Inside Tracks: A First-Hand History of Popular Music from the World's Greatest Record Producers and Engineers

by Richard Buskin

Record producers and engineers talk about their work with the world's greatest musicians, including the likes of Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Elton John, and Nirvana, among others. Original.

Genres: Music

388 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

About the author

A New York Times bestselling author, Richard Buskin is also a full-time freelance journalist, specializing in pop culture, music, film, television, and sociopolitical affairs. Since the early-Eighties, he has conducted interviews and written regular feature articles for a wide variety of publications in the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan and Australia, dealing with all aspects of the entertainment business: the artistic, the technical and the entrepreneurial.

A native of London, England, who relocated to America in 1995, Richard has had his work published in newspapers ranging from the New York Post and the Sydney Morning Herald to Britain's Observer, Independent and Daily Mail, as well as magazines such as Playboy (US, Brazilian, Czech, French, Japanese and Polish editions), Stern (Germany) and Paris Match (France). He has also written for numerous music publications around the world, including Billboard, Spin, Musician, Mix, Musik Express, Melody Maker, Sound On Sound and Performance (for which he was a senior editor and UK bureau chief), and movie journals such as Film Review and Films & Filming, in addition to authoring/co-authoring more than 20 non-fiction books.

Among these are Inside Tracks: A First-Hand History of Popular Music from the World's Greatest Record Producers and Engineers (Avon Books, 1999); Blonde Heat: The Sizzling Screen Career of Marilyn Monroe (Billboard Books, 2001); Sheryl Crow: No Fool to This Game (Billboard Books, 2002); Phyllis Diller´s autobiography, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy (Penguin/Tarcher, 2005); Effortless Style with celebrity fashion stylist June Ambrose (Simon & Schuster, 2006); Dream in Color: How the Sánchez Sisters are Making History in Congress with Congresswomen Linda and Loretta Sánchez (Grand Central, 2008); Die Trying: One Man's Quest to Conquer the Seven Summits with mountaineer Bo Parfet (Amacom, 2009); One from the Hart with actress Stefanie Powers (uncredited, Simon & Schuster, 2010); It's Not Really About the Hair with Tabatha Coffey, star of Bravo's hit TV reality show Tabatha's Salon Takeover (HarperCollins, 2011); Whitney Houston: The Voice, The Music, The Inspiration with musician/producer Narada Michael Walden (Insight Editions, 2012); and Classic Tracks: The Real Stories Behind 68 Seminal Recordings (Sample Magic, 2012). A co-author and consulting editor on the Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music (2003) and the Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock (Flame Tree, 2006), Richard is presently involved in the planning and writing of several new books.

Richard Buskin has provided sleeve notes for records and videos; penned narrative material for DVD; written press releases and publicity bios for the likes of Aerosmith and Michael Jackson; served as a researcher and on-screen entertainment expert for television networks in the US and the UK; lectured journalism students at Chicago’s Northwestern University, as well as PACE program students at National-Louis University; and been interviewed on numerous TV and radio shows, including CBS's Entertainment Tonight, A&E's Biography, E! Entertainment's True Hollywood Story, AMC's Backstory and the BBC Television News. He lives in Chicago.

Reviews

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was lent to me by the lead singer of a band I've been bass player in for twenty years now. I absolutely loved it. How records are made but more than that, how producers and engineers feel that they get little credit for the success of those records. They mostly count their successes on how many top tens they worked on. This book compiles short 3 to 5 page interviews with various behind the scenes people from the fifties to the grunge period such as: Sam Philips, George Martin, Norman Smith, Vangelis, Quincy Jones, Trevor Horn and Bob Rock (29 in all). Some who worked on the same records even contradict stories. Very cool. Everyone has his/her hand in the making of art and just wants to be acknowledged. Not a bad page in this 351 page book.

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half amazing stuff, half missed opportunities. Any music fan who wants to understand the behind-the-scenes players in pop/rock/soul history should read this, but with certain expectations. Apart from the sections on Motown and Atlantic, most of the music skews rock/white. Producers from the British Invasion are well represented, and they tell some great stories. These are actually the most enjoyable interviews. As things progress into the '90s, Buskin is grabbing what he can get, and he's not getting "career overview/how I got into the business" chats. Instead he's getting Phil Ramone talking (only) about working with Frank Sinatra on "Duets," and mostly about how Sinatra is wonderful. Or Glenn Ballard talking about how wonderful Alanis Morrisette is to work with. Or how Butch Vig started Garbage, but not, you know, how he produced Nirvana.

There are some common takeaways:
Live recording a band is better than the piecemeal way it is done now.
Garbage in - Garbage out: professionals always better to work with that amateurs.
The Rolling Stones will take ages to record, but when they do, they nail it in a couple of goes.
Record producers didn't really exist in the early days like we know them now, they were mostly engineers and/or songwriters.
Union and labor rules/job definitions hampered who could do what in the early days, which got phased out in the 60s.
Always read the contract!