Producer Shel Talmy is a controversial figure in sixties
pop. He got his first major gig by passing off records by The Beach Boys and
Lou Rawls as his own productions (they weren’t). He foisted an old blues song
called “Bald Headed Woman” on many of the artists he produced to collect
royalties on a song he claimed to have written (he didn’t). He perpetuated a
difficult-to-kill rumor that Jimmy Page played on The Kinks “You Really Got Me”
(he didn’t), much to the infuriation of Dave Davies. He trapped The Who in a
terrible contract that gave him a ridiculous chunk of their royalties, creating
legal and financial troubles for the band for years (he did).
Talmy’s machinations were questionable to say the least, but
there is no question that he cut some of the weightiest, greatest records
released between 1964 and 1970. His signature Wall of Noise is evident in some
of the best recordings by The Kinks, The Who, The Easybeats, and The Creation.
However, there are also subtler colors and innovations in his work. He gave The
Who the go-ahead to stir up so much aural chaos on “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere”
that most DJ’s thought the record suffered from some sort of awful technical
glitch. He caught Eddie Phillips using his innovative guitar-bow technique on
The Creation’s mighty “Making Time”. He etched the gentler acoustic sounds on
Chad & Jeremy’s “A Summer Song” and beat The Beatles and Moody Blues to the
punch by using the Mellotron on Manfred Mann’s “Semi-Detached Suburban Mr.
James” in 1966.
These are some of the unquestionable classics that appear on
an essential and well-annotated new comp from Ace Records called Making Time: A Shel Talmy Production. This
25-song disc is not just a lesson in Talmy’s recording history, but more
importantly, a simply smashing collection of sixties records familiar and
obscure. The song selection is excellent with The Kinks represented by their
finest early single (“Tired of Waiting for You”, personally selected by Ray
Davies), rare alternate versions of common items such as Davy “Bowie” Jones’s
“You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving” and The Easybeats’ “Lisa”, and other superb
tracks by the likes of Roy Harper, The Nashville Teens, The Pentangle, and Lee
Hazelwood, as well as less famous artists such as The Mickey Finn, The Rokes,
Lindsay Muir’s Untamed, and The Sneekers, who put a few more bucks in Talmy’s
pocket with yet another rendition of “Bald Headed Woman”. Oh, Shel.