Anthony Visconti (born April 24, 1944) is an American
record producer and sometimes a musician or
singer.
Since the late 1960s, he has worked with an array of notable performers, including the Moody
Blues, as well as T. Rex, Paul McCartney,
Thin Lizzy, Ralph McTell, Sparks, Gentle Giant, Boomtown
Rats, Hazel O'Connor, Adam Ant, The Stranglers, Richard Barone, Manic Street Preachers, Kristeen Young and most recently
Morrissey. His lengthiest involvement with any artist is with David Bowie: intermittently from Bowie's 1969's album Space
Oddity to 2003's Reality, Visconti has produced and occasionally
performed on many of Bowie's albums
Early life
Visconti was born in Brooklyn, New York, and his father, a music enthusiast, taught Visconti
to play the ukulele when he was five years old. He attended New Utrecht High School. Throughout his teenage years Visconti was involved with both a
classical brass band (playing tuba) and a traditional orchestra
(playing double bass), as well as playing rock 'n' roll-oriented guitar. Such a versatile
range of musical styles was finally abandoned by the age of 15, when he focussed his efforts on a rock band named Ricardo and the
Latineers.
During the next few years of his life, he was involved with a number of soft-rock and lounge acts, playing both the bass and
electric guitar. With his then-wife Siegrid, he attempted a career as pop duo Tony and Siegrid. Under this name, their first
single "Long Hair" was a minor regional hit in New York City in late 1966, peaking at #33 on local top 40 station WMCA.[1] However, this was to be the peak level of success for the duo,
as no further singles charted.
After this failure to become a commercially successful pop singer, Visconti became in-house producer for his publisher, the
Richmond Organization.
Production
Visconti's big break came with a chance meeting with British producer Denny Cordell in 1968 while he was still working as Richmond's in-house producer. Cordell asked him to
assist in recordings for successful jazz vocalist Georgie Fame. Visconti moved to
London - in a move that would soon become permanent. He was to live there for most of
the next 30 years and it would prove to be the city in which his career would finally flourish.
The album sleeve for Man Who Sold The World (1970), an album in which Visconti had much
involvement
One of his first production projects in England with was the Welsh group The Iveys (later known as Badfinger). He produced several tracks for the band's first LP Maybe Tomorrow, released on The Beatles' Apple label. The title track from this
album was released as a single and reached #67 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1968. More early production work on the album
Prophets, Seers & Sages – The Angels of the
Ages for the British outfit T-Rex was to be of critical importance in kick-starting his influential career. It was to
begin a relationship with T-Rex that would last for their next seven albums, and through this Visconti would also strike up a
friendship with David Bowie. One of Visconti's greatest successes was "Electric Warrior", the album that made T. Rex frontman and
mastermind Marc Bolan a superstar and cemented Visconti's producing credentials. Initially, Visconti and Bowie, along with
guitarist Mick Ronson and drummer John Cambridge, formed and toured with the band
Hype in which he played bass. Although the band name would
be very short-lived, the line-up persisted and would go on to record the seminal album and single "The Man Who Sold the World" in 1970. He would further go on to work on the albums
Diamond Dogs (1974), Young
Americans (1975), "Heroes" (1977), Low (1977), Lodger (1979) and Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980).
Visconti would produce two full albums for the Moody Blues, "The Other Side of Life" (1986), and "Sur La Mer" (1988). In
1987, Visconti, together with Moodies' lead vocalist Justin Hayward, supplied incidental
music for the BBC2 science fiction series
Star Cops.
In the 1980s Tony completed the Exegesis Programme Large Group Awareness Training course (as, incidentally, did
Justin Hayward). Tony acted as an assistant trainer on some of the subsequent courses,
and for a time lived with Kim Coe, one of the Exegesis Group Leaders, in Harley House, Euston
Road, London.
By the end of the 1980s, Visconti's consistent involvement with top artists had diminished, but despite this he continued to
work with many newly formed outfits. In 1990 he produced and wrote the arrangements for the debut album from NYC band
Electric Angels. He produced several tracks on the Moodies "Keys of the Kingdom" album (1991), the 'Electric Honey' album for Luscious Jackson, Leisure Noise by Gay Dad, Soul Caddy for Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Dawn of
Ananda for Annie Haslam and Moonchild for Debbie
Gibson. In 1997 Visconti produced the debut album of former Stone Roses member
John Squire's new band, The Seahorses. The album,
Do It Yourself was a moderate success. In the 2000s Visconti
renewed his association with David Bowie, producing the albums Heathen in 2002,
and Reality in 2003. These two albums hark back to his Berlin production work
with Bowie and for many contain the best of Bowie's later work. A list of the best known albums with which he has been associated
is available from his official website.
Since the end of his marriage to Siegrid, Visconti married and divorced a further two times. From 1971 to 1981 he was married
to Mary Hopkin, and they had two children, Morgan and Jessica. For a time in the mid-80s
lived with Kim Coe, one of the Exegesis Programme Group Leaders, in Harley House, Euston Road,
London. He was then married to May Pang from 1989 to 2000, with whom he also had two children,
Sebastian and Lara.
In 2005 he collaborated with Copenhagen band, Kashmir, whose fifth album, No Balance Palace, featured
David Bowie. He has also collaborated as co-writer and producer on the forthcoming new album project by Richard Barone. He worked in Rome on the 2006 Morrissey album
Ringleader of the Tormentors. His autobiography, "Bowie, Bolan and
The Brooklyn Boy", was published in February 2007 by Harper Collins UK. It is going to be relased in hardback in the United
States in Fall 2007. [2]
After time off from producing for much of 2007, Visconti is back at work firstly with Pittsburgh, PA punk band,
Anti-Flag and later with Liverpudlians, The Zutons. These
mark the first recordings since Visconti moved out of his studio at Looking Glass, preferring not to be tied down by the
traditional studio, which he sees as becoming more a thing of the past.[3] The first project will take place in Lexington, KY and the latter at Allaire Studios in upstate New
York.
Literature
- Tony Visconti - The Autobiography: Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy, Harper Collins, 2007, ISBN-10 0007229445,
ISBN-13 978-0007229444
References
See also
- List of record producers
- Tony Visconti produced albums
External links
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