BOLERO

ADAPTED FROM MY LATEST BOOK 'SOUR MOUTH SWEET BOTTOM', PUBLISHED BY UNBOUND BOOKS AND AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE.

In 1966, just when I’d started managing the Yardbirds, bass player Paul Samwell-Smith left the group. We bought in Jimmy Page to replace him but after a couple of gigs, rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja moved to bass allowing Jimmy to play guitar.

The group now had two of the best guitarists in Britain, which put them head and shoulders above all the other blues-based groups except the Stones. For the Yardbirds’ international image, that year was excellent. They developed a great live act, they toured America twice, they appeared in Antonioni’s film Blow-Up, and they played a major British tour supporting the Rolling Stones. But by the end of it they were unhappy and bickering.

Earlier in the year, foreseeing that that this might happen, I’d told the group it would be a good idea if they each had a solo project. That way they could be part of a group but also have some artistic freedom. Keith Relf, the singer, was pleased with the idea and set about choosing a song for his first solo single. Jeff Beck liked the idea too. He decided to record a piece he’d written based on Ravel’s Boléro.

That was when Jimmy Page was just about to join the group, and since he’d spent the last two years working as a session musician and was well versed in recording technique, it seemed a good idea for him to come to the studio to help.

As manager of the group and co-producer of their records, I was the person to put all this into action. Organisationally speaking, I was the producer, but with Jimmy in the control booth and Jeff having composed the music, I could see that when it came to creativity I’d probably be little more than an overseer. I booked IBC Studios in Portland Place and agreed with Jeff and Jimmy that the other three musicians should be Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, John Paul Jones on bass, and Keith Moon of the Who on drums.

Kit Lambert, who managed the Who, was having difficulty keeping them together. Unlike me he didn’t think the right way to solve it was by giving them solo projects, and because he was a friend of mine I didn’t want to deceive him about what we were doing, so I left it to Jeff and Jimmy to invite Keith to play. Afraid he’d be seen coming into the studio and Kit would find out, Keith disguised himself as a Russian Cossack complete with heavy fur coat and hat. On a hot day in May it drew more attention to him than if he’d arrived normally and by the time the session was underway there was already a piece in the afternoon edition of the Evening Standard about Keith having been seen going into the studio, though they’d got the address wrong and said it was the Chinese embassy, which was next door.

IBC was one of the best studios in town, with a high ceiling and sufficient capacity for a symphony orchestra. But its Chinese neighbours were a nuisance. Every day around noon they sent messages to Beijing in high-frequency code that somehow bleeped their way onto whatever tape was being recorded at the time. Usually, there was a truce. IBC wouldn’t complain if the embassy limited their communications to three times a week for one hour only at midday. Recently, though, the embassy’s chef had defected and asked for political asylum so he could open a restaurant and the bleeping to Beijing had been off the scale. But the day we recorded Beck’s Bolero we were lucky, it had died down, and after less than an hour we had a good basic track to work with.

We were working on two tape machines each with half-inch three-track tape, the latest technology. After we’d recorded three tracks on the first machine we had to mix them onto one track on the second machine, which gave us two more tracks for overdubbing. We then repeated the process back to the first machine. If, during the next lot of overdubs, we decided one of the previous tracks wasn’t quite right, the only way to rectify it was to go back to the previous three-track machine and start recording all over again.

It was a tedious process though in those days it was exciting and cutting edge.

The need to get everything right as you went along, rather than being able to add more tracks and choose the best when it came to mixing, meant there was a constant back and forth of opinion between Jimmy and Jeff. Jimmy was the more adventurous – more confident of correcting mistakes by changing what was originally intended and taking things in a slightly different direction. But Jeff, having written and conceived the piece, was determined it should end up just as he’d heard it in his head. Each time the arguments got heated, they looked to me as an arbiter.

I was in something of a quandary. Jeff was in the Yardbirds who I managed. Jimmy, whose more adventurous approach I liked, still hadn’t joined the group, so it was difficult to see how I could side with him against someone I managed. After struggling with the dilemma for a while, I told them I was going for a walk. In the event I ended up at the Odeon Leicester Square and decided to watch Doctor Zhivago, which meant I didn’t get back for three hours. By then the track was finished and it sounded splendid.

Later, Jimmy complained that I hadn’t been there when they mixed it, that I hadn’t done what a producer should do. But my feeling is – a producer’s job is to make sure the record ends up being good and if that involves him going to see a movie, that’s fine. And in this case the record was definitely better for me not having been there.

It hung about for a long time without being released. We couldn’t seem to find the right moment. First the Yardbirds had to make a new single, which was Happenings Ten Years Time Ago (and this time I stayed around for every part of the process). Then there was the filming of Blow-Up. Then another American tour. Than an Australian one.

By that time, Jimmy and Jeff had argued, Jeff had left the group, Jimmy was dominating the others and I was bored with the whole thing. So I chose not to go to Australia with them.

When they got back, they consulted a lawyer and sent me a letter. They thought it was time to get a new manager and I couldn’t blame them. They weren’t a bundle of fun to be with anyway.

But if I wasn’t going to manage the Yardbirds anymore, I at least had to sort out who would produce them, so I went to see Mickie Most, who produced the Animals. Mostly, his productions were more lightweight than the Yardbirds (Herman’s Hermits, for instance), but the Yardbirds seemed to like the idea, so it was agreed that Mickie would become their producer. Then Mickie’s business partner, Peter Grant, suggested he manage them. The Yardbirds liked that idea too, so the problem was off my mind.

But there was a small downside. Jeff, who had left the group but I was continuing to manage, had agreed that Mickie should produce him as well. Mickie made a nice record with him called Hi Ho Silver Lining and it was a hit. But on the B-side Mickie put Beck’s Bolero and credited it to himself: ‘A Mickie Most Production.’

There are still arguments about who produced it. In business terms perhaps me; in creative terms maybe Jimmy; in compositional terms probably Jeff. Or more fairly, Jeff and Jimmy jointly. But one thing’s for certain – Mickie Most, the person credited with producing it, had nothing to do with it.

That sort of thing is not unusual in the music business.

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