Norman Smith, 1st Beatles engineer, has died.
.
1962-1965, died Monday in the UK. He was 85.
In addition to engineering The Beatles early recordings, Norman was behind
the desk for sessions by Billy J Kramer, Manfred Mann, Frank Ifield and
Helen Shapiro.
Norman also produced the first two Pink Floyd albums, as well as the classic
rock opera "S.F. Sorrow" by The Pretty Things.
Norman was also an accomplished songwriter, and scored a worldwide top 5 hit
in 1972 under the name "Hurricane" Smith with "Oh Babe What Would You Say."
Last year, Norman published his memoir, "John Lennon Called Me Normal,"
which was released in limited form at the Fest For Beatles Fans.
RIP, Normal. We'll miss you.
JohnB
"Don't Let It Die" - the better hit single of Hurricane Smith.
Will his memoir now achieve a wider circulation? May be the best
tribute if it did.
O'Leary III
> Norman "Normal" Smith, who engineered The Beatles first six albums from
> 1962-1965, died Monday in the UK. He was 85.
Thank you for posting that, Dot.
fatt...@yahoo.com
Sad.
t...@aerovons.com
He was a very gritty, funny, and down to earth guy. Extremely
talented, and yet very workmanlike. Came up with great ideas and was
always very upbeat.
He worked on several of the first cuts we did at AR and I think we
were through at least an entire track before someone told us "You
know, he was The Beatles engineer"....;) . From then on he suffered a
barrage of constant questions from us that he patiently answered, and
we were impressed with the "It's no big deal" attitude he had about
all of it....
TH
fatt...@yahoo.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Wow. I did not know you had met him.
Do you mind telling us what he had to say about the Beatles?
I am often sad when I read that somone has passed away. Time marches
on for all of us.
t...@aerovons.com
He was our producer on several of the first cuts of our album, until
we parted ways because of his schedule and my desire to produce.
I remember us asking all sorts of things about Beatles records that he
didn't even know were there...like the false start on the stereo
version of "I'm Looking Through You". I also asked him about "I Want
to Hold Your Hand" and if he remembered anything about the
session....he said "they were playing very loud, and we had the mikes
about 6 feet from the amps" (which is a lot, I wonder if he
misremembered or was exaggerating).
Curiously, at one point I thought of more harmony parts than we had
people on one take of a song we were doing, and he offered to sing one
of the parts. He was quite a bit older than we were and we
hesitated.....then he said "Well I've done it for THEM, you know...."
and I said "On what? What tracks did you sing on???" utterly
astonished. "Oh I don't remember, just some Ah's or oohs or something"
he said. Don't know know if he was putting us on;)
TH
fatt...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> fattuc...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > I am often sad when I read that somone has passed away. Time marches
> > on for all of us.
>
You write like MC Hammered.
O'Leary III
> Wow. I did not know you had met him.
You really pay attention here, don't you?
Bip Bop
> 1962-1965, died Monday in the UK. He was 85.
>
An Interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWbTgUbEvbY
One of his greatest songs:
paramucho
>
>He was our producer on several of the first cuts of our album, until
>we parted ways because of his schedule and my desire to produce.
>
>I remember us asking all sorts of things about Beatles records that he
>didn't even know were there...like the false start on the stereo
>version of "I'm Looking Through You". I also asked him about "I Want
>to Hold Your Hand" and if he remembered anything about the
>session....he said "they were playing very loud, and we had the mikes
>about 6 feet from the amps" (which is a lot, I wonder if he
>misremembered or was exaggerating).
>
>Curiously, at one point I thought of more harmony parts than we had
>people on one take of a song we were doing, and he offered to sing one
>of the parts. He was quite a bit older than we were and we
>hesitated.....then he said "Well I've done it for THEM, you know...."
>and I said "On what? What tracks did you sing on???" utterly
>astonished. "Oh I don't remember, just some Ah's or oohs or something"
>he said. Don't know know if he was putting us on;)
I guess we've gotta go through all the early tracks now trying to
identify Norman's voice :-)
fatt...@yahoo.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Did he do the "aaahhhhs" on a Day in the Life? :-)
globalsearch
sounds, "more stark than those typically heard in the ornamented and
reverberation-drenched songs on popular radio" were due to Norman
Smith's preferences and engineering.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/arts/music/07smith.html?
March 7, 2008
Norman Smith, Engineer for the Beatles, Dies at 85
By DOUGLAS SCHORZMAN
Norman Smith, who was the lead recording engineer for every Beatles
song through 1965 and who as a producer helped usher in an era of
psychedelic rock when he discovered the band Pink Floyd, died early
Tuesday in East Sussex, England. He was 85.
The cause was cancer, his wife, Eileen, said.
Mr. Smith, a World War II veteran who worked afterward as a dance-hall
and jazz musician, came to the recording business relatively late,
taking an entry-level job at EMI Recording Studios on Abbey Road in
London in 1959, when he was 36. But within a few years he played
critical roles for two of the biggest-selling bands in history.
Later, in the early 1970s, he had a moment in the spotlight himself,
scoring a Top 5 hit in the United States with his "Oh Babe, What Would
You Say," singing under the name Hurricane Smith.
Mr. Smith worked his way through the EMI hierarchy at a time when the
studio was a relatively formal place, and frontline engineers were
required to wear ties and jackets. (Reacting in part to this buttoned-
down style, the Beatles nicknamed him "Normal.") But Mr. Smith was
more focused on capturing performances than on fiddling with tubes and
wires.
"I was such an admirer of his musical prowess," said Malcolm Addey, a
recording engineer and colleague of Mr. Smith's at EMI. "He really
knew it inside out, as a player and arranger."
Mr. Smith was the engineer on duty when the Beatles came into EMI
studios for their first sound test, in 1962, and under company policy
that meant he could stay with the group throughout its run there. The
relationship would, in fact, become very close, but it did not start
so smoothly.
"First impressions of the group coming into the studio were not very
great, in point of fact," Mr. Smith said in an interview in"Recording
the Beatles," the definitive studio history of the group, by Brian
Kehew and Kevin Ryan. "I mean, 'Here comes another scrappy group.' But
I must say that I was taken with their hairdos because we hadn't seen
anything quite like them."
Under the producer George Martin, it was Mr. Smith's role to choose
the equipment and techniques used to capture individual sounds in the
studio and then to weave them into a finished recording. In the
Beatles' case, he favored sounds that were more stark than those
typically heard in the ornamented and reverberation-drenched songs on
popular radio.
"Norman thought the actual Beatles' sound, playing together in the
room, was great, and he wanted to preserve that," Mr. Kehew said. "And
that was really different from other records at the time."
His approach made its mark on a remarkable stretch of hit songs from
1962 until early 1966. They included "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "A
Hard Day's Night," "Help!" "Day Tripper" and "We Can Work It Out" --
all crisp and ringingly energetic recordings that were increasingly
experimental.
In the last full album he worked on with the Beatles, "Rubber Soul,"
in 1965, Mr. Smith helped the band members lay the groundwork for the
increasingly radical studio performances they would feature on later
LPs like "Revolver" (1966) and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
Band" (1967). One "Rubber Soul" breakthrough was the use of a sitar on
the song "Norwegian Wood."
After Mr. Martin left EMI in 1966, Mr. Smith succeeded him as a senior
producer. He scouted and immediately signed the experimental group
Pink Floyd to a contract and produced its first two albums, "Piper at
the Gates of Dawn" and "Saucerful of Secrets," both recognized as
definitive works of psychedelic rock. Mr. Smith also produced another
art-rock band, the Pretty Things.
Norman A. Smith was born on Feb. 22, 1923, and reared in Edmonton,
North London. He was trained as a glider pilot in the Royal Air Force
during World War II but did not see combat. Afterward, he worked day
jobs and formed a band, the Bobby Arnold Quintet, in which he played
mostly drums and vibes and performed in local clubs and dance halls, a
practice he continued in his early years at EMI, Mr. Addey said.
At age 50, Mr. Smith embarked on a solo singing career, taking the
stage name Hurricane from a movie title. His hit, "Oh Babe, What Would
You Say," was a song he had written and hoped to sell but ended up
recording himself at the urging of a producer, Mr. Addey said.
Besides his wife of 62 years, Mr. Smith is survived by his son, Nick,
also a recording engineer; his daughter, Dee Smith, a dancer and dance
instructor; and a grandson.
Toward the end of his life, Mr. Smith was gratified to be getting
attention from new generations of Beatles fans, Mrs. Smith said. Mr.
Kehew traced much of this renewed attention to a fascination with "the
scene behind the making of the record."
"The record itself has become more important than, say, the Maharishi
or dogs or wives," Mr. Kehew said. "And the people behind the scenes
had almost as much a hand in creating those sounds as the Beatles
themselves."