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In the history of rock and pop, it’s rare that a producer becomes a \u201crock star.\u201d Certain names have become prominent fixtures in the audio part of pop culture: Phil Spector and George Martin are among the most well-known producers of the 1960s. In later years, Quincy Jones, Jeff Lynne, Brian Eno and Rick Rubin would earn fame as go-to producers for many top artists.<\/p>\n
But only one producer can lay claim to having worked with \u2013 not to mention having had a role in \u201cdiscovering\u201d \u2013 some of the most influential groups of the rock era. Shel Talmy produced The Kinks, The Who, a young David Bowie, The Easybeats, The Creation, The Damned and countless others. And as he approaches his 80th<\/sup> birthday, the irrepressible Talmy remains busy producing current-day artists.<\/p>\n Though he’s most readily associated with a long and successful string of British acts, Sheldon \u201cShel\u201d Talmy is an American. Born 1937 in Chicago, by his teenage years Talmy was living in Los Angeles. In his leisure time, he hung out at Martoni’s Italian Restaurant, a Hollywood spot frequented by people in the music business. In 1961 he met and became friendly with Phil Yeend, owner of Conway Studios.<\/p>\n Talmy told Yeend he was looking for a gig. He remembers Yeend’s reply: \u201cCome to the studio, and I’ll teach you how to be an engineer.\u201d Talmy took him up on his offer. \u201cIt was pretty easy to learn quickly,\u201d he says. Three days later he did his first solo session, recording \u201cFalling Star\u201d for a little-known singer called Debbie Sharon. \u201cIt was sink or swim, I think. And fortunately I did not sink.\u201d Talmy may have swam, but Falling Star sank, failing to chart. Yet the young producer would continue to hone his craft, recording sides for surf and r&b bands.<\/p>\n At age 25, Talmy decided upon a vacation to England. The 1962 trip was planned to last five weeks. Shortly before leaving, Talmy told his good friend, Capitol Records A&R man Nick Venet, that he wouldn’t mind picking up a quick job or two while in London. \u201cNick said, ‘take my acetates. And if you can use them, use them. Tell ’em they’re yours.’\u201d<\/p>\n Shel Talmy readily admits that he was \u201c(a) very young, (b) brash, and (c) thought I was returning in four weeks.\u201d He already had work lined up back in the USA \u2013 a deal with Era Records \u2013 so he felt he had little to lose. With professional recordings of Lou Rawls and the Beach Boys tucked under his arm, Talmy marched into Decca’s London offices. He introduced himself to Dick Rowe, saying, \u201cI am possibly the greatest thing since sliced bread was invented in terms of a record producer, and here is what I just did.\u201d Passing Venet’s acetates off as his own work, Talmy landed a job.<\/p>\n That same year Talmy would produce his first hit single, \u201cCharmaine\u201d b\/w \u201cOld Bill\u201d by Irish pop group The Bachelors. \u201cIt was sure nice to get a first hit out of the way,\u201d Talmy says. He says that the string of hits that followed with The Bachelors \u201ccertainly increased my confidence in what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n Though by ’64 he had a hit in \u201cCharmaine\u201d and a few others, Talmy wasn’t yet well-known. That didn’t stop him from writing a book with the portentous title How to Succeed in Recording by Really Trying<\/i>. Talmy laughs when reminded of that long out-of-print, 19-page tome. \u201cI used to hang out at Denmark Street like everybody did,\u201d he says. \u201cOne of those publishers I hung out with asked me to do this thing. And I was short of bread, so I said, ‘Yes, by all means of course I’ll do it.’\u201d<\/p>\n Talmy hasn’t seen a copy of the book in decades; today he doesn’t remember exactly what he wrote. \u201cIt’s legitimate,\u201d he stresses. \u201cI did write what I thought was accurate, but I don’t think it’s my finest hour, not by any stretch of the imagination. But I\u2019d love to read what the hell I wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n In February 1964, Pye Records released \u201cLong Tall Sally\u201d b\/w \u201cI Took My Baby Home,\u201d the debut single by London-based quartet The Kinks, and a Shel Talmy production. Talmy recalls how he came to work with the group. He was on his way to lunch when Robert Wace \u2013 manager of the band then known as The Ravens \u2013 walked in with an acetate: \u201cAnybody here that would like to listen to this?\u201d Talmy agreed to listen.<\/p>\n Talmy confirms that even early on, brothers Ray and Dave Davies fought constantly. ‘\u201dOne day got particularly combative during a session,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI would say, ‘Well, the rest of us are going to take a 15 minute break. Do whatever you’ve got to do, and then we’ll come back.’ Fortunately there was no blood when we got back.\u201d Talmy would eventually produce five albums and more than a dozen hit singles for The Kinks.<\/p>\n Early the next year, Talmy would begin a relatively brief yet immensely fruitful working relationship with another rock group, The Who. Talmy recalls how he found them. \u201cA girl that was working for me part time was friendly \u2013 if that’s the right word \u2013 with Kit Lambert, who asked her to get me to come and see The Who,\u201d he says. \u201cThey were rehearsing in a church hall somewhere. And literally eight bars after they started playing, I said, ‘Yes, I’ll sign them!’\u201d Talmy says he knew right away that The Who was \u201ctotally different from attitude and sound than any other English band I heard at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n Beginning with \u201cI Can’t Explain,\u201d Talmy’s productions for The Who \u2013 more than a half dozen singles in ’65 and ’66 plus the LP The Who Sing My Generation<\/i> \u2013 effectively captured the chaos of the band’s live sound. \u201cAnd that didn’t happen like some miracle on its own,\u201d Talmy says. \u201cPete [Townshend] and I did spend a lot of time in the studio on our own, trying various mic positions in order to wind up with the sounds you hear on the record.\u201d<\/p>\n A legal dispute would end Talmy’s association with The Who; group co-manager Lambert would subsequently serve as producer of their music, before Townshend took on that role himself.<\/p>\n Summer 1965 found Talmy at IBC Studios in London, producing two Parlophone singles featuring a 17 year old singer called David Jones. \u201cI Pity the Fool\u201d b\/w \u201cTake My Tip\u201d was released as The Manish Boys; \u201cYou’ve Got a Habit of Leaving\u201d b\/w \u201cBaby Loves That Way\u201d was credited to Davy Jones and the Lower Third; the latter would be the last single Jones would release before changing his name to David Bowie.<\/p>\n \u201cDavid was brought to my office by a guy that I knew who was kind of a gadfly around town,\u201d Talmy says. \u201cI liked him immediately. I thought he was smart, he was brash like I was, and I thought he was very talented.\u201d The singles \u2013 the only songs on which Talmy worked with Jones\/Bowie \u2013 weren’t commercially successful, but Talmy had high hopes for young David. \u201cI thought he absolutely was going to make it,\u201d Talmy recalls. \u201cThe only unfortunate thing is that he and I were about six years ahead of the market that accepted him.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/shel_talmy_1964.jpg\")
\u201cI liked a lot of what I heard,\u201d he says. But because he had \u201cindependent producer\u201d status, he didn’t take the group to Decca. \u201cBy that time they’d turned down both Georgie Fame and Manfred Mann on me. I thought it was about time \u2013 since I was ‘independent,’ \u2013 I’d better start acting<\/i> independent.\u201d<\/p>\n