And So This Is Christmas

(And So This Is Christmas is the first chapter from Richard Williams’ book, Out of His Head: The Sound of Phil Spector, recently published by Outerbridge and Diesntfrey. It’s a good book, complete with all the discographical information a Spector freak would want, and presents a more than just interesting look at a man who changed the shape of the whole rock and roll scene: Phil Spector, rock’s first real producer.

And who else would bring you Christmas in July? -Ed.)

“I know something about Christmas records, Y’know...”

Up on the 17th floor of the St. Regis Hotel in New York City, John Lennon is on his hands and knees, wading through a pile of Presley singles. Their bright red labels litter the deep-pile carpet, forming a river which flows under the big unmade bed.

He’s sorting them out into the good, the bad, and the ugly, with the idea of putting the former on a jukebox in the loft he’s buying in Greenwich Village.

It’s the afternoon of Thursday, October 28, 1971, and he’s talking about his plans for going on the road with the Plastic Ono Band within the next few months.

“I’ve got a lot to learn,” he sighs. “It’s been seven years, you know ... but it’s important to get the band on the road, to get tight. It’s been fun just turning up at odd gigs like Toronto and Lyceum and the Fillmore, but I’m sick of having to sing ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ because we haven’t rehearsed anything else.”

The band, he says, will have a nucleus of himself on rhythm guitar and vocals, Yoko, Nicky Hopkins on piano, Klaus Voorman on bass, and Jim Keltner on drums. With a bit of luck, he added, there will also be Phil Spector, singing and playing guitar, on stage for the first time since the Teddy Bears in 1959.

He’s hoping to turn the whole thing into a circus-cum-carnival, with street theatre groups and local bands taking part, from wherever the troupe happened to be playing. To organise it, John plans to send Yippie leader Jerry Rubin on ahead of the main caravan.

Scratching his head, undecided over which pile “Love Me Tender” should be consigned to, he starts talking about his songs, and how he pinches bits from his favourite old rock and roll numbers. Finally he throws “Love Me Tender” onto the “wanted” pile, picks up his guitar, and sings a new one about Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, showing how the middle-eight is pinched from “Quarter To Three” by U.S. Bonds, which he heard on the radio the previous day.

Then there’s the song that he and the Plastic Ono Band will be recording that very night, for their special Christmas single. It’s called “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)”, he says (“The ‘War Is Over’ bit’s in brackets, like the old American records.”), and that when he first played it to Spector, the producer’s first comment was that the tune is a straight lift from “I Love How You Love Me”, Phil’s 1961 hit with the Paris Sisters.

He rolls back into bed, to get some kip before the session. It’s now three o’clock in the afternoon, and he’s got four hours in which to catch up on the sleep he lost last night, when he was out conferring with Rubin.

Four hours and ten minutes later, John is sitting with his jumbo guitar on the fringed carpet of the Record Plant, a small, comfortable studio on West 44th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues. He’s surrounded by five young acoustic guitarists, to whom he’s teaching the chords of “Happy Christmas”.

Why all those rhythm guitarists? Well, Spector had caH£d the previous day from his office on the West Coast. He wanted to know who was playing on the session. John’s assistant told him there’d be John, Yoko, Nicky, Klaus, and Keltner, and Spector exploded. “Listen ... I want five rhythm guitars. And if it’s a Christmas record, get me some percussion . . . bells, celeste, chimes ...”

Continued on page 72.

Most of the guitarists are young, inexperienced cats, friends of a boy John met in a New York music shop, but among them is Hugh McCracken, the brilliant session musician who played on McCartney’s Ram album. But John doesn’t know that yet.

He asks their names. “Chris.” “Stu.” “Teddy.” “Hugh.” John turns to Yoko: “Hey, Hugh looks like Ivan, doesn’t he? Hugh, you look just like an old mate of mine from school... a cross between him and Paul.”

There’s a little break, while everyone gets up to stretch limbs. Somebody tells John about Hugh’s past accomplishments.

John laughs, and can’t resist a crack. “Oh, so you were just auditioning on Ram, where you? Yeah, ‘e said you were all right.” With that, what tension there had been among the younger musicians disappears.

They’re back to learning the tune, getting the feel. “Just pretend it’s Christmas,” John exhorts them. “I’m Jewish,” says one. “Well pretend it’s your birthday then.”

Suddenly, there’s a little flurry at the entrance. It’s Spector, just in from the Coast, wearing big shades and neatlypressed denims. Over his left breast is a red and white button, bearing the legend “Back To MONO”, which has the guys in the booth breaking up. But it’s serious, you know.

Within seconds, the session has been transformed from playtime to worktime. It takes Spector roughly one minute to get a sound on the Control room’s monitor speakers which transforms the guitars from a happy rabble into a brilliant, cutting wash of coulour, and they aren’t even miked properly yet.

“Play that back to ‘em,” Phil tells Roy, the engineer. “It’ll get ‘em relaxed.” It does, and during the playback Phil goes into the studio and dances around with John, arms round each other’s shoulders.

They run through the changes again, with Nicky on piano this time. Spector leans down to the intercom, presses a little green button, and commands: “Guitars, play the basic rhythm. Don’t play anything else, nothing across the beat. Just keep it simple and play together. Nicky, I’d like to hear more of that in octaves ,in the right hand . . . makes it more dramatic.” John cranes towards his guitar mike and shouts: “Phil, don’t dictate to ‘em yet. Let’s get comfortable first.” “Okay,” says Phil, visibly trying to contain his energy.

Already, you see, Spector is into the groove, thinking in terms not just of sound, but of arrangement, drama, production. Right now that weird little head has taken the simple guitar chords and is moulding, blending, and transforming them in the old pattern. Well ahead of everyone (even Lennon), he’s thinking of what it’s going to sound like when it’s coming out of a million twoinch transistor speakers.

At this point, they add bass and drums. Keltner settles behind his kit, in a small fenced-off area to one side, and one of the rhythm-guitarists is moved over to bass, because Klaus’s flight from Germany has been delayed and he’s going to miss the session. They can’t wait.

All together, they run the tune down a few more times. It’s sounding very good, the tapes are spinning, and every so often they all crowd into the booth to hear a playback of what they’ve just done.

John: “I like the ones that sound like records ...”

“ . . . before you’ve made ‘em. ” Phil finishes the sentence for him. It’s becoming obvious that they’re a fine double act.

Almost imperceptibly, they slip into doing takes. During the third complete take, it really begins to lift off. Phil is sitting in the centre of the board, next to the engineer, at whom he’s constantly spitting instructions. The take is sounding really good now, and Phil’s voice gets louder: “More echo on the piano, Roy . . . more echo . . . more . . . more . . . MORE ECHO, C’MON! That’s it! Beautiful!”

During the second chorus he stands up. The thick, soundproof window between the booth and the big room is split into three, like an old-fashioned car windscreen, and Phil’s reflection on the glass, in triplicate, dominates the real image of the musicians. It’s surrealistic, but it represents exactly where the session is at.

His arms are spread now, windmilling with the beat, and as the climax approaches he stares over the heads of the guitarist, straight into Keltner’s eyes, and he’s willing him to lay into his tomtoms, to explode on the fills. Keltner grimaces, strains to oblige, and the take ends in a blaze of glory. “Great!” Phil screams. That’s it, and everybody knows.'

Now the overdubs start, and again the Spector magic is overwhelmingly apparent. At John’s suggestions, they begin by getting the guitars to play a mandolin-like line, exactly in the style of Ronnie’s record, which wanders behind the verse. Inside ten minutes, it’s finished and on the track.

• All sorts of percussive effects are tried, and they finally settle on Nicky playing chimes and glockenspiel, while Keltner adds a jangling four-to-the-bar on a handy set of sleigh-bells.

“How can you make a record called ‘Happy Christmas’ without bells?” Phil had asked, rhetorically. Now he’s smiling, and mutters from the side of his mouth: “I know something about Christmas records, y’know.”

Instantly, there’s a flashback to Philles LP4005, A Christmas Gift To You. After that, Phil probably knew more about making Christmas records than Sauter and Finegan.

It’s vocal time, so John and Yoko clap on the headphones and start practising, while Phil has the engineer run the track for them. John sounds wheezy, unable to hit the high notes, and Phil shouts through the talkback: “Yoko’s outsinging you, John.” He flips off the mike, and mumbles “He’s smoking his ass off while he’s singing.” He shakes his head in disapproval. Bobby Hatfield would obviously never have got away with it, but then . . . this is John Lennon, after all.

Finally, John gets Yoko to come in at all the right places, with the aid of tactful prods in the back, and when Phil’s got the correct echo on the voices, they lay it down and come back to listen to the rough mix.

It’s right, and they start talking about wliat they’re going to do with the strings and the kiddie’s choir, which they’ll be overdubbing during the next few days. Phil thinks it’d be a good idea if they got the violins to play “Silent Night” over the fade, while John suggests a cello figure for the chorus.

Once again, they do a rough remix of what they have. But it’s 4 a.m., and everyone goes home, Phil and the Lennons in their black chauffeured Caddies.

Three hours later, this guy who was at the session, just watching, turns over in his sleep and wakes up. He finds himself singing.

“War is over ... if you want it . . . war is over now.”

The following night, the band’s running through Yoko’s composition “Snow Is Falling”, which is going to be the B-side. It’s five years old, the first song she showed John when they got together, and at last she’s getting the chance to record it.

Phil’s there, with his brother-in-law Joe, a short, thick-set man whose Italian-American accent could be cut with a switchblade. Joe, in the grand tradition of Phil’s “assistants”, stands by the wall of the booth all night, not saying a word, and mpving only when Phil mutters “Where’s the Scotch?” Every time Phil says that, Joe rummages in a blue flight bag for a bottle of J&B, which he mixes with water in a borrowed glass. Occasionally they run out of ice, and Phil gets very annoyed. Joe gets worried, but stays good-natured and wanders around murmuring “I gotta find da ice.” Somehow, he always does.

But back in the studio, there’s an argument in progress. John and Yoko can’t agree on the tempo. “I’m not gonna play on this,” says John, who’d been plucking out lines on Creedenceish reverb guitar.

“I asked you to play organ,” says Yoko. “I’ve been asking you to do that all along.”

John returns to the booth, where Phil greets him with: “I thought this was supposed to be a light thing.” It was, John agrees, “but she says ‘faster’ and they all get to rocking like shit.”

Yoko is telling Nicky to play lighter on the intro. “Pretend that it’s snowing . . . that snow is melting on your fingertips. Not that banging.”

Nicky gets it just right the next time, and Klaus and Hugh McCracken, who’s been invited back, work out little runs and licks which are very reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready”.

Klaus and Yoko are into a shouting match about where the chords go at the end of the song. Klaus gets up, unstraps his bass, and appears ready to walk out. But John placates both of them, and they try it again — successfully. So they take it, and get a good one almost immediately,

John: “Fantastic ...”

Phil: “Great, great tape echo ...”

Yoko: “How was my voice?”

Phil: “Great . . . lots of tape echo ...”

The track sounds simple and pretty enough as it is, but within minutes they’re talking about adding organ, chimes, more guitar, and even sound effects.

What they want is the sound of a celeste, but they haven’t got one so the engineers set to work on the electric piano, trying to get a celeste sound out of it.

As they’re working, Nicky and Hugh and Keltner start playing a medium blues.

“Oh-oh,” says Phil. “They’ve started jamming, and we’ll never get anything done. Let’s put a stop to that. He moves to the connecting door, but Yoko preempts him.

“STOP JAMMING!” she screams, almost bursting the speakers. As one man, the musicians stop in mid-eight note.

Yoko is obviously more than a little tense, and confides that she believes the musicians don’t take her songs as seriously as she’d like. But this is a very good song, no doubt about it. It also sounds extremely commercial, and by the time the overdubs are done she’s fluttering her hands with delight when someone says that it sounds more like a Top Five smash than a B-side.

But they haven’t finished yet. They were serious about the sound effects. One of the engineers digs out the standard effects album that all studios keep for such occasions, and they decide to open and close the track with the sound of “Feet in the snow” superimposed on “Strong wind”.

The lights are turned off for the final playback, and it’s really magical. “Listen . . . . the snow is falling everywhere.”

Leaving the studio, it’s a shock to discover that those soft, white flakes aren’t drifting down through chill night air. Actually, it’s quite warm out.

. Sunday afternoon at the studio, and they’re starting early because the choir is there, and the choir has to be in bed early.

The choir is about 30 black kids, aged from around four to 12 years, plus four nubile teens whom John instantly dubs “The Supremes.” A few mothers are there, too, shushing and clucking and making sure that ribbon-bows aren’t crooked.

John and Yoko teach the kids the tune by example and the words from a blackboard, and after only a few tries they’ve got it, superimposed on the already-mixed track. But Phil insists that the kids do it one more time, and he dubs the result on top so that they’ve got 60 voices ... or 58, not counting the little boy who just sat there staring at nothing in particular.

It’s all over, apart from the strings, so the Lennons, the band, the kids, the Supremes, the mothers, the engineers, the studio secretary, Phil, and the unwilling Joe gather round to pose for a picture which might go on the cover of the single.

A green plastic Christmas tree, with dangling lights, has been specially bought and erected for the occasion, and towers above the group. The photographer is being a little slow, having trouble getting everyone into his frame, so Phil takes over.

. “C’mon Iain . . . when I shout ‘ONE TWO THRIVE’, everybody shout ‘HAPPY CHRISTMAS’ and you take the picture. Right? ONE TWO THREE (HAPPY CHRISTMAS) ONE TWO THREE (HAPPY CHRISTMAS) ONE TWO THREE (HAPPY CHRISTMAS). Okay Iain, you got it.”