For his work on the early
Kinks and
Who records alone, producer
Shel Talmy was an important figure in the British Invasion, cutting sessions that had a harder and more distorted guitar sound than anything else that had been heard before the mid-'60s.
Talmy's other credits with '60s acts are extensive, ranging from cult band
the Creation and early singles by
David Bowie to folk-rock with
the Pentangle and pop with
the Bachelors and
Chad & Jeremy. After the 1960s he was only sporadically active in the studio, although he was still doing projects here and there into the '90s. Born in Chicago,
Talmy cut his teeth in the record business as an engineer in L.A. in the early '60s. In 1962, he turned a European vacation into a job in Britain when he played acetates of
Beach Boys and
Lou Rawls songs to
Dick Rowe of Decca Records, claiming them as his own productions (although they weren't).
Rowe hired him for Decca and double-checked
Talmy's credentials with friends of his who were in high places and only too happy to confirm that
Talmy had done everything he'd claimed he had. By the time it became apparent
Talmy was bluffing, he had already started to have hits for Decca, who were content to keep him on.
Talmy started out working with pop singers in the U.K., including
the Bachelors. Very soon after he arrived in Britain, however, the British Invasion started to take off.
Talmy was soon working primarily as an independent producer rather than as a label employee, and was keen to get in on the "Beat Boom," as it was called in Britain, with guitar-oriented groups. Perhaps because of his American background,
Talmy was more inclined to keep a raw edge on the performances and record distorted guitars at high volumes than more established producers of the time would have.
Talmy has recalled that he unsuccessfully tried to interest Decca in Manfred Mann and
Georgie Fame, but got his first notable success with R&B-influenced rock with
the Kinks.
Talmy produced most of their records between 1964 and 1967, including the discs that did so much to popularize the slashing power chords and fuzzy textures that soon become a big part of guitar rock, "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" especially. It should be noted that
Talmy was also there for the sessions that saw
Kinks songwriter
Ray Davies' more sophisticated and music hall-influenced side flower, like "Sunday Afternoon" and "Dedicated Follower of Fashion."
Talmy's other big success story in the mid-'60s was
the Who. He produced their first three singles, "I Can't Explain," "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," and "My Generation," as well as their debut The Who Sing My Generation album -- everything, in short, that they did in 1965. These were records that brought an unprecedented fury to rock on disc, particularly in Pete Townshend's feedback-ridden guitar flights and
Keith Moon's hurricane-force drumming. It's even been reported that Decca Records' American branch initially declined to press "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," believing that the feedback on the guitar solo was the result of a mastering defect.
Talmy did not produce any
Who records after 1965, in spite of his fairly spectacular initial track record with the band, owing to a dispute between him and the group's managers that was eventually settled with an agreement that gave him a percentage of
the Who's record royalties for years to come. As he was doing
the Who's 1965 sessions as an independent producer,
Talmy retained control of the master tapes. This is a reason why The Who Sing My Generation, as well as songs that appeared on their 1965 singles, have yet to appear on compact discs that have been remastered from the best possible original source tapes.
Talmy also recorded other notable guitar-heavy discs with groups of lesser renown in the 1960s. Certainly with
the Creation, the cult group featuring guitarist Eddie Phillips, he explored the kind of the inventive guitar textures he had mapped out with
the Kinks and
the Who, particularly feedback and the distorted sounds produced by playing the strings with a violin bow. To this day
Talmy extols the talents of
the Creation, believing that they would have been a phenomenally successful group had they had better luck and been able to stay together longer. Although his tenure with Australian stars
the Easybeats was brief in 1966-1967, it did include their biggest international hit, "Friday on My Mind." He was at the helm of some flop singles with
David Bowie (then known as David Jones) in 1964-1965, which sometimes employed a backing reminiscent of the early Who. He also made some fine, raucous singles with obscure groups like the First Gear, the Untamed, the Rockin' Vicars, and the Zephyrs, which would not reach an international audience (and then a very small, specialized one) until these sides were included on various collector-oriented reissues of obscure British Invasion music in the '80s and '90s.
Talmy briefly founded his own label, Planet, whose most notable artists were
the Creation, but the company folded after a deal with Phonogram for distribution did not work out according to his wishes.
Talmy did not just do hard guitar rock in the '60s. He also produced, at various points in their careers,
Chad & Jeremy,
the Nashville Teens,
the Fortunes,
Amen Corner (
Andy Fairweather-Low's first group), obscure American psychedelic band
the Mandrake Memorial (a session
Talmy walked out on), and the post-
Paul Jones Manfred Mann. It is not well-known that
Talmy was also an extremely capable folk producer who enjoyed working with acoustic guitars as well as electric ones. His most notable achievement in this regard is his production of early
Pentangle albums, as well as material by
Roy Harper and
Pentangle guitarist
Bert Jansch. It should be noted that some of the famous artists that worked with
Talmy were not totally enamored with the producer.
Kinks biographies have claimed, for instance, that they had to recut some of their famous hits behind his back to get the sound they wanted. The Who and
the Easybeats also do not have wholly pleasant memories of their associations with
Talmy, although in each of those cases this may have something to do with legal matters that were complicating the progress of their careers at the time they worked with (or ended their relationships with)
Talmy. For his part,
Talmy has said that he doesn't remember serious problems with the band members, and feels that disputes between him and the artists' managers were the cause of most of the tensions, particularly when his association with
the Who ended (and
the Who's managers took over as the group's producers). Whatever problems may have existed, it's undeniable that
Talmy produced some of the best and most innovative work of
the Who,
the Kinks,
the Easybeats, and others, results which are unlikely to have been achieved by sheer chance.
Talmy became less active in the studio in the 1970s, although he produced albums by little-known acts such as Fumble and Rumpelstiltskin. At the end of the '70s he returned to the United States, and has occasionally dabbled in production for low-profile acts since, such as Jon & the Nightriders, the Sorrows (not the mid-'60s British Invasion group of that name), and Nancy Boy. ~ Richie Unterberger