Producer took cues from the late George Martin
AUSTIN, TEXAS— Barack and Michelle Obama are tough acts to follow, but revered producer Tony Visconti charmed the South by Southwest hordes on Thursday morning with an amiably rambling keynote address that dwelled long on his lifelong love of rock ’n’ roll and his friendship with the late David Bowie.
Visconti, of course, produced 14 of Bowie’s albums over the years, including this year’s smashing swan song Blackstar, the mention of which earned Visconti an enthusiastic round of applause from the doting — and seriously music-nerdy — crowd gathered in the Austin Convention Centre.
“I know I’m rambling on. I’ll get to the point where I met David Bowie,” he chuckled at one point, but it was just as interesting to hear Visconti talking about his teenage love of Fats Domino and Buddy Holly, and his early gigs playing weddings and bar mitzvahs as a budding young professional musician.
He also read aloud from a novel in progress that took some pointed jabs at the modern music industry by imagining a near future where a single record company controls all the music put out in the States and interchangeable pop stars are manufactured by lottery. Clearly, Visconti is not ready to coast into retirement. Some highlights from his speech: On the influence late Beatles producer George Martin had on his life choices: “I read that he was an oboe player, he was a consummate arranger and musician himself. He was older, but I didn’t hold that against him. And he worked with the Beatles. And I said: ‘That’s what I do. That’s what I’m gonna end up doing. I’m gonna be the person who knows all about music. I’m going to be the know-it-all in the situation. I’m going to be the record producer.’ And that prophecy came very true.”
On meeting the 19-year-old David Bowie, then still living with his parents, for the first time: “I walked into the room and thought, ‘Wow, he’s a nice-looking guy. But which eye do I look in?’ Because he had two different-coloured eyes, which is an immediately fascinating subject.
We got on great. We started talking about music and we loved the same music — we loved underground San Francisco music, we loved the Fuggs, we loved the Velvet Underground. We were kin, we were brothers . . . We became fast friends.” On how Gus Dudgeon, not Tony Visconti, wound up producing Bowie’s first big hit single: “I was a very pinko, idealistic young hippie in those days, and when I heard the song ‘Space Oddity’ I revolted. I said ‘What a cheap shot, David.’ It’s like writing a commercial: astronauts circling the moon and all that . . . I didn’t see that this was his breakthrough song. I didn’t see it. And I said, ‘I don’t want to do it, just on principle.’
On the current state of the music industry: “You know, there’s kind of a downward spiral and it’s been happening for awhile, where singles all sound the same, where sales aren’t that great, where people are streaming and if you get 20 mil-
“I walked into the room and thought, ‘Wow, he’s a nice-looking guy. But which eye do I look in?’ ” TONY VISCONTI ON MEETING DAVID BOWIE
lion streams you make enough for a nice steak dinner. Things are pretty bad.” On how he doesn’t mean to sound too cynical about the business: “What I really want to say is I lived in the best of times. I would get butterflies in my stomach when I would open a Beatles album or a Hendrix album or Led Zep or Blue by Joni Mitchell. Part of the reason it doesn’t happen much anymore is because I’ve been in the record business for a long time, and I am jaded and I also know how the sausage is made, which spoils a lot of fun when you listen to a record, especially when you hear a Pro Tools record.” On how he got to where he is today:“I’ve had a really charmed life. I worked my butt off. It didn’t come easy. You can be lucky once, you can be lucky twice. All the rest is rolling up your sleeves and doing hard work. And that’s why I’m standing in front of you now, I guess.”