Neil Innes & Nick Turner of The Parts You Don’t Hear enjoyed two visits to the legendary Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood, California. Firstly meeting Paul Camarata, the charming son of original owner Salvador “Tutti” Camarata and secondly the delightful Bill Schnee. We cannot stress how enjoyable this long and slow ride of documentary making has been for us, particularly in meeting such warm and generous characters in the fascinating background to many of our all time favourite albums and singles.
Where can we start with Bill Schnee? A Grammy and Emmy award winning record maker, Bill has worked with a real who’s who in the music industry including Steely Dan, Dire Straits, Carly Simon, The Pointer Sisters, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Neil Diamond and Marvin Gaye.
Bill found himself engineering pretty much a Beatles album in 1973. Predominantly recorded and eventually mixed in Studio 2 on the Sound Techniques ‘A Range’ console, the Ringo album by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr features all of his three former bandmates: John Lennon, George Harrison & Paul McCartney. At the time there were many rumours of a re-union but instead we have one of the most star-studded musical casts of all time for Ringo’s third (and best?) solo album.
Produced by Richard Perry, our jaws drop as Bill lists some of the friends who dropped by to help on the album including Harry Nillson, Marc Bolan, The Band (except Richard Manuel), Klaus Voormann and Nicky Hopkins. Here is the lead single Photograph which was a huge hit. Many thanks Bill for a hugely enjoyable few hours chat in the hallowed ground of Studio 2 at Sunset Sound.
