Visiting the location of Am-Pro Studios, London, where Elvis made recordings.

Pretty self-explanatory
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johnfoyle
Posts: 14852
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Visiting the location of Am-Pro Studios, London, where Elvis made recordings.

Post by johnfoyle »

Earlier on this year Mike , Clare and I checked out a few locations in London where Elvis made recordings.

https://musiccitymike.net/2017/05/26/an ... ios-stiff/

One we didn't get to was Nick Lowe's home studio , between Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush. I got to see it yesterday.

Will Birch , author of No Sleep Till Canvey Island - The Great Pub Rock Revolution (2000) and is working on a biography of Nick Lowe , told me it was at 9, Melrose Terrace. He informed me that ' Nick and his then wife Carlene Carter and her daughter Tiffany lived there for about 2 years. The studio was on the ground floor. Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash visited there in 1979.'

Elvis wrote in the note with the 2004 reissue of Almost Blue -

'Oddly enough my next country music recording was made not in Nashville, but in Shepherd's Bush in West London. My pal (and producer of my first five albums) Nick Lowe could be said to have married into country music aristocracy when he wed Carlene Carter, daughter of June Carter and granddaughter of Mother Maybelle of the legendary Carter Family. While visiting the newlyweds in the last days of 1979, his stepfather-in-law had called a recording session for Christmas day. After a rebellion by the wives and families of the prospective backing musicians, the session was rescheduled for the Feast of St. Stephen.

I arrived at Nick's and C.C.'s discreet address, a four-story Victorian terrace house that contained the Am-Pro Recording studio on the ground floor. As I entered the hallway from the garden path, the door to the "front parlour", which now housed the recording room, swung open and the frame was filled by a familiar figure greeting: "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash".'

Am- Pro would go on to be used for recordings , finished and demos , for Get Happy!! , Punch The Clock and Goodby Cruel World.

You get to Melrose Terrace by getting the Tube to Goldhawk Station , via the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines. On exiting the station take a right and walk down by the bus station. After the bus park there is a pedestrian route around the back of the administration block. This will bring you to Sulgrave Road . Take a left and immediately take a right and walk by bollards and take a right onto Melrose Terrace. The neat houses , all 'full of doctors now ' said a elderly man walking a dog , have big cars lined up outside by the kerb. Just inside the gate of no.9 there was an abandoned, single door fridge. Almost opposite it is a turning that takes you onto Poplar Grove. Go down there and you reach the busy Shepherds Bush Road , where The Richmond , a large pub, is just across the road. Considering how most accounts of recording sessions involving Nick Lowe in the 1970s & 80s include references to adjournments to nearby public houses for refreshment it seems likely that this was used by the recording artists.

That about tells all regarding this location. Been there , done that - I can't imagine any reason to return in future.


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johnfoyle
Posts: 14852
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Re: Visiting the location of Am-Pro Studios, London, where Elvis made recordings.

Post by johnfoyle »

Roger Bechirian just responded to a query via Facebook-

This was Nicks house with the studio on the ground floor. It was originally owned by Tony Visconti. Jake Riviera bought the house initially then Nick took the whole place over. I have no idea if Johnny Cash stayed here, but obviously Carlene was living here with Nick for a time before they moved to a new house in Chiswick.


http://www.shadyoldlady.com/location/2346

TONY VISCONTI ONCE LIVED HERE

He had a home 16 track studio where he mixed 'Bowie' & 'Sparks'

Location: Melrose Terrace, Hammersmith, W6

Description: Anthony Edward Visconti (born April 24, 1944) - also known as 'Tony Visconti' is an American record producer and sometimes a musician or 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 1969 album Space Oddity to 2003's Reality, Visconti has produced and occasionally performed on many of Bowie's albums.

And so to this street.

Tony once lived here in Melrose Terrace, Hammersmith, with his then wife Mary Hopkin and their young son Morgan.

Mary was in her final trimester of a pregnancy which would produce their daughter, Jessica.

Tony was mellowing out in my three-storied terraced house containing a 16 track home studio, years ahead of its time in concept.

Like so many professionals who have project studios today, he felt he could make better records in the more relaxed atmosphere of his own home. This is the same studio where he mixed 'Diamond Dogs' and 'Young Americans' for Bowie, and also recorded and mixed Indiscreet by Sparks.
johnfoyle
Posts: 14852
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Re: Visiting the location of Am-Pro Studios, London, where Elvis made recordings.

Post by johnfoyle »

20 Beaumount Road, Acton, London. Eden Studios, where Elvis recorded TYM & AF, was once on this location. From my visit there last week.


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emotional_fascism076
Posts: 193
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2012 10:56 pm

Re: Visiting the location of Am-Pro Studios, London, where Elvis made recordings.

Post by emotional_fascism076 »

Thanks for sharing the great photos and story.
Who on earth is tapping at the window?
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