Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits with The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles , Eric Clapton, the Faces . . .

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Sound Man is an intimate, humorous journey through the corridors of the music industry, as told by one of the greatest record producers of all time. He brought out the best in us, and as a result that album [ Slowhand] has great playing and a great atmosphere. Legendary producer/engineer Glyn Johns’ autobiography Sound Man is filled with cool stories about creating classic albums with dozens of household names. Occasionally we get something as radical as: “I didn’t care for his attitude so I decided I wouldn’t work with him again, but later it worked out” (my summary, not an actual quote).

Glenn Frey describes working with Johns in Marc Eliot’s To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles; “He was a complete tyrant.Now the 72-year-old Brit has written Sound Man, his engaging and wryly amusing memoirs, with fascinating snapshots of the legends he has worked with.

In 1959 at the age of 17, Johns left school, and with Mayhew and Golding formed the band the Presidents.Over the course of his incredible career, Johns helped create some of rock’s most iconic albums, including those by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, the Eagles, the Who, the Clash, and, more recently, Ryan Adams and Band of Horses. The reader is left to wonder how that would have come out since it never went farther than the proposed idea. Still, the moments that he allows glimpses into his life outside of the studio and the tenderness that he expresses for his close relations leaves you wishing he had included more. However, Charlie summed it up perfectly when asked in a recent interview his experience of being in the band for fifty years.

At Johns' suggestion, Swettenham later went on to form Helios Electronics in 1969 (with record executive/entrepreneur Chris Blackwell). I had been retained originally as an engineer and was quite happy with that, even when I realized that George Martin was not producing. Glyn Johns was the most sought after sound engineer at the time when the recording industry was just exploding in the early 60s in London.I have often been given credit for this, but in fact the method used to achieve it was discovered by my assistant at the time, George Chkiantz, who demonstrated it to me as I arrived for the session. Glyn Johns spent his life working as an engineer and producer for the most successful bands to emerge from the classic rock era. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.