Olympic Studios home to herculean recording efforts

Barnes has such a village feel to it that it is easy to forget we are in Greater London. It is close to the action, but there is none here. Oh, but there used to be. It was home to Olympic Studios. Still is, technically, but in a much reduced presence. If you listened to rock music from 1967 forward, you know some of the magic made here.

Barnes sticks up into the Thames River like a thumb. Hold your hand out like you're giving someone a thumb’s up. The building that housed the studios is right about where the lunula – that pale crescent thing – is at the base of your nail. If your nails are painted, use your imagination.

The former home of Olympic Studios in Barnes.  

The studios started in Central London but their lease wasn’t renewed in the mid-1960s. Their manager found a rundown hall in Barnes that had been used as a movie theater before being converted to a TV/film studio. It was 60 years old by the time Olympic renovated it and opened it in late 1966. It is a half-mile from our flat.

 The Rolling Stones were among its first customers.   They recorded there almost exclusively from 1966-   1971, including the albums Their Satanic Majesties   Request, Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed and Sticky   Fingers. Quite a run. They did parts of Between the   Buttons at Olympic, too, which featured Ruby Tuesday, my favorite song of theirs when I was very young. One of my older siblings had the album. I thought the Stones looked scary on the cover because their collars were turned up like in The Godfather when Michael Corleone and Enzo the baker wear their trenchcoats outside the hospital to scare off anyone who comes to kill the gravely wounded Don Corleone. It was years later before I realized it was probably just cold the day the band had its photo taken. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, Barnes and Olympic Studios.

So the Stones did some of their best work there. Original member Brian Jones was fired in June 1969 and died July 3 at age 27. He was succeeded by guitarist Mick Taylor, who made his debut with the band July 5 in front of 250,000 to 500,000 people at Hyde Park in London. No time for stage fright. It was the band's first public concert in two years and they included songs that perhaps had not even been recorded yet. You can find videos of that show online, but I love this clip from a small gig in 1971 that shows them firing on all cylinders (and playing a song recorded in Barnes):

The Rolling Stones "Midnight Rambler" Marquee Club 1971 - YouTube

Perhaps you have heard of Jimi Hendrix, who tops every poll for greatest rock guitarist. He recorded just three studio albums (Bold as Love, Are You Experienced and Electric Ladyland), all of them at Olympic in 1967-68. Chas Chandler, former bassist for The Animals, saw Hendrix July 5, 1966, at the Cafe Wha? in New York City. Chandler was moving from performer into artist management and record production. Twelve weeks later, he had Hendrix in London as he was getting nowhere fast in his home country. He played a gig his first night in London. The Beatles and Eric Clapton were in attendance. He was recording his debut album within a few months. 

This month is 54 years since what was left of the blues rock band The Yardbirds imploded. Their lead guitarist was Jimmy Page, who had followed Jeff Beck in the role after joining as their bassist in 1966. Beck had followed Eric Clapton, but let’s focus on poor Jimmy. What would he do now? Beck and Clapton will be fine, trust me.

Jimmy Page at Olympic Studios during the 1969  
recording sessions for Led Zeppelin II.                  

The first thing Page did was put together a fresh band, The New Yardbirds, to fulfill some contracted dates in Scandinavia starting in early September 1968. Things went so well – quite Tickety-boo, as it were -- that he agreed to pay for them to do recording sessions at Olympic upon their return to London. They recorded an entire album’s worth of material in nine days, played some UK dates in October – still as The New Yardbirds before switching their name later that month to Led Zeppelin.

That album was released in January 1969. If you haven’t heard it lately, here’s how it opens:

Led Zeppelin - Good Times Bad Times (Official Audio) - YouTube

This is a fully realized band just six or eight weeks after forming. Bassist John Paul Jones knew Jimmy Page from session work. His wife suggested he ask Jimmy to join his new band. Page thought it was a good idea. His original pick for singer declined, but recommended vocalist Robert Plant, who accepted and suggested a drummer he knew, John Bonham. This sounds like how bands that never make it out of the garage form. Led Zep recorded parts or all of five albums at Olympic: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III, Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti.

Even the Beatles did a bit of work at Olympic. On May 11, 1967, they recorded Baby You’re a Rich Man in a six-hour session attended by Mick Jagger. They returned June 14 to record a backing track for All You Need is Love.

Baby, You're A Rich Man (Remastered 2009) - YouTube

Blind Faith were: (l to r) Eric Clapton, Ric Grech,
Ginger Baker and Steve Winwood, who still has a
great set of pipes if you haven't heard him lately.  

Remember I told you Eric Clapton would be fine? After The Yardbirds he joined John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers before forming power trio Cream with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce. Neither of these bands recorded at Olympic, but his next one did. Blind Faith’s only album was finished there after starting elsewhere. Here’s some sweet video of them playing London’s Hyde Park in 1969:

Blind Faith - Can't Find My Way Home - YouTube

That is Steve Winwood on vocals and keyboard; Clapton on, well, you know; Baker on drums; and Ric Grech on bass. 

Emerson, Lake & Palmer recorded Brain Salad Surgery in Barnes. The frenetic pace of this song freaked me out as a youngster, well before I knew it had ‘evil’ in the title:

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Karn Evil 9 - 1st Impression - Part 2 - YouTube

You can calm down from that by watching Greg Lake play guitar, sing and chew gum at the same time as he does a solo performance of a song from the same album:

Greg Lake - Still You Turn Me On - YouTube

The Who recorded nearly all of its top-selling Who’s Next album here in 1971 in a burst of energy after their previously planned rock opera project collapsed. Here’s the opening track, which nearly everyone at my high school incorrectly called Teenage Wasteland. 

The Who - Baba O'riley - YouTube

My first day of freshman year a tough-looking girl wearing denim jacket and matching pants looked at me from under plucked eyebrows and asked if I liked the song Teenage Wasteland. I said I didn't know it. She told me I should check it out. I said I would. A boy I didn't know overheard and corrected her about the song title. I thought she was going to curl her cigarette-stained fingers into a fist and smack him. She didn't, but she also didn't thank him.

Who's Next was produced by Glyn Johns, known primarily for his work with the Stones but who also produced the self-titled debut album by the Eagles at Olympic 50 years ago. Actually it is called Eagles. I find it interesting that a Los Angeles-based band would come to London when their home city had dozens of studios. Their second album, Desperado, was recorded at Island Studios in London. They returned to Olympic for their album, On the Border, but ended up finishing in Los Angeles.

Queen did part of A Night at the Opera here. Their guitarist, Brian May, lives in Barnes, but I have not seen him yet. He will be hard to miss as he wears his hair like King Louis XIV of France.

Plenty of other well-known artists recorded here: Pink Floyd, Van Morrison, Small Faces, Bad Company, Procul Harum, Traffic, Steve Miller Band, Billy Preston, Jethro Tull, BB King, Joe Cocker, Cat Stevens, Ten Years After, Deep Purple, Faces, Howlin' Wolf, Humble Pie, Mott the Hoople, David Bowie, Ella Fitzgerald, Slade, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, The Buzzcocks, Motorhead, Squeeze, The Cult, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Prince, Madonna, Oasis and The Cure. A thousand albums were recorded at Olympic Studios between 1966 and 2009. Many talented engineers and producers did some of their early work in little ol’ Barnes before moving on to other studios. 

 Barnes artist Roger Miles is archivist and manager
of Olympic Studios Records across from the famed
recording location.                                                    

Film and stage soundtracks were also recorded here, notably Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Monty Python’s Life of Brian and The Prime of Miss Jean Brody. The Virgin Group bought the studios in 1988, closing them in 2009 after U2 recorded its album No Line on the Horizon there.

I’m told there is technically still a small studio inside but most of the building is currently a theater. There’s a café there, too. I have yet to be inside of it. I visited tiny Olympic Studios Records across from it to buy a couple of books and a bottle of Olympic Studios gin. Anything to help its cause, which is a good one: keeping alive the legacy of the studios. Read more about it here:

Olympic Studios Records - About

The rear and front covers of Led Zeppelin III are
reproduced in the coffee table book 100 Albums:
Olympic Studios.                                                  

-- Guest post by Matt Proietti