January 2, 2009
Legendary Olympic recording studio to burn out
It is the studio where scores of artists have recorded hits, from the Rolling
Stones, David Bowie and Queen to Madonna, Oasis, Goldfrapp and The Killers –
so why is Olympic facing closure? Pierre Perrone reports
Olympic Studios in Barnes, West London, holds a special place in my heart. It's
the first recording studio I visited in the late Seventies, only to find
glam-rockers Slade – at a low career ebb – having a blazing row. It's where
the Rolling Stones drifted into psychedelia in 1967 with their half-baked
concept album Their Satanic Majesties Request, before going back to basics and
staking their claim to the title of the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world
with Beggars Banquet and Let it Bleed. It's where the Small Faces did much of
Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, their 1968 proto-Britpop No 1 album, the one with the
round sleeve resembling a tin of tobacco.


It's also where Led Zeppelin recorded their debut in October 1968, prompting
engineer and mixer Glyn Johns to call the album "a milestone. That was
unbelievable, quite extraordinary. I think that's got to be one of the best
rock'n'roll albums ever made, and I'm just grateful that I was there," he told
John Tobler and Stuart Grundy in the Record Producers Radio 1 series. "I've
never got off quite as much, and that record was made in nine days, which shows
you. They'd rehearsed themselves very healthily before they got near the studio.
I can't single out one track more than any other in my mind, but I remember that
it was tremendously exciting to make that album.

"I'd never heard arrangements of that ilk before, nor had I ever heard a band
play in that way before. It was just unbelievable, and when you're in a studio
with something as creative as that, you can't help but feed off it. I think
that's one of the best-sounding records I've ever done," said Johns whose
association with guitarist Jimmy Page went back to their teens and took in many
recordings involving Page as a session player.

The Rolling Stones, Small Faces and Led Zeppelin are only the tip of a mighty
iceberg. The roll call of acts that have used Olympic Studios over the last 40
years also includes Procol Harum, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Traffic, The Who,
David Bowie, Barbra Streisand, The Eagles, Eric Clapton, Queen, 808 State,
Morrissey, Björk, Oasis, the Spice Girls and Madonna. The Arctic Monkeys,
Goldfrapp, the Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, The Killers and The Zutons have worked
at Olympic Studios over the last couple of years. U2 were there in December,
putting the finishing touches to No Line on the Horizon, their next album, which
is due out in March.

Yet the word is that current owners EMI are likely to close Olympic in 2009 and
concentrate all their efforts on the equally legendary Abbey Road, the historic
home of Pink Floyd and, of course, The Beatles (who, by the way, ventured to
Olympic for the recording of "All You Need Is Love" and "Baby You're a Rich Man"
in 1967). EMI has entered into a consultation process with the 11 staff employed
at Olympic and there seems little chance of a reprieve, even if a source at Guy
Hands' company stated that "Olympic staff are highly professional and dedicated.
We are sorry to be doing this. EMI remains committed to Abbey Road Studios and
we are working through a long-term plan to develop that business."

In its heyday of the early Seventies, Olympic achieved a turnover of £4m, and
was acquired by Richard Branson's Virgin company in 1987, subsequently becoming
part of EMI's portfolio when the major acquired Virgin in 1992.. Olympic stopped
turning a profit a couple of years ago and, with the current downturn in the
economy affecting the music industry in general, and EMI in particular, not to
mention the increasing tendency for artists to record at home and use computers,
London has too many studios chasing too few clients. "The fact is that the
studios are not profitable, like many British studios," an EMI insider admitted.
"You can't get as much business as you used to. And there's no sign of that
situation improving."

First established in the late Fifties near Baker Street in central London, the
original Olympic employed future Elton John producer Gus Dudgeon as a tea boy
and was the place where the Yardbirds cut "For Your Love" and Millie Small
recorded "My Boy Lollipop" in 1964. Two years later, Cliff Adams and Keith Grant
bought Olympic from owner Angus McKenzie and moved to the current address at 117
Church Road in Barnes, south-west London. A former theatre built in 1906, the
premises had already been converted into a film studio and, with a bit of
acoustic tweaking by Grant and architectural work by Robertson Grant, easily
adapted to become what was generally acknowledged as the best UK studio by its
many clients.

Olympic kept its connections with the film and TV industries and the theatre and
hosted sessions for the soundtracks to The Italian Job, The Rocky Horror Picture
Show, Joe 90 and the original album version of the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd
Webber musical Jesus Christ Superstar featuring Ian Gillan of Deep Purple. The
news of Olympic's likely end has prompted Lloyd Webber to comment: "I have fond
memories of my first-ever recording session there when I was just 21. The
closure of Olympic is the end of an era in rock'n'roll. I wonder whether the
music industry has changed for ever."

Traditionally, major labels such as EMI, Pye and Decca each had their dedicated
studio but the pop explosion of the mid-Sixties, combined with the rise of the
record producer and the development of the album as a format, created a demand
for rooms with a vibe more in tune with the musicians' needs. Olympic was always
a hipper place than Abbey Road, whose EMI employees rather resembled civil
servants in their outlook and demeanour. Glyn Johns and his brother Andy in
particular fitted in with the more dissolute lifestyles of the Stones while the
state-of-the-art mixing desks built by Grant and Dick Swettenham were the envy
of the competition.

Olympic still thrived in the age of residential studios like The Manor in
Oxfordshire or Rockfield in Wales and when acts became tax-exiles and began
recording in exotic locations such as Compass Point in Nassau, Air in Montserrat
or Miraval in the South of France in the Eighties. Olympic Studios even survived
the drastic redesign which followed their acquisition by Virgin but now they
seem to have reached the end of the road.

The British Music Experience – "a unique, permanent exhibition dedicated to
the history of popular music in Britain" claims its website – is due to open
at the O2 arena in spring 2009 on London's Greenwich peninsula, an area not
exactly rich in music history compared to Olympic Studios. Of an equal standing
to Abbey Road, Olympic is already a place of pilgrimage for many rock fans and
deserves more than a blue plaque on the front. Maybe Hands will reconsider his
decision and give the overseas acts who have often used Olympic the opportunity
to take advantage of the weak pound and come and record in London again.

FIVE OLYMPIC GOLDS

Small Faces

Lazy Sunday, 1967

Small Faces spent nearly a year working on 'Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake' at Pye and
Trident as well as Olympic. 'Lazy Sunday' became their second biggest hit in
April 1968 but the group broke up the following year.


The Rolling Stones

Sympathy for the Devil, 1968

The Rolling Stones were ensconced within the warm cocoon of Olympic Studios and
recorded the dark 'Sympathy For The Devil' under 'Nouvelle Vague' director
Jean-Luc Godard.


The Eagles

Best of My Love, 1974

The epitome of Californian soft rock, the Eagles recorded their eponymous debut
album at Olympic in 1972 with Glyn Johns, who also produced the follow-up
'Desperado'. However, Johns produced only two tracks on their third album, 'On
The Border'.

The Who

Who Are You, 1977

Who vocalist Roger Daltrey chinned producer Glyn Johns, a veteran of sessions
for The Who's 'Next' and 'Who By Numbers', during the recording of the 'Who Are
You' album issued the following year. Pete Townshend's brother-in-law Jon Astley
took over and the group moved to Ramport and RAK studios.


Eric clapton

Wonderful Tonight, 1977

Having already penned 'Layla' about Pattie Boyd, Eric Clapton (left) was now
living with the estranged wife of George Harrison. He wrote 'Wonderful Tonight'
while waiting for her to get ready to go out. He did nine takes at Olympic
before he was happy with the result.

SOMETHING BAD IN THE MIX – THE VANISHING STUDIOS



"The sad list of recording studios faced with closure in recent years is huge,"
said Jamie Lane of Britannia Row studios in London. "Whitfield Street, Olympic,
Marc Angelo and Eden have been forced to close within the last year alone. This
is largely due to financial impossibilities. An average record company will not
pay more than £800-a-day recording fees. A large studio has to charge at least
£1,500 a day. This means the bigger studios are forced to survive on recording
film scores.

"Abbey Road, AIR and Angel are able to survive off these clients due to their
top equipment and large recording space, but studios like Olympic, which charged
as little as £800 for music recording, were accelerated to their end. The worry
now is that the Government will stop film subsidies and film-makers will then
turn to Prague and other cities for cheaper studios. This would be worrying for
the future of even the biggest British studios."

But Olympic will not be taking its roster of former alumni with it – it is
only a building. Jimi Hendrix, who recorded Are You Experienced in Barnes, is
long gone. And the Spice Girls (two albums) and Led Zeppelin (their first album,
plus later tracks) ought to be further gone than they appear to be. Ditto Roxy
Music and Duran Duran.

The Rolling Stones made more use of Olympic than any other major act and they
are, technically, still with us. All of the Stones' catalogue from Between the
Buttons to parts of Exile on Main Street was recorded in Barnes between 1966 and
1971 (which means nearly all the really good stuff) and the Stones don't appear
to be going anywhere very much. So we won't be losing any music when Olympic
goes, only a small part of music's historical hinterland.

Nevertheless, there is something unquestionably sad about the news. There is
more to a great studio than machinery. There is what "the studio" means to
musicians; what it means to the very sound of music; and what a studio brings to
the story of music, as a component in a narrative shaped as much by myth as it
is by reality.

By Nick Coleman


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