in those days were pretty basic. We only had one stereo send and it was hard for everybody to hear themselves, so for acoustic purposes we used the little Champ amps because they wouldn't make a lot of sound in the room, enabling us to get isolation between the drums and the piano and the guitarists. However, since Duane and Eric couldn't hear themselves with the live drums, live piano, B3 and so on, Howard or I came up with the idea to place [AKG] 414 mics inside the piano on some foam, close the lid and then completely encase the piano with three layers of quilts and a roll of gaffer tape."
A combination of Shure SM57s and Electrovoice 635s were employed on the guitar amps, while on the other side of the room sat Bobby Whitlock's Hammond B3 and a sole Leslie speaker, miked with a couple of SM57s at the top and another at the bottom. In the far-left corner of the room was a round drum booth — likened by the Alberts to a space capsule — inside which Jimmy Gordon's kit was recorded with a telescopic Sony ECM51 on the hi-hat, a pair of Neumann U47s overhead, a Neumann KM84 on the snare, an Altec 633 'Salt Shaker' on the bass drum and Neumann U87s on the toms. Carl Radle was positioned next to the booth, his bass DI'd.
So the picture is gradually being drawn, if a little fuzzy at times. I learn a little bit more each time one of these Layla threads come up....more pieces to the puzzle. Certainly there are some discrepancies in the exact setups, so we may never know the "exact" guitar-amp setup but that album was all about emotion and the performance anyway. I think Tom Dowd captured it beautifully."
Bob
Quote:
In the Vintage Guitar article with Joe Bonamassa awhile back Joe says Tom Dowd told him the Layla album was a blackface Vibro-Champ running into a blackface Princeton Reverb with the volume all the way up, treble all the way up and bass all the way down.. I happen to love the guitar tones on that album.
OK, I found that quote. First time I've heard of that setup. It sounds like jumpered in parallel:
Quote:
He describes his blackface Fender Vibro-Champ and Princeton Reverb amps as "...my Layla rig. Tom Dowd said (Eric) Clapton used those two models to do the Layla album - he [connected] one to the other, turned the volume all the way up, treble all the way up, and the bass all the way down; that's the 'Layla' tone."
Then from an actual interview with Tom Dowd that was done by Alan Paul:
Quote:
Clapton and Allman were set up in the studio facing each other, looking one another in the eyes and playing live through small Fender amps--a Princeton and a Deluxe. “These guys weren’t wearing earphones,” Dowd recalls. “They were just playing softly through those little Fenders. If they talked while they were recording, you would have heard it over the amplifier. It’s funny, too because when I did Cream, Eric was playing through double stacks of Marshalls and it literally hurt to be in the room with those guys. When Eric showed up for Layla, he had a Champ under one arm and a Princeton under the other and that was it. He and Duane used those amps, switching back and forth.”
The two also often swapped guitars, with Clapton primarily playing a Strat, Allman a Les Paul. “They did whatever seemed best at the moment for a given part,” Dowd recalls. “It was never gonna happen again. It just happened and if you didn’t catch it, you blew it. The spontaneity of that whole session was absolutely frightening. A lot of it flew and then when they heard it, they’d say, ‘Oh man, here’s a part I gotta put in there.’ But it was not because it was misplaced the first time, but because they would have another flight of inspiration when they could step back and hear it. They had all this positive feedback to add. There was no jealousy or ego-type thing at all among them.”
Also, Dowd adds, contrary to ever-growing legend, there was no excessive drug use during the album’s actual recording: “We started sessions every day at 2:00 and everyone arrived clear eyed and ready to work. As I dismissed people, they may have floated away, but it did not interfere with the album. Even in his wildest moments, Eric arrived at the studio on time with his instrument in tune, ready to play -- and he would give absolute hell to anyone who didn’t. Eric and Duane shared that. They didn’t know each other from Adam before the sessions began, but they were both taskmasters. They didn’t give a damn what anyone did on their own time, but when they were in the studio, it was their time, and you better be ready to go.”
After approximately two weeks of recording, the band went out on the road and Duane returned to the Brothers, leaving Dowd to mix the album on his own. “I sent them cassettes and then Eric called and said they wanted to come back to alter a part on one or two songs and remix one song. When they returned--with Duane--among the things they had in mind was adding a piano part to ‘Layla’ and I thought, ‘Oh my god, where does it go? The song is tight as a drum’ I played them the cut, mixed, and they said, ‘Okay it’s going to go here and we’re going to do this and that.’
“I thought, ‘You’re all absolutely stark-raving mad. How are we going to get everyone to match the brilliance of what they did the first time and make it fit?’ But I had no choice, so we gave it a go.”
Drummer Jim Gordon, who played the coda’s piano part is credited with writing it as well, a fact which has been disputed over the years. Dowd says that no one ever explicitly told him who wrote the music, but Gordon played it beautifully, in one take.
“When I set up, I expected Bobby Whitlock to play the piano, but [drummer] Jim Gordon played it. I can’t say whether or not he wrote it, but he had it mastered; that part was in the end of his fingers. Duane’s guitar part on that coda is just absolutely intense and, of course, I was absolutely wrong about not being able to make the new part fit. We spliced it right in and it made the song. I knew immediately that we had something really, really special –as anyone would have.
“The whole session was just so damn impromptu and fly-by-the-seat-of-your- pants brilliant. It was just a wonderful experience to witness such meshing of musical minds, such telepathic sympathies. When we walked out, I told the band, ‘This is the best damn album I have done since The Genius of Ray Charles.’ And then the damn album didn’t sell for a year. We all knew how great it was --including everyone at Atlantic --but we couldn’t get arrested with it. That was very hard to understand, and very disappointing. Then a year later ‘Layla’ was like the national anthem. And that seemed appropriate.”
Then from a Sound on Sound interview with Dowd's apprentice engineer brothers Ron and Howard Albert:
Quote:
With their backs to the nine-foot Baldwin piano, Clapton and Allman sat side by side during the session. And what with the three other band members and all of their equipment, conditions were pretty cramped inside Criteria's Studio B live room.
"If you looked through the control-room glass, the piano was to the left," Howard Albert recalls, "and on top of the piano, which had the lid closed, were our [Fender Tweed] Champ amps that Eric and Duane both used."
"We had to be inventive," adds Ron. "The room was not a large space, so what we had to do was figure out a way to get everybody in there. The piano took up most of the space along one wall, and cue systems in those days were pretty basic. We only had one stereo send and it was hard for everybody to hear themselves, so for acoustic purposes we used the little Champ amps because they wouldn't make a lot of sound in the room, enabling us to get isolation between the drums and the piano and the guitarists. However, since Duane and Eric couldn't hear themselves with the live drums, live piano, B3 and so on, Howard or I came up with the idea to place [AKG] 414 mics inside the piano on some foam, close the lid and then completely encase the piano with three layers of quilts and a roll of gaffer tape."
A combination of Shure SM57s and Electrovoice 635s were employed on the guitar amps, while on the other side of the room sat Bobby Whitlock's Hammond B3 and a sole Leslie speaker, miked with a couple of SM57s at the top and another at the bottom. In the far-left corner of the room was a round drum booth — likened by the Alberts to a space capsule — inside which Jimmy Gordon's kit was recorded with a telescopic Sony ECM51 on the hi-hat, a pair of Neumann U47s overhead, a Neumann KM84 on the snare, an Altec 633 'Salt Shaker' on the bass drum and Neumann U87s on the toms. Carl Radle was positioned next to the booth, his bass DI'd.
So the picture is gradually being drawn, if a little fuzzy at times. I learn a little bit more each time one of these Layla threads come up....more pieces to the puzzle. Certainly there are some discrepancies in the exact setups, so we may never know the "exact" guitar-amp setup but that album was all about emotion and the performance anyway. I think Tom Dowd captured it beautifully."
Bob
PBO Blues
Tele-Afflicted
Marvelous! Thanks for the research and the sharing. A fun read.
Amazing post.
It's generally accepted it was a 5F1 Tweed or possibly the black tolex 61/62 version of that amp plus a BF Princeton Reverb. It's possible a SF was used as the two would be virtually indistinguishable.
Allegedly Allman and Clapton swapped amps depending on who was playing what part.
When you record amps speaker size is immaterial.
Many people are surprised to discover for instance that Elliott Randall used a stock 63 Strat into the only amp in the studio when he turned up to play the lead on 'Reelin' in the Years'. An Ampeg SVT bass amp. Huge, clean. Active controls.
So they cranked everything on the amp to get whatever breakup they could. Then they peaked it into the desk.
Allegedly Allman and Clapton swapped amps depending on who was playing what part.
When you record amps speaker size is immaterial.
Many people are surprised to discover for instance that Elliott Randall used a stock 63 Strat into the only amp in the studio when he turned up to play the lead on 'Reelin' in the Years'. An Ampeg SVT bass amp. Huge, clean. Active controls.
So they cranked everything on the amp to get whatever breakup they could. Then they peaked it into the desk.
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@Bob Womack , that is awesome research; I hadn't seen those. I especially like the Albert brothers' and of course the Tom Dowd first-hand versions. For another take on Tom Dowd's telling, I had this from a 2001 interview in TQR. It's very similar to the Alan Paul interview, but not identical.
I don't have the print version, but I'll cite the online reproduction where I accessed it some years back. If it's TL/DR, I highlight the tweed reference, and a note about a small Gibson... I'll paste in the whole thing, since it complements what you and @Dacious have noted.
Tom Dowd interview re Layla in the ‘Clapton’ issue of ToneQuest Report
(VOL. 2 NO. 11 - SEPTEMBER 2001)
From http://www.angelfire.com/blues/remedy/producer.html
Interview with Producer of Layla Album Tom Dowd:
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs was recorded with Tom Dowd at Criteria Studios in Miami, and the album was destined to become one of the greatest rock records of all time. Dowd described the experience in an August 2001 interview with ToneQuest publisher David Wilson.
Dowd: I’m doing Idlewild South here in Miami with The Brothers, and I don't usually take calls during sessions, but this one I had to take because it's Stigwood, and he says, "Eric has put a new band together and he'd like to record, and he's wondering if you have time..." I said, "Sure, we'll work it out. Well, Duane came into the control room, and I said, “Duane, I'm sorry, but that was Eric Clapton's manager and I had to take the call." Duane says, "You mean the guy in Cream?" He starts playing me Cream licks. "Man, are you going to record him? Oh, man, yeah, man, I gotta meet him," and on and on, so I told Duane I'd try to set something up. Well, Eric and Carl Radle, Jim Gordon and Bobby Whitlock eventually show up, and I had alerted the staff at Criteria that this was going to be brutal-bring earmuffs, because these guys would be showing up with double stacks of Marshalls and God knows what. And when they showed up, they had a tweed champ and a Princeton,and Radle has a piggyback Ampeg B15, and I'm thinking, "Whoaaaaaah, what the hell is going on here?" Now, they were not prepared...they had lots of ideas, but nothing solid. That's why the record company included all of the outtakes when they issued the digitally remastered CD, because I was recording everything the entire time they were in the studio. As I think back on it, I made the comment that if anybody walked into that studio with squeaky shoes, we'd blow a take. That's how quiet they were. They weren't wearing earphones, so that everybody could hear each other-Jim Gordon could hear everything that everyone else was playing in the room, and that's the way it went. I couldn't believe what I was listening to, and they completely relished it. One or two days went by and I was recording everything that transpired so that I could play it back and say, "Hey, that would make a hell of a bridge for that other song you were playing." or something like that.
Then I got a call from Duane, and he says, "Are they there? I'm playing in Miami tonight, and can I come up after?" So I mention Duane to Eric and he says, "You mean the guy who played on Wilson Pickett's 'Hey Jude?' We have to go see them." So I took the band down to this outdoor concert, and the crew for the Allman Brothers snuck us in on our hands and knees to the front of the stage right in front of the barricade, and we're sitting on the ground watching Duane playing a solo. All of a sudden he looks down and sees Clapton and his eyes bug out and he just stops playing. Dickie looks, and he figures Duane has broken a string or his amp's blown up, so he starts playing a solo, and all hell breaks loose. I'm really giggling, and they finally regained their composure and finished the show. Then we all went back to the studio and they jammed until two in the afternoon. Duane and Eric are playing, and Eric would say, "Man, how did you do that?" and Duane would show him licks, and they were swapping guitars...Greg Allman and Bobby are trading off between piano and organ, Gordon and Jaimoe are trading places. It was great. They did the damn album in ten days, and same as before, they left, and then they came back and that's when they said that they had this piano part that they wanted to add to the end of Layla. I put the tape on the machine, and as brazen as I was, we got the sound from the original take matched up well enough that day that I just punched in the ending with the band(laughs). We had them playing the song and the original was rolling on the tape, and we just punched it in on cue."
TQR: Was Duane using a small amp, too? ...
Yes, he was using one of those little old brown Gibson amps, just like the one that Jimi Hall used. He could make that things talk.
TQR: Did they cut many of the vocals live?
For "I Looked Away" (Tom Dowd says, "I looked Away" but I’ve read many books stating it was actually "Thorn Tree In The Garden") they sat Indian style on the floor in a circle with two omnidirectional mikes in the center and they sang and played the whole thing live. But they did live pilots on everything, and they'd say, "Well, save that, and if we don't get a better take later, we might be able to use that." This was also where Eric and I had our first major 'conversation,’ if you know what I mean. After I had mixed the record, he said that the vocals were mixed much too loud. I said, "You don't realize that your record is going to get played on the radio alongside Mick Jagger – whomever -- and the vocal has to be out in front. Eric's biggest problem was his insecurity about his singing, but he was a brilliant singer. I knew from Disraeli, where there were songs when he and jack would alternate lines and no one could tell that Jack had stopped singing. You couldn't tell the difference.
TQR: How did you feel about Layla?
It literally died for a year after it was released. I thought it was the best work I had done in ten years -- since Ray Charles -- and I thought how embarrassing it would have been to have failed with such artistry and musicianship on that record. Thank god for Atlantic's marketing people, because they never gave up on it and eventually it became the national anthem of rock records.
I don't have the print version, but I'll cite the online reproduction where I accessed it some years back. If it's TL/DR, I highlight the tweed reference, and a note about a small Gibson... I'll paste in the whole thing, since it complements what you and @Dacious have noted.
Tom Dowd interview re Layla in the ‘Clapton’ issue of ToneQuest Report
(VOL. 2 NO. 11 - SEPTEMBER 2001)
From http://www.angelfire.com/blues/remedy/producer.html
Interview with Producer of Layla Album Tom Dowd:
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs was recorded with Tom Dowd at Criteria Studios in Miami, and the album was destined to become one of the greatest rock records of all time. Dowd described the experience in an August 2001 interview with ToneQuest publisher David Wilson.
Dowd: I’m doing Idlewild South here in Miami with The Brothers, and I don't usually take calls during sessions, but this one I had to take because it's Stigwood, and he says, "Eric has put a new band together and he'd like to record, and he's wondering if you have time..." I said, "Sure, we'll work it out. Well, Duane came into the control room, and I said, “Duane, I'm sorry, but that was Eric Clapton's manager and I had to take the call." Duane says, "You mean the guy in Cream?" He starts playing me Cream licks. "Man, are you going to record him? Oh, man, yeah, man, I gotta meet him," and on and on, so I told Duane I'd try to set something up. Well, Eric and Carl Radle, Jim Gordon and Bobby Whitlock eventually show up, and I had alerted the staff at Criteria that this was going to be brutal-bring earmuffs, because these guys would be showing up with double stacks of Marshalls and God knows what. And when they showed up, they had a tweed champ and a Princeton,and Radle has a piggyback Ampeg B15, and I'm thinking, "Whoaaaaaah, what the hell is going on here?" Now, they were not prepared...they had lots of ideas, but nothing solid. That's why the record company included all of the outtakes when they issued the digitally remastered CD, because I was recording everything the entire time they were in the studio. As I think back on it, I made the comment that if anybody walked into that studio with squeaky shoes, we'd blow a take. That's how quiet they were. They weren't wearing earphones, so that everybody could hear each other-Jim Gordon could hear everything that everyone else was playing in the room, and that's the way it went. I couldn't believe what I was listening to, and they completely relished it. One or two days went by and I was recording everything that transpired so that I could play it back and say, "Hey, that would make a hell of a bridge for that other song you were playing." or something like that.
Then I got a call from Duane, and he says, "Are they there? I'm playing in Miami tonight, and can I come up after?" So I mention Duane to Eric and he says, "You mean the guy who played on Wilson Pickett's 'Hey Jude?' We have to go see them." So I took the band down to this outdoor concert, and the crew for the Allman Brothers snuck us in on our hands and knees to the front of the stage right in front of the barricade, and we're sitting on the ground watching Duane playing a solo. All of a sudden he looks down and sees Clapton and his eyes bug out and he just stops playing. Dickie looks, and he figures Duane has broken a string or his amp's blown up, so he starts playing a solo, and all hell breaks loose. I'm really giggling, and they finally regained their composure and finished the show. Then we all went back to the studio and they jammed until two in the afternoon. Duane and Eric are playing, and Eric would say, "Man, how did you do that?" and Duane would show him licks, and they were swapping guitars...Greg Allman and Bobby are trading off between piano and organ, Gordon and Jaimoe are trading places. It was great. They did the damn album in ten days, and same as before, they left, and then they came back and that's when they said that they had this piano part that they wanted to add to the end of Layla. I put the tape on the machine, and as brazen as I was, we got the sound from the original take matched up well enough that day that I just punched in the ending with the band(laughs). We had them playing the song and the original was rolling on the tape, and we just punched it in on cue."
TQR: Was Duane using a small amp, too? ...
Yes, he was using one of those little old brown Gibson amps, just like the one that Jimi Hall used. He could make that things talk.
TQR: Did they cut many of the vocals live?
For "I Looked Away" (Tom Dowd says, "I looked Away" but I’ve read many books stating it was actually "Thorn Tree In The Garden") they sat Indian style on the floor in a circle with two omnidirectional mikes in the center and they sang and played the whole thing live. But they did live pilots on everything, and they'd say, "Well, save that, and if we don't get a better take later, we might be able to use that." This was also where Eric and I had our first major 'conversation,’ if you know what I mean. After I had mixed the record, he said that the vocals were mixed much too loud. I said, "You don't realize that your record is going to get played on the radio alongside Mick Jagger – whomever -- and the vocal has to be out in front. Eric's biggest problem was his insecurity about his singing, but he was a brilliant singer. I knew from Disraeli, where there were songs when he and jack would alternate lines and no one could tell that Jack had stopped singing. You couldn't tell the difference.
TQR: How did you feel about Layla?
It literally died for a year after it was released. I thought it was the best work I had done in ten years -- since Ray Charles -- and I thought how embarrassing it would have been to have failed with such artistry and musicianship on that record. Thank god for Atlantic's marketing people, because they never gave up on it and eventually it became the national anthem of rock records.
Last edited:
Willie Johnson
Friend of Leo's
I didn't realize that the album was a late-bloomer that didn't sell at initial release--that's interesting.
LostGonzo85
Tele-Afflicted
Great stuff in this thread!
dkmw
Poster Extraordinaire
Nobody (almost) knew what it was at first. It took a while for word to get out. I’ll never forget the first time I heard the album. It was summer of 71, a good six months after release. And I thought I was up on things… But I was just sixteen and only thought I knew a lot of things lol.
