Ken Scott

From Wikipedia:

Ken Scott (born 20 April 1947) is a British record producer and engineer known for being one of the five main engineers for the Beatles, as well as engineering Elton John, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Duran Duran, the Jeff Beck Group and many more. As a producer, Scott is noted for his work with David Bowie, Supertramp, Devo, Kansas, the Tubes, Ronnie Montrose, Level 42, among others.

Scott was also influential in the evolution of jazz rock, pioneering a harder rock sound through his work with Mahavishnu Orchestra, Stanley Clarke, Billy Cobham, Dixie Dregs, and Jeff Beck.

Early years

Scott was born in South London, and grew up listening to 78 rpm records of artists like Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, and Eddie Cochran on a wind-up gramophone. In 1959 at the age of 12, he received a tape recorder which he used to record material from the BBC Light Programme Pick of the Pops, but it was an episode of Here Come the Girls, an Alan Freeman-hosted TV show about British female pop artists in recording studios, that first focused Scott’s career aspirations as a recording engineer when it featured Carol Deene singing in a recording session from the point of view of Studio Two at Abbey Road Studios, where Malcolm Addey was behind the recording console.

The Abbey Road years

On Saturday, 18 January 1964, Scott wrote letters inquiring about recording engineer job openings and mailed them to several London recording studios. Three days later he was contacted by Abbey Road Studios and subsequently interviewed and offered a position the following day. Scott began working the following Monday at the age of just 16. He received the traditional Abbey Road studio training under engineers like Malcolm Addey and Norman Smith. His first job was in the tape library, and within six months he was promoted to 2nd engineer (known then as a “button pusher”), where his first session was on side two of the Beatles’ album A Hard Days Night.

Among the other artists he worked with as a button pusher were Manfred Mann (“Do Wah Diddy Diddy” was the first English number 1 hit he worked on), Peter and Gordon, the Hollies, Judy Garland, Johnny Mathis, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, and Peter Sellers.

After a short time as an assistant engineer, Scott was promoted to “cutting” (known as mastering today), where he spent approximately two years cutting not only acetates for artists, but the masters for many of the hits that EMI also distributed at the time, including the American Motown catalogue.

In September 1967, Scott was promoted to engineer, where his first session was with the Beatles on their song “Your Mother Should Know“. His first orchestral recording session came a few days later when he recorded the strings, brass and choir for the band’s song “I Am the Walrus“. During his time with the Beatles, Scott also worked on the songs “Lady Madonna“, “Hello Goodbye” and “Hey Jude“, as well as The Beatles and Magical Mystery Tour albums. Among the notable songs from those albums that he worked on are “The Fool on the Hill“, “Glass Onion“, “Helter Skelter“, “Birthday“, “Back in the U.S.S.R.“, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Not Guilty“, the last of which was recorded for the White Album, but not included on it.

As an engineer at Abbey Road, Scott also worked with numerous other artists including the Jeff Beck Group, Pink Floyd, the Pretty Things, Scaffold and Mary Hopkin. In late 1969, shortly after completion of the Procol Harum album A Salty Dog, he left Abbey Road for Trident Studios, at the suggestion of Elton John and producer Gus Dudgeon.

The Trident years

Scott soon found himself working with the Beatles again on their various solo projects, including John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” and “Cold Turkey”, Ringo Starr’s “It Don’t Come Easy” and George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. […]

Ken Scott’s first session as engineer for the Beatles, on September 16, 1967:

For the very first session that I ever did as an engineer, which happened to be “Your Mother Should Know,” I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I’d never sat behind the board and pushed up a fader before. Because we had a relationship going, they allowed me to learn and gave me the time just to figure out what I was doing without giving me a hard time or having me kicked off, which was quite amazing. That within itself was, I guess, one of the biggest compliments they could pay me – to allow me to learn what I was doing.

Ken Scott – From Beatles’ recording engineer Ken Scott reveals behind the scenes details on working with The Fab Four | Daytrippin’ Beatles Magazine, July 2012

My first session as a second engineer for the Beatles had been scary, but my first session as an engineer with them was absolutely terrifying. Up until then, not allowed to touch mics or anything, I’d learned recording techniques by mostly sitting and watching. There were three pop engineers at Abbey Road during the time I was assisting — Norman Smith, Malcolm Addey and Peter Bown — and then the great thing was I got to see how three incredible classical engineers worked as well: Chris Parker, Bob Gooch and Neville Boyling. Still, once I got the call to engineer, it was as if I’d been dropped in the fire, especially since I was now on my own to record the biggest band in the world. It was a case of sink or swim, and luckily I swam.

The Magical Mystery Tour project came just after the death of [Beatles manager] Brian Epstein and the whole thing was un-together. I hate to use the word ‘floundering’, but that’s almost what was going on, whereas for the White Album their heads were a little straighter. Considering the drugs that were being taken, this may seem hard to believe, but I think by then they’d come to terms with Brian’s death and they appeared to have a much better idea as to what they should be doing.

Ken Scott – From The Beatles ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ (soundonsound.com)

When it came time for that first session I was petrified because I really had no idea what I was doing. And who do you think it was with? The Beatles, of course. Why me? Why someone who had never raised a fader? What about “Ernie” (or “Emeroids,” as Mr. Emerick was oft known)? The old-timers? Why me-e-e-e-e? Well, the way Geoff tells it, he had a holiday booked and so took off in the middle of recording Magical Mystery Tour. The old-timers hated to work with The Beatles, so that left only the new kid on the block.

It turned out that Paul wanted to change the arrangement of a song they had previously recorded called “Your Mother Should Know.” Luckily for me, the arrangement idea didn’t pan out, so the fact that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing didn’t seem so important. In retrospect it also seems to me that thanks to the amount of time I’d spent with them as a button pusher, they cut me a little slack as well. I can remember very little about the session except that I was almost paralysed with fear, which probably would have happened on just about any session I’d been given, but add on top of that that it was the biggest bloody band in the world and those long hours were an exercise in terror.

Ken Scott – From “Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust“, 2012

I think Geoff Emerick had burnt himself out doing Sgt Pepper, and he had got bored by the whole Magical Mystery Tour situation. I’d been cutting for a while and as I was the next one for promotion I was lumbered! By this time the Beatles had taken over things so much that I was more their right-hand-man than George Martin’s. They half knew what they wanted and half didn’t know, not until they’d tried everything. The only specific thought they seemed to have in their mind was to be different, but how a song might reach that point was down to their own interpretation and by throwing in as many ideas as possible, some of which would work and some wouldn’t.

Ken Scott – From “The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions” by Mark Lewisohn, 1988

Ken Scott was recording engineer during most of the sessions for the White Album in 1968:

An awful lot has been written about the Beatles being at odds with each other the entire time they were recording the White Album, but that to me is completely false. Most certainly, they acted as backing musicians for each other up to a point, but there were also times when they were closer than they’d been in ages. After Ringo quit the band and then returned, suddenly they were a band again. They were so close, it was amazing, and we got more work done during that period than they’d previously done in months.

You’ve got to take into consideration, they were working on that album for close to six months, and there isn’t a project I have worked on — even a two-week project — where at some point someone hasn’t lost their temper. So, spread that over six months and it’s going to happen a few times. But I repeat, it wasn’t that bad. And there were also outside influences that people don’t take into consideration. We were working on ‘Hey Jude’, and the first night, when everyone was up and the Beatles were still sorting out the arrangement, a couple of guys came by the studio because the next night there was going to be a film crew coming in for a documentary [Music!] being made by the National Music Council of Great Britain. ‘Don’t worry,’ they told us. ‘We’ll be in tomorrow but you won’t know we’re here.’ Yeah, right.

Ken Scott – From The Beatles ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ (soundonsound.com)

Here I was, at the age of 21, working with the greatest band in the world. How could it not be exciting for me? To my mind, one of the most brilliant things about the Beatles was their ability to make decisions on the fly. There could be a mistake somewhere along the line and instantaneously we’d hear, ‘Hang on, I like that, let’s keep it.’ I witnessed that several times and their instincts were flawless. They didn’t have any rules because they weren’t technically trained. They just did what sounded good to them and what felt right to them and they came up with absolutely incredible things, even when a lot of it was by accident. Many of their musical ideas and technical demands caused difficulties for us in the control room, but they’d push us to sort those things out and I’m so glad they did.

Ken Scott – From The Beatles ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ (soundonsound.com)

Ken Scott also engineered the sessions for Mary Hopkin’s debut album, “Post Card”, produced by Paul McCartney.

I got a lot closer to Paul McCartney when we worked together on the Mary Hopkin Postcard album. I remember having the prettiest mic setup I’ve ever seen on one of the sessions for that album. It was just Mary, Paul, and Donovan in Number 1 studio. The setup was just three C 12s placed in a triangle, one each for the two acoustic guitars and one for Mary’s vocal. It sounded wonderful and just looked so aesthetically pleasing in an engineer-geek sort of way. Strange the things one remembers.

That was a particularly great session as Mary was very comfortable with the songs that day and we even had a special guest drop by to see Paul; Diana Ross, then of The Supremes. Postcard wasn’t always the easiest of projects though. Although she loved singing the two Donovan songs, Mary had problems with some of the other material that Paul wanted her to do. Let’s face it, “There’s No Business Like Show Business” wasn’t her kind of song at all. She was a lot more folky, but he had an idea of how he wanted the album to be and that’s how it went. You didn’t argue with Paul.

Ken Scott – From “Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust“, 2012

Paul the person needs to be liked, but he’s very specific as to whom he reciprocates. As an example, I felt that we’d grown close during the making of the Mary Hopkin album that I did with him. After I had left Abbey Road for Trident, I was upstairs in the mix room and saw that he had booked in with Wings, so at one point during the day I thought I’d go down and say hello. I popped into the control room with a “Hi Paul. How are you?” and all I got back was a brusque, “Fine,” and he carried on with what he was doing. I thought, “I guess he’s busy so I won’t bother him any more,” and just left. Sometime later he booked in again and I thought, “OK, let me give it another try,” so I went down to the control room again. “Hi, Paul. How are you?” and this time he completely ignored me. At that point I just thought, “Fine. You’ve forgotten me. No biggie.” It really didn’t bother me because I knew that there were so many people in his life and I’d left that sphere of people around him.

Then he booked in one more time, and this time I wasn’t about to go down to try to see him again. As it happened, I ran into Linda in the corridor. When she saw me she ran up to me put her arms around me and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. “Ken, Ken, how are you? You must come down to see Paul.” So she dragged me down to see Paul and this time he was all over me like I was his long lost friend. “What’s changed,” I thought to myself. And then it suddenly hit me. That week I had the number one album as a producer with Ziggy. I was suddenly slightly more important. I did see him a couple more times at restaurants and he was always pleasant after that.

Ken Scott – From “Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust“, 2012

Recording sessions Ken Scott participated in

Albums, EPs & singles which Ken Scott contributed to

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