from Jamming 2
We were also very lucky to have the opportunity to ask Tony Visconti some questions about the making of Dragonfly and his relationship with the band.
Jamming: How did you first meet the band?
Tony Visconti: I got to know them about three years before the making of Dragonfly, through my. former employer, David Platts, of Essex music, then publishers of the Strawbs' music. I worked next door the Gus Dudgeon (who produced Strawbs) and there was a healthy rivalry between us. During the making Strawbs, I heard Oh How She C/hanged, and I thought it was absolutely beautiful, so got to meet the boys. We used to go to the Black Horse in Rathbone Place, and talk endlessly about hidden meanings in Beatles songs. .Dave Cousins is a wonderful lyricist, and I took great delight in criticising his lyrics.
Jamming: How did you come to move from manager to producer?
Tony Visconti: Dave and Tony were very unhappy with what Gus did for Strawbs. That record was so excessive - it didn't really represent them as they were. It was on one Gus' first records, with all the insecurities of a young man who wanted to make his mark.. Dave and Tony wanted a folk album with some orchestral arrangements, and I was asked to write them.. I got carte blanche. I wrote some of the biggest arrangements of my life for that album. If I suggested three flutes, Gus would want to add a fourth, and so on..When they got a little finance to make the second album, they played the songs to me, and asked if me to produce for them.
Jamming: What was the studio like?
Tony Visconti: It was the most extraordinary studio I have ever seen. It was a cinema which was in use as a cinema in the evenings, so we had to set up and dismantle the equipment on the stage m shifts, from late morning till five o'clock, then we would get up to no good between five and eleven pm while the films were showing, then back to work until around three am. At first we had a big problem with the huge echo, which wasn't fashionable in those days, but we used gobos - a sort of acoustic screen which were very efficient, which is why the album sounds so dry and tight.
The studio was owned by Ivar Rosenburg, an eccentric Dane who reminded me of the mad professor in Back To The Future. He was an electronic genius, I was very impressed. He had built the most amazing console - it had an extra tone control in addition to the normal bass and treble. I don't know how he did it, and I have never come across anything like it again, even with today's technology. With the tone control swept all the way to the left, you would boost the at a very low 20 Hz, to the right boosting at 209000 Hz, virtually all the range of human hearing on one knob! I used it to get the lovely gossamer-like sounds, and the- flanging effects by sweeping it left to right. You could also get a jet plane effect by twiddling it. You can heat it on the cello and backing vocals and so on.
Jamming: What was the philosophy behind the making of the album?
Tony Visconti: To make a beautiful record that sounded like the Strawbs. It's the way I work - I devote my life to the group for the duration of the making of the album. My Job is like that of a captain, keeping the boat on the course set by the band when they started. Because of the tight budget, the album was low tech, so there was no danger of being overcome by the technology. In fact I had to maximise the potential of the instruments available: two guitars and bass a
Jamming: How were the songs and arrangement s chosen
Tony Visconti: The songs were chosen by the Strawbs themselves, although I encouraged them to include a song to resolve the album. The Vision Of The Lady Of The Lake is a very gory song, with the potential to precipitate a bad trip, so I persuaded them to write something nice to finish the album off.
The Strawbs brought me very basic arrangements, and I embellished them Because we only had two guitars , the bass, and drums and Rick (Wakeman) back in London, the scope was very limited. I brought my recorder along, and played it on Dragonfly and Young Again, (where the notes at the end are deliberately fluffy in keeping with innocence of the song). Dave Cousins played a child's piano on that track too. We also got the maximum use out of a six inch construction nail we found on the studio floor. We wanted a triangle effect on The Weary Song, and it's not easy to find a triangle in the middle of the night in Copenhagen,. The nail had a lovely tintinnabulation, so we suspended it from a shoelace and hit it with another nail.. We got a lot of mileage out of it, because you can also hear it backwards on Dragonfly (that sort of snip, snip sound) and finally on Dragonfly, when Dave put down the plectrum and used the nail to get that bouncy effect on the dulcimer. I wish I'd saved that tail.. it was one of the most beautiful nails I've ever heard in my life..
Jamming: What did this album mean to your career?
Tony Visconti: These were very early days. I was already working with Tyrannosaurus Rex. Although this album wasn't a quantum leap, it was very different from what I was doing with Marc Bolan. The Strawbs were much more poetic in a classical sense. I have always had great respect for Dave Cousins' ability to write lyrics and melodies, they are absolutely gorgeous. I wasn't thinking career-wise. I considered myself very fortunate to be working with these guys. To me it was an opportunity to make a great album with a great British group.
Jamming: How do you feel the record stands up, in its time and today?
Tony Visconti: I was and am very proud of the record. I was thinking that the Dragonfly's wings on the cover are a visual representation of the sound of the album, it sounds very gossamer-like and delicate. We did electronic tricks; and played with the songs as if they were cinematic songs. You can hear all the effects on Vision of The Lady Of The Lake. We were bending over backwards to create evocative sounds. I think we pulled it off, I think we made a good album.
Nowadays it's charming These songs are great, all the songs that the Strawbs wrote were great. I'd say that in the Strawbs catalogue, this record stands up very well. It has special associations for me, because it was heard by my ex-wife Mary Hopkin, and she said it was the type of sound she wanted on her next album, so I was given the gig, and eventually got the girl as well. It's a record to be very proud of. I'm proud of making it and it is a very special album to me.
Tony Visconti is living in New City, near New York with his wife Mai Pang, who now manages his career. Mai Pang was a secretary at Apple, had a relationship with John on, and went on to be a successful publisher, discovering Jon Bon Jovi amongst others. Tony and Mai Pang have a son, Sebastian, aged 2 and a new daughter Lara, [then] only a few months old, and an African Grey parrot called Amadeus.