Tony Visconti
Tony Visconti
Anthony Edward "Tony" Viscontiis an American record producer, musician and singer. Since the late 1960s, he has worked with an array of performers. His lengthiest involvement with any artist is with David Bowie: intermittently from Bowie's second album in 1969 to the 2016 release Blackstar, Visconti produced and occasionally performed on many of Bowie's albums...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusic Producer
Date of Birth24 April 1944
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Despite a few really bad days we had quite a lot of fun making Low, especially when all the radical ideas were making sense and things were starting to click.
When I was five my parents bought me a ukulele for Christmas. I quickly learned how to play it with my father's guidance. Thereafter, my father regularly taught me all the good old fashioned songs.
Our last jam session was this past Christmas. Dad played his harmonica, mom sang in English and Italian, and I played guitar. I'm so happy that we could share that musical experience for one last time.
Computers have virtually replaced tape recorders.
But some great records are are being made with today's technology and there are still great artists among us. Likewise there are artists today who are so reliant on modern technology, they wouldn't have emerged when recording was more organic.
Oh, it was so hard to leave Paris, just about my favorite city in the world.
Every time I meet the CEO of a record label I tell them how they did it in the seventies because they want to know. I tell them, "Sign a hundred people! Throw it against the wall and see which ones stick!" And they frown and say, "Oh, we can't do that!" and they start mumbling about demographics and this and that.
In the last 17 years of his working life, my father was finally rewarded with having landed a great job as first, a maintenance engineer, and then a senior locksmith with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Any respectable artist has really given up on a label because the labels are still kidding themselves that the only way to go is to sign these big names like Lady Gaga and expect to make gazillions.
I make records with an open mind, I always have.
In August most of Europe goes on holiday.
I kind of liked the method of the seventies where they would throw a little bit of money at a hundred different groups - not millions of dollars per group, but, you know, a few thousand. Throw them in the studio, and if five of those groups came out with a hit record it would be money well spent.
Towards the end of the seventies pop was gaining the momentum and respectability was very high with groups like Yes and Queen who were making "classical" rock records. They were also bringing in big bucks. So the eighties became the "bottom line" decade.
Pop was initially ignored as a moneymaker by the recording industry. In the seventies they were still relying on Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett for their big hits. You know, most of the budget for the record companies in those days went to the classical department - and those were big budget albums.