This weekend sees the release of my newest EP that has been locked away in a vault for 50 years. I know it seems as if I’ve been at the centre of the longest Golden Jubilee celebrations since Queen Victoria but it’s all Elton John’s fault in a roundabout sort of way. Finally it has escaped ‘The Gus Dudgeon Sessions 1975-2025’.
So if you’re new to the story…here’s a quick resume of the story so far.
In July 1973 I sent a tape of my songs to John Peel at Radio 1 and signed to Elton John’s Rocket Record company in October of that year. We immediately recorded an album but my parents, who were teachers, suggested we held the release back until the school summer holidays of 1974 so I’d have a clear 6 weeks.
In the meantime my voice broke and the album was shelved. The rest of 1974 was spent playing football for Swansea Schoolboys and writing new songs whilst I waited to find out if and what my future was as a recording artist.
When I signed to Rocket Records they had 5 directors; Elton John and his song writing partner Bernie Taupin, Steve Brown who had helped develop Elton as an artist and John Reid who was Elton’s manager. The 5th director was Elton’s producer Gus Dudgeon.
Gus had produced all of the big Elton Albums, but before that he had already built quite a reputation having produced David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’. At the start of 1975 Gus was the most successful record producer in the world and you can only imagine how I felt about it when he decided that he would now take control of my career.
Up until this point I had usually had my dad or a brother as a chaperone and I’d stay in the Cumberland Hotel at Marble Arch. 1975 was different in so many ways. Firstly, I would travel to London on my own and secondly I would stay with Gus and his lovely wife Sheila. Gus didn’t drive at the time so we would travel back and fore to the studios in a stretch limousine.
The first session was booked into the newly refurbished Marquee Studios just behind the famous Marquee Club. Gus had decided he would base himself at these studios and to make him feel at home the studio had brought in a new recording set up including a 24 track tape recorder. The engineers were still wiring when I arrived by taxi from Paddington Station.
Studio Diary – International Musician & Recording World
At this stage I didn’t really know Gus. I’d met him and of course I had every Elton John album but all of a sudden he had to act in loco parentis. The first thing I noticed about Gus was how well groomed he was. He was always dressed immaculately even if it was jeans and jacket and he always smelt successful. My dad used aftershave and my brothers, and I would have old spice anti-perspirant for Christmas but whatever after shave Gus used it smelt expensive.
With the pick of the worlds studios and musicians Gus always made sure his records had the best chance of keeping up his success rate. Gus wasn’t a musician or songwriter. He had started as a tea boy at Decca Studios. It was by chance that he took over a session from a drunk colleague one night that led to one of his early successes with the Zombies hit ‘She’s Not There’.
Studio Diary – International Musician & Recording World
One by one the band assembled at the Marquee. Davey Johnstone was the golden haired guitarist from the Elton John band. He turned up with a massive van as he had so many different stringed instruments to offer the session. The drummer was Roger Pope (no relation). Roger had known Elton from the early days and not long after my session Roger would go on to replace Nigel Olsson in the Elton John Band. On bass was Freddy Gandy who had played with Elton as teenagers and on keyboards Mike Moran who would go on to work with Freddie Mercury on the album Barcelona.
Having got set up while we waited for the engineers to complete all of the necessary solder joints it soon became clear that Gus worked on a different timetable to my previous sessions. In essence I think there was no budget limit, no time limit. Gus liked to create the right atmosphere and soon got into the telling of his legendary stories about who he had worked with and the things that had gone wrong.
But when we worked we worked. The reasons those 70’s Gus Dudgeon tracks sound so good is that Gus was a perfectionist. From the choice of recording studio desk even the type of tape Gus wanted to push as hard as he could. Gus had gone through my previous recordings and throughout that autumn I would send Gus demos of new songs I was working on. The session routine was that I would go into the studio with these amazing musicians and play them the next song on Gus’s list. I would then go behind some screens to sing guide vocals whilst they would routine the song. And we would play them and play them and play them again until Gus was happy.
Maybe it was because I had seen Davey play at the Elton concerts or maybe because I knew every note he played on Elton’s records but in my eyes Davey was the star of the show. He just had so many ideas. He also had the best guitars I had ever seen including a Black Les Paul with 3 pickups and a brand new amp called a Boogie which was small enough to carry but loud enough to fill a small stadium.
One of my favourite Elton tracks has always been ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for fighting’. I still remember the smile on my face after playing the band my song called ‘When You’re Away’. Straight away Davey turned up the Boogie and turned my teeny bop tune into a rocker.
I also remember sitting at the piano teaching Mike Moran the piano part to ‘When I Call Out’. I mentioned to Mike that in my head I wanted it to sound like the Jimmy Helms song ‘Gonna Make you an Offer’ and did he know it. ‘Yes’, he said, ‘I played piano and arranged that record’! When Gus told me that the chap doing the string and brass arrangements had arranged ‘The Long and Winding Road’ for the Beatles I couldn’t wait to get home to tell my mates in school.
At the time Gus was working on Elton’s ‘Captain Fantastic’ Album and sometimes my sessions would share studio time with mixing or remixing one of those tracks. The sessions were long hours and every so often I would curl up on the sofa at the back of the studio for bit of a nap. One night we were waiting for hours for some tapes to be flown in from America. I’m ashamed to say that I did fall asleep for the first play back of the Elton John/John Lennon performance at Madison Square Garden!!!
Sadly, half way through my new album Gus fell out with the other Rocket Records directors. My tapes went into storage and my dreams went on hold for another year or so before eventually Elton became my producer.
Gus Dudgeon Interview Sound International 1978.
It was only recently that I asked Elton would it be possible to have my old songs and recordings back. He immediately said yes and since then we’ve been working our way through the tapes.
To stream or download click the photo above.
We have now reached 1975 and I have to say whether you like my songs or voice, the quality of Gus’s recordings and the musicianship of the players still shines through. Listening to them is a like a time machine as I remember the amazing times working with Gus Dudgeon.