Reeling and Rocking Sound of Song

APPLAUSE

MUSIC: A Day In The Life by The Beatles

A Day In The Life - a song with two distinct and different parts -

by the greatest songwriting partnership of the 20th century.

First of all, John Lennon.

# I read the news today, oh boy. #

Then Paul McCartney.

# I woke up, fell out of bed

# Dragged a comb across my head. #

Yet these wonderful chords and inventive lyrics are only

part of the story of the sound of this extraordinary song.

A Day In The Life was the culmination

of a technological revolution,

which rocked the world of recorded music.

Rock and roll, popular music of the '50s and '60s,

peaking with The Beatles,

simply wouldn't have been possible without...

..the emergence of the music studio as a compositional tool...

..the rise of the producer as a creative force...

..and, most of all, the miraculous story of magnetic tape.

You can cut, you can edit.

Obviously you can slow down or speed up your tape,

you can put in backwards stuff, you can put in electronic sounds

which you couldn't possibly reproduce live.

MUSIC: That's All Right

In this episode, I'm going to visit the studios that

produced these sounds and test out the original recording techniques.

From primitive, raw rock and roll...

# That's all right... #

..to multi-layered symphonies, in highly produced pop...

# I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still

# Da-do ron-ron-ron, da-do ron-ron. #

One minute I was in the studio and I'm looking at all these

musicians, so many people that were playing so many instruments.

I'm sitting there and I'm saying, "What the heck is going on?"

And the intricate editing

which gave us the first psychedelic record.

# I'm picking up good vibrations

# She's giving me the excitations... #

I didn't really have a vision. I took it one bar at a time, you know?

# I'm picking up... #

And then...

# Good vibrations. #

It was all done in pieces. It wasn't envisioned as one whole piece.

# Good, good, good, good vibrations

# Close my eyes She's somehow closer now... #

RADIO CRACKLES

CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS

In 1944, US Major Jack T Mullin was part of the Allied Forces

preparing for the liberation of Europe.

Mullin was an amateur film-maker

and electronics enthusiast from California.

And he liked to listen to the radio late at night.

RADIO CRACKLES

After the BBC shut down at midnight,

Mullin found he could tune into German radio, where,

night after night, he listened to the cool, crisp,

clear tones of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

The sound was so good, he was convinced they must be playing live.

RADIO SIGNAL TUNES IN

Mullin knew that broadcasts on American and British radio were

interrupted by pops and crackles,

the unmistakable sound of a recorded production at this time.

CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS

Was Hitler really commanding the orchestra to play

graveyard-shift renditions of Beethoven and Bach

far into the night?

Mullin promised himself that when he got to Germany,

he'd find out what was going on.

When his unit arrived at an abandoned radio station

at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt, Mullin was convinced

he had discovered the answer.

There he was handed more than 50 reels of magnetic tape

and two large tape recorders.

These machines, the size of suitcases,

were called magnetophones.

And it was they that had broadcast the crystal-clear recordings

Mullin had been listening to.

After the war ended, Mullin took these machines and tapes, originally

manufactured by German firms AEG and BASF, back to California.

Post-war Hollywood was enjoying a golden era, producing classic hits

like Hitchcock's Notorious and Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life.

# On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe... #

And Mullin's aim was to persuade the studios to use magnetic tape

for recording movie soundtracks.

Mullin gave demonstrations to all the Hollywood studios and producers.

And in 1947 he was introduced to the legendary Bing Crosby.

Crosby had been at the top of the business for 20 years.

He presented a hugely successful radio show

but hated having to present it live -

he'd much rather be on the golf course, with chums like Bob Hope.

# Like my mother sang to me... #

He'd been lobbying the radio stations for years to let him

prerecord his shows and they had always refused

because the recording quality simply wasn't good enough.

So when he heard what Mullin had to offer with magnetic tape,

he jumped at it.

But if Crosby was serious,

he would have to back Mullin with some hard cash.

Mullin had been working with Californian electronics company,

Ampex, to develop his ideas.

But they were running low on funds and needed an investor.

# ..Tune that is choppy You'll get all my applause... #

Crosby put his money where his mouth was.

He handed over a 50,000 personal cheque

so that Ampex could begin production on a magnetic tape machine

to be sold to film, TV and radio companies.

And Crosby was one of the first to get an Ampex tape machine.

He also signed up Jack Mullin as his studio engineer.

BING CROSBY: 'Everybody knows and loves The Andrews Sisters...'

Crosby began recording his radio show onto magnetic tape in 1948.

'I was just thinking, Ken.

'It seems like only yesterday I was playing with a little

'band like that. We were called the Spokane Musical Dogs.'

Crosby could now record three shows in a day,

which left the old crooner plenty of time to go to the golf course.

Word quickly spread and pretty soon Ampex tape recorders were being

ordered up by all the main studios and broadcasters in Hollywood.

# ..And gentle people... #

MUSIC: Dust My Blues by Elmore James

Although the Ampex tape machine had at first arrived in Hollywood,

its impact would be felt strongest in the emerging pop music scene.

A restless industry,

which was always looking for the latest innovation.

Born in Germany and refined in California, this piece of kit would,

in the right hands, revolutionise the sound of song.

# I'm gonna get up in the morning

# I believe I'll dust... #

It was in 1951 that one of these machines

found its way into the hands of a young producer in Tennessee.

Sam Phillips was the owner of Sun Studio,

a small recording station in downtown Memphis.

# I don't want no woman... #

Phillips had been producing local R&B,

gospel and country performers on old transcription discs,

but he was frustrated at the poor quality of the recordings.

The work done by Sam Phillips in this studio would mark

a turning point in the sound of the popular song.

Indeed, this would turn out to be one of the first temples of sound.

A small studio in downtown Memphis,

a visionary producer armed with a magnetic tape recorder.

This combination would help to create the first bona fide sounds

of rock and roll.

ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC

Phillips began assembling an impressive array of local talent.

He recorded Chester Arthur Burnett,

better known as bluesman Howlin' Wolf.

# Ah-oh, smokestack lightnin'... #

Phillips also scored a minor hit with Rocket 88,

an up-tempo R&B song featuring a young Ike Turner.

MUSIC: Rocket 88

Sam Phillips' producing ethos was very simple.

He wanted to capture that authentic, raw sound that he heard

performers playing in and around the bars and clubs in Memphis.

So he told his artists to play live and loud,

stuck them all in one small recording room

and said not to worry too much about making mistakes.

Which is just as well, as I'm going to play here.

THEY PLAY A MELODY

Yeah.

'Sun Studio still uses magnetic tape and engineer Matt Ross Spang

'has agreed to record me playing with legendary session musicians.

'Bassist Dave Roe...'

HE PLAYS TUNE

'..and drummer JM Van Eaton.'

-OK.

-Are you ready?

'And Matt will produce this session in the same way Phillips did.'

'The song we're going to play is a number by a young singer

'who walked into this studio one day

'and persuaded Sam Phillips to record him.'

THEY CHAT AND LAUGH

Let's try it.

'On 5th July, 1954, Phillips oversaw one Elvis Presley perform

'That's All Right, Mama.'

All right, we are rolling.

MUSIC: That's All Right, Mama

# Well, that's all right, Mama

# That's all right for you

# That's all right, Mama

# Any way you do

# Well, that's all right That's all right

# That's all right now, Mama

# Any way you do

# Well, Mama she done told me... #

'And while we are playing, Matt is replicating a technique

'Philips pioneered - adding a fuller, fatter sound to the vocals -

'a device he dubbed slapback echo.'

# That's all right now, Mama

# Any way you do... #

Matt, first of all, can you take us through the desk here?

What were you doing while we were playing in there?

Trying not to screw it up.

Yeah, right(!)

I tried to recreate what Sam had.

While you guys were cutting an album,

I'm in here dialling the faders as you are doing it live.

It goes to an Ampex 350 tape machine over here. It's all mono.

It's all cut live, right as you did it.

And then the lead vocal.

And there, you were doing something pretty special with that.

That was Sam's kind of thing. Slapback echo. I love it, personally.

You can't work here if you don't like slapback echo.

You can't record here either if you don't want me to do it.

Phillips found that he could

produce an echo effect by manipulating the tape recorder.

# Well, that's all right, Mama

# That's all right for you

# That's all right, Mama... #

First he recorded the lead vocal, and then he looped a duplicate

of this vocal back onto the machine, just a split second behind.

By doing this, he produced an echo effect on the voice.

# Mama she done told me

# My daddy done told me too

# "Son, that gal you're foolin' with

# "She ain't no good for you"

# Well, that's all right

# That's all right

# That's all right now, Mama

# Any way you do... #

What do you think it was that Sam found with that echo,

with the fast echo, with fast music?

When you go listen to a band live, you don't hear them

right in front of an acoustic guitar.

You hear them either blasting really loud, right, or you hear them

echoing, like if you are outside or whatever,

you always hear it a little bit, there's a little bit of fantasy.

I say fantasy but there's a little bit of an otherworldly

kind of thing to it.

He wanted to get that unique sound with this new rock and roll thing.

And that really gave it this thing that no-one else had.

It goes to show you how much of a genius Sam was.

I think a lot of people think he was this lucky hillbilly that

just stumbled on a little space and got lucky with all these guys.

But he really was a genius with electronics, in sound

and pulling a performance out of somebody.

# I need your love, baby

# That's all right

# That's all right now, Mama

# Any way you do... #

Whoo!

# That's all right now, Mama

# Any way you do. #

THEY LAUGH

This song would sell 20,000 copies, reach number four in the local

Memphis charts and provide Sam Phillips with a blueprint

for future success.

# That's all right... #

# Well, it's one for the money

# Two for the show

# Three to get ready

# Now go, cat, go

# But don't you

# Step on my blue suede shoes... #

The mid-1950s were an exciting time for Phillips.

Through his innovative work with the Ampex tape machine, Sun Studio

would become a stable for the first wave of rock and roll stars.

# Do anything that you wanna do

# But uh-uh, honey, lay off of my shoes... #

Elvis was soon joined by Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins

and Johnny Cash, who recorded Walk The Line at Sun.

MUSIC: Walk The Line by Johnny Cash

Songs like Walk The Line and Blue Suede Shoes

were released on seven-inch vinyl,

the 45, a reasonably new development.

It had been designed a few years earlier by the now-defunct RCA -

Radio Corporation of America -

as an alternative to the rather archaic sounding 78.

It was smaller, more durable, and crucially,

had much better sound quality to it.

This would come to be the dominant medium on which everybody

heard their pop songs.

# I walk the line... #

'And this new format, so popular with teenagers,

'would shape pop music for years to come.'

The seven-inch single was played at 45 revolutions per minute -

with an A and a B side.

But crucially, the vinyl size limited each side

to three and a half minutes.

# For the tie that binds

# Because you're mine

# I walk the line... #

The 45 format dictated the length of the pop song.

Studios, artists and producers all realised

they had to make their music fit within that very short time.

So, even as rock and roll was kicking off, this sexy,

raucous sound had to be confined.

This is the era of the three-minute pop song.

# Come on over, baby

# Whole lotta shakin' goin' on

# Yes, I say, come on over, baby

# Baby, you can't go wrong... #

And many teenagers didn't even need to buy a record player.

In the 1950s, three-quarters of all pop singles were sold to jukeboxes.

# We got chicken in the barn... #

And these music machines offered their own acoustics.

A large bass speaker was located at the bottom of the jukebox.

And this made the floor vibrate,

so those gathered around it could really feel the music.

Studios powered up the bass-ends on their songs,

knowing it would really cut through with immense power.

# Shake, make it shake

# Come on over

# Whole lotta shakin' goin' on

# Oh, let's go... #

And while the Memphis music scene was the creative heartbeat

of rock and roll...

ROMANTIC ROCK AND ROLL

..New York in the '50s was establishing itself as the epicentre

of the music business - the cosmopolitan hub of an impatient,

fast-moving industry.

And much of this industry was housed in two buildings

in Midtown Manhattan -

the Brill Building and Aldon Music -

located just a few blocks from the historic Tin Pan Alley,

the traditional heart of music publishing.

But songwriting was changing and a new generation were being

influenced by the magnetic tape revolution.

Chief among them were songwriters Mike Stoller

and Jerry Leiber, who were not content to just write the songs,

they wanted to direct the recording of them,

which they began doing with singer Big Mama Thornton.

She didn't seem too excited about meeting two white teenagers.

NEIL LAUGHS

But we heard her sing and she knocked us out.

Went back to my house and wrote Hound Dog in about 12, 15 minutes.

We recorded it, as I recall, the following day.

Jerry and I both wanted her to growl.

And we were reluctant...

HE LAUGHS

It was like, "You tell her." THEY LAUGH

Because she was rather formidable, you know?

It was like, "Don't be telling me how to sing the song, white boy."

But right away, on the first take, she was growling.

# You ain't nothing but a hound dog

# Been snooping round my door

# You ain't nothing but a hound dog

# Been snooping round my door... #

Conceived as a raw blues track, there was

some debate before they settled on the final, now famous, lyrics.

Jerry wasn't fully happy with "hound dog".

He wanted something much stronger.

He wanted mother...

And I said, "I don't think they'll play that,

"but I think hound dog is cool."

He said, "Do you think so?" I said, "Yeah."

# You ain't nothing but a hound dog

# Been snooping round my door... #

Hound Dog was a hit for Big Mama and the boys.

# You're just an old hound dog... #

But it was the version recorded by Elvis four years later

that brought them to the attention of recording giant Atlantic.

# You ain't nothing but a hound dog

# Cryin' all the time... #

They offered Leiber and Stoller a unique deal

to write and produce their own records.

# You ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no... #

Why did you want to be producers as well as songwriters?

To protect the way we imagined the songs should sound,

which were frequently more than just a melody line

and a lyric line.

We had given songs to other people and they would then produce them.

It wasn't what we had in mind at all.

So we wanted to make sure it was done the way we wanted them done.

MUSIC: Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley

They were also able to take advantage of the latest

development in magnetic tape technology.

# The warden threw a party in the county jail... #

Atlantic were one of the first studios to start working

with multi-track tape recorders.

This meant numerous separate recordings could be

laid down onto the same song.

Now, for the first time, extra instrumentation, vocals and

even an orchestra could be recorded separately and added to songs.

# Little Joe was blowin' on the slide trombone... #

MUSIC: There Goes My Baby by The Drifters

Leiber and Stoller tested out this approach on a record

they made with The Drifters, a doo-wop group,

led by Ben E King.

-# Bo-bo

-Doo-doot-doo-doo

-# Bo-bo

-Doo-doot-doo-doo

# There goes my baby

# Movin' on down the line... #

There Goes My Baby begins like your average doo-wop number.

In fact, it actually does begin with...

# Do-do-do-do-do. #

And that... # Bum-bum-bum-ba-do-ba-do. #

So far, so what we already know.

But just before the main vocal comes in, the great Ben E King,

we hear, of all things, strings.

HE PLAYS There Goes My Baby

We haven't heard that before with this sort of number.

And it adds such a dramatic extra to it.

But also, there is something else going on down the bottom end.

-That rhythm...

-HE PLAYS RHYTHM

It's quite insistent.

And that's because there is more than just a drum kit there.

There is a timpani playing that beat. Bum-ba-dum. Bum-ba-dum.

# I wonder why she left me

# Why did she leave me? #

It's a massive production for its time.

And here we can hear Stoller the songwriter

becoming Stoller the producer.

What's wonderful about it is that it points the way to the future.

This is where the sound of song is going to go.

There Goes My Baby was the first R&B track to feature strings

and it became a smash hit in the summer of 1959.

# Where is my... #

We conceived the records not just as a song but as an overall sound.

An overall production, if you will.

Emboldened by this, Leiber and Stoller returned to the

studio with the orchestra in an attempt to reproduce their success.

We went an hour over and Atlantic was furious. This big orchestra.

A lot of money.

But ultimately, I guess they figured it worked out

because two of the sides...

One of the sides was Spanish Harlem.

And one of the sides was Stand By Me.

LAUGHTER

# When the night has come

# And the land is dark

# And the moon is the only light we'll see

# No, I won't be afraid... #

Leiber and Stoller had created a template for pop songs

which exploited the possibilities of multi-track recording

to produce richer, more complex-sounding records.

# Stand by me

# So, darlin', darlin'

# Stand by me... #

And into the 1960s, a young protege of theirs

would build on this approach and produce a new,

distinctive sound, which created some of the biggest hits of the era.

# Stand by me. #

MUSIC: Then He Kissed Me

# Well, he walked up to me and he asked me if I wanted to dance

# He looked kinda nice and so I said I might take a chance

# When he danced he held me tight

# And when he walked me home that night

# All the stars were shining bright

# And then he kissed me... #

Today, Phil Spector is a controversial figure,

to say the least.

But back then, he was hailed as a genius.

He had begun experimenting with his signature sound production when he

recorded The Crystals, an all-girl group, fronted by La La Brooks.

# So I whispered, "I love you"... #

He was hard on us. Especially me, as an artist, doing the vocals.

But he knew exactly what he was doing.

Sometimes when I couldn't feel it,

I didn't understand what he wanted and he would turn out all the lights.

It would be crazy.

And he just would have the stand with the music or lyrics

and he would put a little light over the stand,

so I could read the lyrics, but he wanted me to think.

# I knew that he was mine so I give him all the love that I had... #

La La's powerful voice was only one element of Spector's production.

He surrounded the young singer with the Wrecking Crew.

Hand-picked by Spector himself,

they were the most talented session musicians in the business.

# I almost cried

# And then he kissed me... #

Phil Spector is an entity all by himself.

Everyone wanted to know what the magic fairy dust was

that he sprinkled

because everything we did with Phil became number one almost overnight.

Spector was the first to record multiple instruments simultaneously,

sculpting what would become known as his Wall of Sound.

He did things that were unheard of.

Rhythm section - piano, bass, drums, guitar.

Phil Spector had three, four basses sometimes.

Three, four pianos.

Sometimes as many as seven guitars.

-All playing at the same time?

-All together.

-Wow.

-That's what he called his Wall of Sound.

Through this approach, Spector was able to take a song

with a nonsensical lyric...

# I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still

# Da-doo ron-ron-ron, da-doo ron-ron

# Somebody told me... #

He then transformed it into a barrage of melodic power -

a huge, soulful teenage symphony.

# I knew what he was doing when he caught my eye

# Da-doo ron-ron-ron, da-doo ron-ron

# He looked so quiet but my, oh, my

# Da-doo ron-ron-ron, da-doo ron-ron

# Yeah, he caught my eye

# Yes, oh my, oh my

# And when he walked me home

# Da-do ron-ron-ron, da-do ron-ron... #

One minute I was in the studio and I'm looking at all these musicians.

And I'm sitting there saying, "What the heck is going on?" You know?

This is what was going on...

HE PLAYS Da Doo Ron Ron

To build his Wall of Sound,

Spector didn't just turn up the volume, he recorded multiple

instruments playing slight variations of the same song.

Just like this...

HE PLAYS Da Doo Ron Ron

And Spector knew that in the 1960s, many people

listened to music on transistor radios, which emitted a tinny sound.

So he would test out his songs on small speakers in the studio,

to check they would really punch through.

When you first heard the Wall of Sound, did you have

a kind of emotional reaction to hearing that for the first time?

I think I did.

If you really look at Phil's sound on some of the songs,

it may sound crazy, but you can cry

because there is something inside of you that hears

those strings on Then He Kissed Me and Be My Baby, you know?

It's a feeling that those instruments make you sensitive

because they are so beautiful.

# Da-doo ron-ron-ron, da-doo ron-ron

-# Da-doo ron-ron-ron, da-doo ron-ron

-Yeah, yeah

-# Da-doo ron-ron-ron, da-doo ron-ron

-Yeah, yeah, yeah... #

This precocious young pop producer even gave us

a new soundtrack for Christmas.

MUSIC: Winter Wonderland by Darlene Love

He recorded traditional festive songs, spliced with sound effects

of sleigh bells, and produced in his Wall of Sound.

# Sleigh bells ring Are you listenin'?

# In the lane, snow is glistenin'

# A beautiful sight We're happy tonight

# Walkin' in a winter wonderland... #

Doing the Christmas album with Phil Spector was probably

some of the greatest time I had with Phil.

Because of him saying that he was getting ready to do

a rock and roll Christmas album.

"That's sacred! You can't do a rock and roll Christmas album."

He was the first.

That was the one time he asked me what Christmas songs I liked.

And I got to choose the songs that I wanted to sing.

And that whole Christmas thing is still so much part of Christmas now.

It is. It really is.

It's amazing because you'll be going down the street to the grocery

store and you will hear it. You will be in the bank and you'll hear it.

And you want to say, "Hey, hold on a minute! That's me! Stop!"

But singers like Darlene Love always played second fiddle

to the overall sound of the production itself.

They could be replaced - Spector was ruthless.

I went in and I did He's A Rebel for the group The Crystals.

I knew it was going to be theirs because he paid me and The Blossoms

as backup singers. This time I just did the lead on the song.

I didn't know it was going to be a number one record, number one.

LAUGHING: Because I probably wouldn't have done it!

Unless it would have been my record.

# He's a rebel and he'll never be any good

# He's a rebel cos he never ever does what he should

# Just because he... #

And then I did He's Sure The Boy I Love,

which was supposed to be MY record, a Darlene Love record,

and that's when he switched on me and put it out under their name.

-That's when we started fighting.

-Yeah.

Guess what? He did everybody.

All the way to the lawyers, managers, everybody.

With a series of number one hits, Spector's multi-layered

Wall of Sound dominated the charts and he was on a creative roll.

In the summer of 1964, he began working with songwriters

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil on a new number that I think is

the very pinnacle of his producing powers

and encapsulates what made him such an inspired force in the studio.

Tell me about writing You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'

because there is a big story there, isn't there?

Yes, he said he had signed a new group of two guys from Orange County

who sounded like Sam and Dave,

and that he wanted to write with us for them.

The next day, we went into play it for Bobby and Bill.

-It never dawned on us that they might not like it.

-Right.

They were used to singing everything together. And on this song

-Bill sang the verses and then Bobby came in...

-On the chorus.

And he was not happy about not being in from the beginning.

He said to Phil, "What should I do while the big guy is singing?"

You know, sarcastically.

And Phil said, "You can go to the bank."

# You never close your eyes any more when I kiss your lips

# And there's no tenderness, like before, in your fingertips... #

Phil played it over the phone...

He played you the final master over the phone?

-Yes.

-Over the phone.

But he lowered the key because, again, it's very rangy.

Bill Medley has a very low voice.

-DEEP VOICE:

-# You never close your eyes. #

So when he played it over the phone, I started screaming, "Phil,

"you've got it on the wrong speed!" And it really sounded that way.

# Baby, I know it

# You've lost that lovin' feelin'

# Whoa, that lovin' feelin'

# You've lost that lovin' feelin'

# Now it's gone, gone, gone, whoa-oh-oh... #

Spector obviously had a very good idea of the sound world

that he wanted You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' to live in.

It's obviously big. It's the Wall of Sound. Lots of reverb and echo.

But there is more to it than that.

For a start, he didn't have any kind of introduction.

It comes straight in with the lead vocal.

HE PLAYS INTRO TO You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'

From then on through, it goes up to that fantastic chorus.

HE PLAYS CHORUS

Spector wants the song to go somewhere else.

And again, Spector added something here. Not just...

# Gone, gone, gone, whoa-whoa-whoa. #

That then goes into a downwards walking motif.

And into this little sort of shuffle step.

It's a little bit like... Hang On Sloopy.

# Hang on, Sloopy

# Sloopy, hang on. #

But what it does,

it takes that whole Wall of Sound down to one single idea.

That little motif is really hooky, we are in there.

And over the top of it,

the vocalist can do all that lovely semi-improvised stuff,

which turns into a kind of jam session with the other voices.

And it means that there is somewhere for the chorus to erupt back

out of again. Kaboom, here we are!

HE PLAYS You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'

This song really needed Spector.

Because what he did was turn it into the quintessential

experience of the man mourning for the woman he has lost.

We are right inside his mind. We know exactly how he feels.

And that huge Wall of Sound is like echoes

coming off the inside of his brain.

Gone, gone, gone.

It's a terrific collaboration between two very fine songwriters

and a truly extraordinary producer.

# Bring back that lovin' feelin', cos it's gone, gone, gone

# And I can't go on... #

I never dreamed the record would be as spectacular as it was.

It became the most played record of the last century.

# Bring back that lovin' feelin'

# Oh, that lovin' feelin'... #

Spector was now the most prominent of a new breed of auteur producers,

who, along with others like Mitch Miller and Joe Meek,

had established creative control over the artists they directed.

# Let's go surfin' now

# Everybody's learnin' how

# Come on and safari with me

# Come on and safari with me... #

On the West Coast, one artist had observed the producer at work

and wanted to take control of production himself.

# And headin' out singing our song... #

This musician was Brian Wilson,

the creative force behind the Beach Boys, the most successful

American pop band of the time, with a string of top ten hits.

Wilson had been in awe of Phil Spector

and had spent time shadowing him in the studio.

Brian Wilson had scored a string of successes with his band,

the Beach Boys.

They combined classic Chuck Berry guitar licks with vocal harmonies

and epitomised that sunny surfer sound of '60s California.

All summed up in one two-and-a-half-minute pop song.

It was the perfect formula.

MUSIC: Surfin' USA by The Beach Boys

# If everybody had an ocean

# Across the USA

# Then everybody'd be surfin'

# Like Californi-a

# You'd see 'em wearing their baggies... #

But in 1965, Wilson decided to quit touring

and announced he was retreating into the studio to create a new

and very different kind of record.

One that he promised would be his masterpiece.

He set himself a grand ambition - to reinvent the pop song,

to explore new methods of composing

and to experiment with the very art of production itself.

'Let me hear the organ.'

ORGAN PLAYS

'Stop, please.'

What was in your head when you went into Good Vibrations?

What were you after with Good Vibrations?

My mother told me when I was a kid that dogs bark at people

because they pick up vibrations.

In 1966, Mike Love was over at my house and I said, "Let's write

"a song called Good Vibrations." He goes, "Hey, I like that."

I started playing the piano. Bum-ba-bum-bum. And he goes...

# I'm picking up good vibrations. #

You had a real change of musical direction with Good Vibrations.

Well, we wanted to grow musically,

so we thought we would try something different.

'Let's hear the guitars, please, in D and B.'

While the Beach Boys went on tour, Brian Wilson recruited

Phil Spector's Wrecking Crew,

including drummer Hal Blaine, and they began recording

the instrumental tracks for Good Vibrations.

OK, that's fine. Let's make it.

Hal, let's go, man. Here we go.

Play hard and strong all the way.

Brian used to come to Phil Spector's studio.

And he loved what we were doing.

He wanted to get...

..I guess, sort of, a Phil Spector-type sound.

He wanted to get that big sound that we had.

-You used the Wrecking Crew that Spector used.

-Yeah.

Why did you use them rather than the Beach Boys to play?

Because I trusted their ability a little better than the group,

you know? I trusted that they could play it pretty good.

Play hard and strong all the way...

Wilson's approach to Good Vibrations was unprecedented.

Beginning in February 1966,

he recorded short instrumental parts of the song over and over again,

holding the sessions in four separate studios.

Brian knew what he wanted.

Sometimes we would go in and play four bars of music.

And he would say, "Change the saxophone part.

"Take it down an octave."

"And let's hear the guitar up just a little bit more."

"And let me hear it."

And we'd play it. He'd say, "That's great. That's exactly what I want."

He would talk to his engineer and say, "Thank you, gentlemen."

And we were out of there.

15 minutes sometimes.

I didn't really have a vision. I took it one bar at a time.

You know?

# I'm picking up... #

And then... # Good vibrations... #

It was all done in pieces.

Because he experimented every note.

Now, sometimes he'd want a different group of people, just to see

what would happen, because he heard something.

While Wilson sculpted the sound of the instruments,

he had spent little time on the words.

On the 24th August 1966, he arranged to meet

the rest of the band to record their vocals.

Despite months of recording,

he still hadn't quite settled on the final lyrics yet.

So Beach Boy Mike Love hastily came up with the words

on the freeway, driving over to Sunset Sound studio.

I was working on the arrangement for a long time

and when I finally got it done, I called the guys and said,

"I got the arrangement done!" They go, "Good! Let's go to the studio."

So we met up at the studio and Mike was on one microphone going,

# I'm picking up... #

And the other guys were going...

# Good, good, good... #

You know...

# ..vibrations. #

# I'm picking up good vibrations

# She's giving me excitations

-# I'm picking up good vibrations

-Oom, bop, bop, good vibrations

-# She's giving me excitations

-Oom, bop, bop, excitations

-# Good, good, good, good vibrations

-Oom, bop, bop, good vibrations... #

Armed with Mike Love's lyrics,

Brian begins directing the vocal sessions here at Sunset Sound.

But even this isn't straightforward.

He insists that the band record over 25 overdubs

of the same vocal lines, some no more than two or three seconds long.

-# Good, good, good, good vibrations

-Oom, bop, bop, good vibrations

-# She's giving me excitations

-Oom, bop, bop, excitations... #

Six months after he had started working on the song,

Wilson oversaw the final mix for Good Vibrations in September 1966.

# Na, na, na, na, na Na, na, na... #

Now, Good Vibrations is basically an edit record.

It is a song that could only be made possible by...magnetic tape.

And if you listen really closely,

you can hear those edits going through.

# I hear the sound of a gentle word

# On the wind that lifts her perfume through the air... #

INSTRUMENTATION CHANGES

# I'm picking up good vibrations... #

And at 1 minute 42 seconds, there is another edit

to get us into this extraordinary middle eight section,

where you are hearing tack piano, jaws harp -

boing-boing-boing sound -

flute and very low-register Electro-Theremin.

I mean, it is growling away down the bottom.

I love this section.

This feels like the beginnings of psychedelia.

# Excit...ations... #

SONG CONTINUES

Tell me about the theremin.

Carl said, "Why don't we put a theremin on this?"

And I went, "Theremin?! Why a theremin?"

He goes, "Maybe it'll sound eerie."

And so I came up with the "whoo-ooh!" And I did it for the theremin player.

# ..elation... #

You used a cello in Good Vibrations to give that...

NEIL MAKES A CHUGGING RHYTHM Yeah.

Did you know in your head that was that sound that you wanted?

Not until he played. As soon as he played, I said,

"Try doodle-ooh-doodle-ooh-do."

And he goes, "What?"

I said... He goes, "I usually play symphonies, you know."

I said, "No, this is rock and roll.

"We're going to try to make a symphonic rock and roll record."

# ..good vibrations... #

And now at 2 minutes 56, another edit, another new section.

Stripped down chorus with the cello overdubbed,

but now the cello has come up an octave.

It is cutting through much, much more.

-THE CELLO PLUCKS

-# Ahhh

-# Good, good, good, good vibrations

-Oom, bop, bop, good vibrations

-# She's giving me excitations

-Oom, bop, bop, excitations

-# Good, good, good, good vibrations

-Oom, bop, bop, good vibrations... #

CELLO PLAYS IN STACCATO

# Na, na, na, na, na Na, na, na... #

And then quite a short but very elaborate fade-out,

where we've got the cello again and that ethereal sound

of the Electro-Theremin taking us out of the number.

# Do, do, do, do, do Do, do, do... #

STACCATO CELLO, THEREMIN WARBLES

SONG FADES

I knew that we'd probably never top Good Vibrations, you know.

We all agreed that probably that's the best we could do.

Good vibrations is a watershed in the history of the popular song.

It cost 50,000 to make - a fortune then.

It took 90 hours to record in four different studios.

It was easily the most expensive pop single at the time.

But it's not about the money Brian Wilson spent

or even the time that he took.

It is his method that is ground-breaking.

Wilson showed that a song could be made of tiny fragments

of tunes or vocals,

that he could re-record sections,

that he could add bridges where he wanted to,

but that the whole thing would pull together in that final mix.

-# Excitations

-Excitations... #

Wilson was in the vanguard of a new experimental epoch,

which would peak in the late '60s.

And enabling this was magnetic tape...

..pulled from the ruins of a radio station near Frankfurt

decades earlier.

# Do, do, do, do, do Do, do, do

# Do, do, do, do, do... #

Now, across the Atlantic, a band, who themselves

had first learnt their rock and roll while in Germany,

heard what Wilson was doing - and wanted to take things further.

MUSIC: Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles

By the end of 1966, The Beatles were the most famous band in the world.

They had conquered America and had been influenced by Brian Wilson.

# It is not dying... #

But unlike the mercurial Beach Boy,

The Beatles were rooted to just one recording base -

the historic EMI Studios, better known simply as Abbey Road.

And I've come to test out some of the techniques

that the band pioneered here.

The Beatles really started experimenting with tape machines

around the time they were recording their 1966 album, Revolver.

They recorded strange sounds and ambient noises

and dubbed these tape loops onto the psychedelic Tomorrow Never Knows.

This song, more than any other Beatles number,

was a signpost to the direction the band was heading in.

PSYCHEDELIC LOOPING

And The Beatles were among the first bands really to exploit

the possibilities of a relatively new medium -

the long-player, or 33rpm album, which would be the perfect vehicle

to demonstrate the full range of their talents.

After Revolver, The Beatles would begin testing out

songs in the studio that they could never reproduce live.

Which was convenient,

because they had decided to quit touring altogether.

# It is believing... #

And it was their long-time producer, George Martin,

who had recorded all their songs so far,

who would oversee their experiments with magnetic tape.

# ..colour of your dreams... #

You can cut, you can edit.

Obviously you can slow down or speed up your tape.

You can put in backwards stuff, you can put in electronic sounds

which you couldn't possibly reproduce live.

You can use combinations of instruments

which are completely unbalanced,

but you can make them balanced.

You can put a...

Well, you can put a very soft flute against a huge brass chord

and still make it sound loud.

Then cut up the tape, pretty well threw it up in the air

until it settled down on the ground

and join them all up together.

So it just became like... Like a...

A patchwork quilt.

This is the kind of thing you can do on recording,

which you obviously couldn't possibly do live,

because it is, in fact, making up music as you go along.

In December 1966, Martin and The Beatles met at Abbey Road

to begin working on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,

a record which would become celebrated

as the first concept album.

MUSIC: A Day In The Life by The Beatles

George Martin was The Beatles' creative partner in crime

and he introduced them to this idea that he called the wind-up piano.

That's nothing to do with this instrument

and everything to do with magnetic tape

and the speed it records and the speed it plays back.

Take, for instance, George Martin's solo on Lovely Rita

on the Sgt. Pepper album.

What he did was actually set the tape slower,

record it slower and then played it back at a slightly higher speed

that he knew would make the piano fit with the track.

So here's, roughly, what he originally recorded.

HE PLAYS Lovely Rita

And while I was reproducing this solo, originally played

by George Martin himself, engineer John Barrett was recording me.

PIANO SOLO REPLAYS ON TAPE

And now, if we play it back

-at the normal speed for this tape machine...

-Right.

-..but then that's faster than we recorded it.

-Mm-hm, right.

PIANO SOLO REPLAYS AT FASTER TEMPO

-Wow. I'm good.

-NEIL SNIGGERS

Why do that? I mean, it is a great sound and all the rest of it.

Why did Martin do that?

It is far easier to play stuff slower more accurately and so,

the sort of ornamentation and the articulation of the notes,

-you can be more precise.

-Mm-hm.

But it is more that the tonal quality becomes brighter and edgier.

There's something almost music-boxy about it, isn't there?

-Yeah, definitely.

-I mean, across that track.

Can we hear that laid across what they did?

PIANO LOOP PLAYS OVER Lovely Rita

# Took her out and tried to win her... #

This was just one example of how The Beatles played with tape speeds,

slowing instruments down, speeding them up

and even recording guitar solos backwards!

# Took her home, I nearly made it

# Sitting on a sofa with a sister or two... #

Sgt. Pepper wouldn't have been possible without this

manipulation of magnetic tape,

and the overall sound was a wonderful, unpredictable collage

of voices and instruments, lyrics and music.

# Lovely Rita, meter maid... #

And for one track, which was recorded on these sessions

but released later,

they didn't simply adjust individual instruments,

but the entire song.

# Lovely Rita, meter maid... #

There's a famous edit in Strawberry Fields,

where there are two different takes of Strawberry Fields

and they're sort of put together.

-Yeah.

-Is that unusual?

Oh...

There was something looking over that particular song

because it was different tempos, different keys.

The likelihood of being able to change the speeds to bring them...

To put them both in the same tempo and in the same key,

almost impossible to set up in advance.

So there were two different versions of the same song?

Completely different, yeah.

What did they have to do to bring those together?

My understanding is that they sped one up, slowed one down

and they just all happened to work.

# It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out

# It doesn't matter much... #

We can just about hear the edit between the two versions here.

# Let me take you down cos I'm going... #

-SUBTLE TEMPO/KEY CHANGE

-# To Strawberry Fields... #

I love this song for its dreamlike quality.

Everybody who heard that track knew what it felt like to be stoned.

# Strawberry Fields forever

# No-one I think is in my tree

# I mean, it must be high or low... #

After dabbling with this psychedelic sound,

the band wanted to get back to their rock and roll roots.

# That is, I think it's not too... #

MUSIC: Revolution by The Beatles

What was different was on Revolution, the single version.

It was all recorded straight into the board. They didn't use any amps.

When they were recording, I walked into the control room

and it was the strangest thing I'd ever seen.

There was Ringo out in the studio, but all three of them

were sitting around the board with their guitars, playing.

And it sounded amazing.

It was plugging straight in,

just completely overloading the mic amps on the board.

MUSIC: Revolution by The Beatles

Paul wanted to make the loudest recording ever

and that was just crank every amp.

It would have been perfect for the amp in Spinal Tap, where,

"Oh, it goes up to 11." NEIL LAUGHS

He would have loved that for that session.

# You tell me that it's evolution

# Well, you know... #

The recordings made by The Beatles at Abbey Road

are the culmination of two decades of technological revolution.

One which sparked the emergence of the music studio

as a compositional tool,

the producer as a creative force

and the musician as a new kind of artist,

sculpting and reimagining the sound of their songs.

And all this was kick-started by the discovery of magnetic tape

in the dying days of World War II.

Next time, songs enter a new electronic era...

..using synthesisers...

..disco beats...

# I never can say goodbye... #

..and even digital voices...

# ..Believe in life after love? #

But again, rootsy rock and roll fights back.

MUSIC: Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana

# A denial!

# A denial!

# A denial! #