My Beatles 1+ turned up today (I haven't played it yet, so I'm not disappointed, yet!), and I noticed Jeff Lynne is down on the credits list for the 5.1 mixes of 'Free As A Bird' & 'Real Love' (along with others).
We're really veering in to the territory of the unprovable here, but based on the chronology below I think it's possible that Geoff Emerick did more quad mixes than the two we've been able to credit him with. This is his activity during the 'quad years':
1973 Paul McCartney & Wings 'Band On The Run' [CREDITED]
1974 America 'Holiday' [NO QUAD CREDITS] (Recorded & mixed at AIR Studios)
1974 Mahavishnu Orchestra 'Apocalypse' (scheduled but unreleased quad mix, recorded/mixed @ AIR Studios)
1975 America 'Hearts' [NO QUAD CREDITS] (Recorded at Record Plant but mixed at AIR Studios)
1975 Jeff Beck 'Blow By Blow' [NO QUAD CREDITS] (Recorded at AIR Studios - engineering credited to "Denim Bridges")
1975 Karthago 'Rock 'N Roll Testament' [CREDITED] (Mixed at AIR Studios)
1975 Wings 'Venus & Mars' [CREDITED]
1976 Jeff Beck 'Wired' [NO QUAD CREDITS] (partially recorded at AIR Studios & partially mixed at Caribou Ranch)
I know the 'Denim Bridges' thing is slightly tenuous, but would someone of George Martin's stature really use an unknown engineer to record Jeff Beck?
I think what's clear from this chronology is a couple of things - one is that AIR Studios in London must have been equipped for quad, based on the fact that the inner cover of the Karthago album specifically states "remixed by Geoff Emerick at AIR Studios, London, Dec. '74". Then you can see that even when Emerick recorded elsewhere for George Martin (ie America's 'Hearts' at the Record Plant in California) they took the tapes back to AIR Studios to do the mix. In the case of Wired, they did some of the mixing at Caribou Ranch, which belonged to James William Guercio, Chicago's producer - Caribou was definitely quad equipped because Wayne Tarnowski did the quad mixes of the Chicago albums there. I guess the only way to find out for sure would be if someone could ask the man himself.
It's also interesting that Columbia Records didn't seem to credit quad remix engineers for it's British acts, when it was very dilligent about doing so for almost all of it's other releases. I wonder if a back-cover credit was a union requirement for its American engineers, or if it was just because when the tapes were sent over from the UK they didn't include the information? In particular I'm thinking of the following:
Argent - In Deep
Jeff Beck - Blow By Blow
Jeff Beck - Wired
Mott The Hoople - The Hoople
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
I have this lp. This is a great thread. Thanks to fredblue for starting this. I wonder if we can find out who did the mixes on the Ovation quads and the various Japanese quad albums. It is too bad that there doesn't seem to be hardly any Japanese members here. It would help to read the kanji on the album credits.
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