Original post on Mark Saunders blog : [www.marksaunders.com.hostbaby.com]

One day in June, we recorded “Absolute Beginners,” the title track of the soundtrack. It was an awesome session. The band was great — mostly musicians who’d been playing with Thomas Dolby, plus Steve Nieve (Elvis Costello’s brilliant keyboard player) — and the song was epic, perfect for a closing titles movie song. But in the mid afternoon a rumor circulated that Mick Jagger was coming to the studio — something to do with the upcoming Live Aid concert. We assumed that we’d record a message from Mick and Dave asking people to donate money, but a while later that afternoon a percussionist and two female backing singers showed up and said, “We are here for the Bowie/Jagger session,” at which point Clive, Alan and I looked at each other with “What the @#$%&!” looks on our faces. Bowie hadn’t mentioned a thing about this to the band or us.

Around 6 p.m., I think, David announced that we were to stop working on “Absolute Beginners” because at 7 p.m. Mick Jagger was coming to the studio and they were going to record the Martha and the Vandellas hit song “Dancing in the Street” for Live Aid — and they would only have three hours to finish it, because he and Jagger would be going straight off to shoot the video for the song, which would have to be finished before sunrise! No pressure! The band had equal measures of panic and excitement on their faces, as did, I’m sure, the rest of us, especially the studio maintenance guy, who quickly realized that this session would be the largest number of musicians and singers all performing at the same time in the studio’s history — and he realized we didn’t have enough microphone cables. He went off and spent the next hour furiously soldering extra microphone cables together. Bowie handed a cassette of the original version to the band and they took it into the live room, huddled round a boom box, and started figuring out their parts.

The recording of the movie soundtrack had been going on and off for weeks or months and up until this day no movie people except the director, Julien Temple, had ever bothered to show up at the recording sessions to check on how the music was coming along. But with the rumor that Jagger was coming in to the studio, movie people started showing up — like, movie producers with their kids! By the time Jagger walked in, there were around fifteen people — aside from Clive, Alan and me — in the studio control room. Jagger looked a bit shocked when he walked in and saw the crowd. I thought he might throw a fit and have everyone kicked out (as one might expect a big rock star to) but he was totally cool with it and just got on with the job at hand.

The band was still working on different sections of the song, so there was a lot of stopping and starting, and it was as if Mick was wired to the sound because he could be in the middle of a serious conversation and when the band started playing he’d immediately start dancing and when the band stopped, he would, too. Not a full-blown Mick Jagger-on-stage kinda dance, but an on-the-spot dance that would enable him to continue his serious conversation. I thought this was awesome — like, he’s the real deal; music is in his blood and he just can’t even help himself!

The drummer was the brilliant Neil Conti, and I remember him really helping keep the band focused and nailing the track. Everybody played together live, and in one booth, Bowie, Jagger and two backing singers sang along, too. They did two takes and the second one was deemed the master, but both were fabulous takes with great vocal performances. The vocals were re-sung afterwards purely because there was no separation between the vocal mics. In other words, David’s vocal could be heard on Mick’s mic and vice versa, which would have compromised the mixing process somewhat. Jagger did two vocal takes and we used all of one take except one word from the other. Clive Langer was the one who suggested that maybe the one word from the other take might be better — by this point he’d had a few glasses of wine to calm his nerves — and I remember Jagger looking a bit surprised because there wasn’t a lot in it between the two takes. Afterwards I caught Clive’s eye and he gave me “I can’t believe I just did that!” look.

I don’t know if he’s always like this in the studio, but Mick gave a performance on the mic like he was performing to a packed Madison Square Garden. Maybe it was because of the extra people in the control room, I don’t know, but for me, who was sitting at the mixing board directly in front of Jagger — which is only about ten feet away with just a big plate glass window between us — this was an incredible “can you @#$%& believe this” moment! This was one year and one day after I started working in a recording studio, for God’s sake!

Bowie did his trusty line-by-line technique, pretty much nailing each line with one take, and I was sweating at the controls because the three-hour deadline was approaching and some of the vocal lines were really close together. If I’d put the tape machine into record a hair too early, I could have erased part of Bowie’s previous line. Not something I wanted to do with David Bowie in front of me and Mick Jagger standing over my shoulder! It was a high-pressure three hours, but bloody fantastic. When “Dancing in the Street” was released, it was one of my first engineering credits on a record.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-01-22 03:36 by kowalski.

Thanks for sharing that. Nice memory. Apart from the camp video, the single is one of Mick's best solo moments.

Horrible video, worse song. Great article though.

Rod

I like them both, The video and the single...Hot Stuff

2 1 2 0

I've always liked this one; yes, the video is camper than camp, but the song is a classic. Jagger over-sings absolutely, Bowie's vocals seem very cool in comparison. But together, it works. The video has become an absolute classic of course, so good it's gained a cool notoriety all it's own.

They look and act ridiculous in the video, but the song and the performance is great, imo

Jack Nicholson: "Watch the screeeeeeeen..."

The video of this song is a hoot--a couple of old stars/pals cutting up, and having a laugh. Not to be taken seriously at all.

I've always likened it to this:

[www.youtube.com]

Worked on the mix for this. Finished the day before "Live Aide". It is a lousy record but fun at the time to be around both singers. Mick overshadowed David in our company, Bowie was a very laid back guy while Mick was himself, he broke out an amazing joint late one afternoon and we all laughed like kids. They showed the video on a big screen in Philly, which was neat. I can't remember if this was before or after Dirty Work but the last I saw Mick was Steel Wheels remixes then in concert fort the historic Grrrrrrr. Later that year I worked with Bowie on some movie songs for "Little Creatures"????? He was always very, very nice. I knew all his bandmates, they loved David without fault, never heard a negative word about him... For Let's Dance tour SRV left the tour, his girlfriend caused many a scene at rehearsals and disrupted this missed opportunity. Earl Slick did a great job on that tour.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-01-22 19:44 by DoomandGloom.

Nice to hear from you again, DoomandGloom. Can't recall, but were you on the Phantom Rocker & Slick "My Mistake" session with Keith?

Sort of...

Well, I'm curious if you have any insight. The whole video with the fake Keith appearance always made this one an oddity to me.

Quote
Rocky Dijon
Well, I'm curious if you have any insight. The whole video with the fake Keith appearance always made this one an oddity to me.

No I am not aware of a video... Keith's approach as a session guy was such that he'd play some impossibly bad things for many hours, we'd be stupefied but later working with Steve Cropper I found he'd ask for the door closed and he did the same on shorter time frame. Cropper explained he first needed to understand what didn't work before he could construct a part that didn't sound typical. Needless to say both players are studio legends and I've carried that approach as a player myself although I'd hardly be allowed to suck for three hours on someone's dime. Their reputation is well earned and in my day both guys could get signature results.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2016-01-22 20:46 by DoomandGloom.

Interesting. There were two versions of the music video, one was "conceptual" and featured Elivra and was set in a fun house. The second was a performance clip and had Earl Slick with his head wrapped Arab-style dressed in scarves and with shades to resemble Keith while miming the solo.