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Takes From the Top: Recording Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Sounds of Silence’
A look at the vehicle that propelled the duo to popularity and cemented them into the public consciousness.
Takes from the Top: The Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies
Armed with a stack of Ray Davies demos and a million dollars in advance money, in August 1971 the Kinks entered London’s Morgan Studios and emerged three months later with…
Takes from the Top: Badfinger’s ‘No Dice’
The accents were Liverpudlian, the songs were convincingly Fab. By the time sessions for 1970’s “No Dice” were complete, Badfinger - guitarist Pete Ham, bassist Tom Evans, lead guitarist Joey…
Takes from the Top: The Ramones’ Rocket to Russia
Though it yielded but one minor hit and was virtually ignored by mainstream radio, 1977’s Rocket to Russia became the most successful effort to date for the Ramones, a band…
Takes from the Top: The Beatles’ Revolver and Abbey Road
Revolver, issued in mid-1966, and Abbey Road, released three years later, trace the creative metamorphosis of the Beatles from the pre-self-consciousness of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to the…
Takes from the Top: The Smithereens’ ‘Green Thoughts’
Recorded in just two weeks in late 1987, Green Thoughts - a set of molten, melancholic rock from New Jersey’s the Smithereens-still stands as one of the most powerful collections…
Jay Ferguson on Writing TV Themes
First entering the public consciousness as lead singer of jazz-rock band Spirit and scoring a hit as a solo artist with 1978’s Thunder Island, Jay Ferguson has for the past…
Tales From the Top: The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers (1971)
In late 1969, Sheffield, Alabama’s Muscle Shoals Sound - a former casket factory conveniently located next to a graveyard - was still a shoestring operation with just one hit to…
Tales From the Top: Recording Pink’s ‘Get the Party Started’ (2001)
For those who fantasize about creating a worldwide smash from the privacy of their basement studio, Pink’s 2001 breakthrough hit “Get the Party Started” - and the rest of her…
Tales From the Top: Van Halen’s ‘Van Halen’ (1978)
The air-brushed album cover looked silly, an over-the-top rendering of “You Really Got Me” disgusted many a Kinks fan - and yet on their massive-sounding Warner Brothers debut, Southern California’s…1 of 4 |
