Keith Richards [to recording engineer Gil Markle]: "I never get a chance to do this. You don't understand. I suppose you think it's all fun being me. Listen, I never get a chance to sing by myself like this—play the piano—without some bastard weirding out and asking me why I wasn't playing the guitar, and looking mean. People have their ideas about me. I bet you didn't think I could play the piano, did you? Or sing classics from the thirties."





1. Darling, Say It's Not You (original by George Jones) 3:42
2. Don't (original by Elvis Presley) 3:50
3. Blue Monday (original by Fats Domino) 2:05
4. Oh, What A Feeling (original by the Everly Brothers) 4:05
5. Sing Me Back Home (original by Merle Haggard) 4:39
6. The Nearness Of You (original by Hoagy Carmichael) 4:05
7. Apartment Number 9 (original by Tammy Wynette) 3:54
8. All I Have To Do Is Dream (original by the Everly Brothers) 3:03
9. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (original by Jerry Lee Lewis) 1:18
10. Oh, What A Feeling (take 2) 2:32
11. Apartment Number 9 (take 2) 4:43







Gil Markle: This for studio buffs: we used three Neumann '87 microphones on the Steinway, which Pat Metheny left with us two years ago. The piano, I mean. Mikes in our top-secret positions. Another Neumann '87 on him, close up, with a pop filter; voice highly compressed using an Eleven-seventy-six limiter set at twelve-to-one. Finally, a good measure of live acoustic reverb on either side of his voice, in stereo. Lots of E.Q., on everything. I had only one shot at this, and I wanted it to be right the first time.

The live mix was great all by itself, and the best results of that extraordinary session were in fact recorded directly onto our Studer mastering deck, and not the 24-track. 30 ips; no noise reduction, very hot on AMPEX 456 tape.



Gil Markle: Recording enthusiasts will be interested to know that the eventual edits on these ten or so tunes — classic Keith Richards piano demos — took nearly two weeks' work. I found the time to do it only a month after the Stones had finally gone, and performed the edits on a 7 1/2 ips dub inadvertently left behind at my house on Cape Cod. Editing at 7 1/2 ips is no fun, as you may know. Several hundred cuts were required, since Keith never really bothered to begin or end any of the tunes. He'd just keep on playing, and singing, with me scrambling to keep tape on the tape machines, late at night in the A-Control Room at Long View Farm.

Studio A at Long View is the one people travel considerable distances to use, and I think you'd hear it said at the Farm that I can make it work pretty much as well as anybody can. Mixing tape is what I like to do. I can make really good, live, super-present mixes. That's what got me into all this, back in '72, when I was still teaching Philosophy at Clark. I figured I needed some time off to build a studio to make some mixes in. And that's how Long View came about.

So when I tell you that the live stereo tape of Keith Richards sounded good, you better believe me that it did.

Gil Markle's (Diary of a Studio Owner) site at: [www.studiowner.com]

This was a great time for Keith and all the Stones. Rehearsing for their tour at Longview Farm in Western Massachussets

Nice post but "Unknown Dreams" is an awful way to enjoy these 1981 gems as it has a bad sound and it runs at the wrong speed.

^ Yes, they are sped up, and this is a common complaint among listeners, who comment on the "Donald Duck" vocal tones--to me the sped-up tapes just make him sound like Bob Dylan with a bit of a head cold. I wonder if they were just recorded that way, whether because Keith might not have been secure about his voice, because there doesn't seem to be anything else available.

I'll post further clips if I find anything that has been speed-corrected.

Aside from the YouTube clip, post is essentially a cut and paste from uber-collector Gary Greenburg's blog. [garyrocks.wordpress.com]

Keith discusses piano playing in an interview from 2004.

these tapes have been around for a while and pitch correction relative to speed is a function VLC has as well as other programs so managing that is not too tricky.

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bye bye johnny
Aside from the YouTube clip, post is essentially a cut and paste from uber-collector Gary Greenburg's blog. [garyrocks.wordpress.com]

Thanks for taking the time to point that out.

However, you neglected to mention another significant "cut and paste" link, from which one photo and several paragraphs of text quotes were pulled, that of Gil Markle's website, Diary of a Studio Owner: [www.studiowner.com]

Also, the source of the initial quote of Keith speaking to studio engineer Gil Markle about this session is uncredited, but was pulled from: [wastedspace.com]

Those sources, essentially, are where the post comes from--not that it should matter, of course....

Markle's comments are a large part of that blog entry, and his website is linked there as well.

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bye bye johnny
Markle's comments are a large part of that blog entry, and his website is linked there as well.

Whatever. The point is that I didn't link Markle's comments or his website from that blog entry, so your critical comments posted above are still factually incorrect.

But I'm sure that fact is difficult to comprehend for someone whose posts mainly consist of copying and pasting Ron Wood's Twitter account.

I think the point is that it's too bad your source didn't see fit to credit Markle's site as their source.
And unless he's taken them down, Markle's site had the recordings at the right speed.

Unknown Dreams includes tracks that weren't cut at Longview Farm, and fails to identify them properly.
Try to find the boot called Recurring Dreams for better chronology and better sound.

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with sssoul
I think the point is that it's too bad your source didn't see fit to credit Markle's site as their source.
And unless he's taken them down, Markle's site had the recordings at the right speed.

Unknown Dreams includes tracks that weren't cut at Longview Farm, and fails to identify them properly.
Try to find the boot called Recurring Dreams for better chronology and better sound.

According to [wastedspace.com] "Years ago when I first visited his site, Markle had posted Real Audio files of the songs Keith recorded at his farm, the same songs on that hissy third generation tape I heard. Recently I looked again and the audio file links have been removed, but luckily I saved them, so as a public service to all you Keith fans, here they are:"

Unfortunately, the links for the audio files of the Long View Farm recordings listed on the wastedspace.com site also appear to be defunct, because when you click on them all you get is the message "Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to www.studiowner.com:8080"

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stonehearted
According to [wastedspace.com] "Years ago when I first visited his site, Markle had posted Real Audio files of the songs Keith recorded at his farm, the same songs on that hissy third generation tape I heard. ... "

Yes, Keith recorded the same tracks at more than one session, including Toronto 77,
LA 81 and Longview Farm 81. Unknown Dreams jumbles tracks from different sessions together without identifying them.
On Markle's site there were indeed several of "the same songs" as one could find on hissy tapes,
but they were clean recordings at the right speed. They're on the other boot I mentioned (Recurring Dreams)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-12-02 10:27 by with sssoul.

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with sssoul
Keith recorded the same tracks at more than one session, including Toronto 77,
LA 81 and Longview Farm 81. Unknown Dreams jumbles tracks from different sessions together without identifying them.
On Markle's site there were indeed several of "the same songs" as one could find on hissy tapes,
but they were clean recordings at the right speed. They're on the other boot I mentioned (Recurring Dreams)

Unfortunately, "Recurring Dreams" does not appear available to post as clips, but thanks for your help!

Thanks to Jane Rose for this swingin' shot of Bill Graham, taken during Rolling Stones rehearsals at Long View Farm in Worcester, Mass, summer of 1981.

Great stuff. Is there a current bootleg with all these tracks ?

Not yet but there's a wonderful 77-81 fan-made comp (by the legendary Cpt Acid) that would make a superb roio...

It's called A Stone Alone.