Peter Green Part 2: The Most Horrendous Argument
- Place – KD’s Studio, Chiswick, London
- Time – 1997
- Artist – Peter Green- AKA Peter Greenbaum
- Album – The Robert Johnson Songbook
Production Credits
As we were making progress with the recordings, Peter’s guitarist said to me
“I know you are producing this album, but I’m coming up with loads of ideas, so I think I ought to be down as producer as well.”
“I agree, I’m not taking all the blame myself!” was my reply.
He was so pleased that I didn’t argue with his request, he missed the point completely.
The Music is Paramount
One evening we were taking a break from the session, Peter and his guitarist were sitting in the reception area, whilst I was making a telephone call in the studio office next door.
After a few minutes I heard raised voices coming from the other room.
I immediately terminated my call and went to see what all the commotion was about.
On entering the room I found Peter and his guitarist embroiled in the most horrendous argument.
I tried to mediate only to realise that, in their rage, they were simply not aware of my presence.
Peter had been told, not by me I hasten to add, that his partner was trying to finish the album as quickly as possible in order to save on production costs.
Peter was screaming at him, saying this was the true reason that no other musicians were allowed to participate in the recording. It was to ensure there would be a decent amount of money left over, to be split between them after the album was delivered to the record company.
This information had really infuriated Peter; to him the quality of the music was paramount, the money meant nothing.
This argument went on for at least half an hour.
Peter shouted and slammed his hand on the table shouting,
“You will send me back to the mad house.”
I had never seen Peter so angry, I’d not even heard him raise his voice before.
Once the guitarist realised he had pushed Peter to the limit and that he wasn’t going to get his own way, he started to back down, saying,
“Ped, you’ve got it all wrong I’m your best friend, I don’t care about the money, if you want other musicians on the record that’s fine by me.”
“In that case, we will give what money is left over to Kenny.” Peter retorted.
I quickly interrupted saying,
“Peter I don’t want the money.”
“Are you rich?” he asked.
I told him I’m being paid to do this job and that’s all I wanted.
The New Plan
This was the changing point of the album; within days the Splinter Group were working on the tracks and backing vocalist were added.
The wonderful Linda Lewis came to the studio one day so I got her to sing a couple of lines on the song Kind Hearted Woman, without any inference, although Peter’s guitarist was still trying to rush everything through.
After every take he would say,
“That’s it, that’s great, that will do.”
Obviously trying to reduce how much money was spent on studio time.
Having got this far I wasn’t going to allow anything to pass, until it was worthy.
I now had the support of Peter and the band and, most of all, everyone could hear the album finally starting to take shape.
When the band finished recording and the backing vocals were completed, I thought that we should all take a week or so off, to listen to what we had.
We could then decide if there was anything left to do before we started mixing.
I did some rough stereo mixes of the whole album. One run through then recorded onto DAT, I then made cassettes for each of us to take away.
I had an altercation with Pete’s guitarist during the rough mix of Sweet Home Chicago concerning Paul Rodgers vocal.
There were two takes of the vocal, one was the final master take; the other one Paul was fooling around and this was the take Pete’s partner liked.
“We can’t use this track,” I explained, “Paul is not singing the correct lyrics, he’s singing, two and two is four, four and two is eight, he’s just messing around.”
“Well why can’t we use it? It sounds good to me,” he asked.
“Because it doesn’t add up.” I shouted.
But he still didn’t get it.
The Record Label Turn Up
A few days later I had a call from Dougie Dudgeon, he was the MD from Snapper Records who were paying for the recording, he asked if I could send over the finished master tapes.
I told him that the album wasn’t finished yet.
Apparently he’d had a call from Peter’s partner saying the album was finished and ready to be cut.
I begged Dougie to come to the studio and listen to the so-called finished mixes, Dougie arrived within the hour.
As we sat in the control room Dougie told me that he knew that this had been a difficult project and had been aware of the problems. He believed that of had he attended the recording sessions it would have done nothing to relieve the tension surrounding the project and maybe made it worse.
I told him the rough mixes we had were unusable they were just for reference before finishing last minute overdubs making the tracks ready for mixing.
To prove this point I put the DAT containing all the titles into the machine.
I asked Dougie to pick a number between one and sixteen,
“Number seven” he said.
I pressed the automatic search and track seven began to play.
After a minute or so Dougie stood up, put his hands over his ears and shouted,
“Turn it off!”
With complete panic in his voice he explained that the album had to be finished and sent to the USA within ten days to meet the American release date. It was also due to be released in Europe in six weeks time.
I told Dougie the only way I could complete the album was to let me work on it for one week by myself without any interference.
This would guarantee that I would be able to deliver the finished product and all subsequent release dates could be met.
Dougie agreed and I completed the finished mixes on time and Dougie phoned to say he loved the album.
The Inevitable Happens
Then I waited for the inevitable phone call.
Sure enough about four weeks later, Peter’s partner was screaming down the phone at me, telling me how I had ruined the album and how unhappy Peter was.
I explained that the record company was not happy with the rough mixes he had sent them and had asked me to redo them.
He then said Peter wanted to have a word. I heard Peter being prompted, but he was not actually repeating the words he was being told to say.
I interrupted Peter to say that I was very proud of the album and would not have left anything in or out of the mixes that was not representative of the project we set out to make.
I went on to say that I felt sure it would be well received,.
Peter then said, “Kenny, if I come over one night can we go for a Chinese?”
I replied “Of course we can” and we said goodbye.
Naturally the story didn’t end there, Peter’s partner flipped when he saw the artwork for the album cover.
Peter’s name in bold white and his name in not so bold red.
This problem was solved in a financial way which strangely appeared to curb his objection.
Sadly this was the last time I was to work with Peter, although I was offered the next album, I declined.
I was then offered a larger fee, but the money was not the reason I declined.
I felt everyone wanted a piece of Peter Green and producing this album with him had been my piece.
The Robert Johnson Songbook went on to receive rave reviews and won the very prestigious WC Handy Award in the USA.
It would be many years before I unwrapped my copy of the CD to have a listen.
I was very pleased with the results of Peter’s performances.
The Robert Johnson Songbook
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