Tony Visconti Totally Explained

Everything about Tony Visconti totally explained

Anthony Visconti (born April 24, 1944) is an American record producer and sometimes a musician or singer.
Since the late 1960s, he's worked with an array of notable performers, including the Moody Blues, as well as T. Rex, Mary Hopkin, 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. 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. 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 Tyrannosaurus Rex (later to become 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.
   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's 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'd two children, Morgan and Jessica. (Visconti had produced Hopkin's second album for Apple Records, Earth Song/Ocean Song, in 1971.) He was then married to May Pang from 1989 to 2000, with whom he also had two children, Sebastian and Lara. (Pang had gained no little notoriety in the 1970s as the woman that John Lennon lived with, after splitting from Yoko Ono.)
   He produced and played bass on a handful of tracks from The Dandy Warhols 2003 album Welcome to the Monkey House. In 2003 he teamed up with the Finn Brothers (Neil and Tim of Crowded House and Split Enz fame) to record and produce their second collaborative album, eventually released in 2004. For reasons largely unknown, the brothers re-recorded the entire album and Tony is credited for his string arrangements only. In 2004 he produced three songs on the Manic Street Preachers Album Lifeblood. 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. The imported soft cover version is now available in the USA. The book has been translated into French by Jérôme Soligny as Tony VIsconti Bowie, Bolan et le Gamin de Brooklyn, published by Tournon 2007 and 2008 has seen Visconti very active in the studio with Benin singer Angélique Kidjo, producing her Grammy winning album Djin Djin (Razor & Tie). Guests artists include Alicia Keys, Peter Gabriel, Joss Stone, Josh Groban and Carlos Santana. He has also produced two albums at St. Claire studio in Lexington, KY - Bright Lights of America (RCA) by Pittsburgh Punk band Anti-Flag and a soon to be released CD by Alejandro Escovedo (Manhattan Records). He has partially produced the new No. 1 CD (in France) by French artist Raphael in Paris and New York. He has just completed work on the new Kristeen Young CD due for release later in 2008.

Literature

Tony Visconti - The Autobiography: Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy, Harper Collins, 2007, ISBN-10 0007229445, ISBN-13 978-0007229444

Further Information

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