Andy Timmons records rare Lennon/McCartney song "I'm In Love" at Abbey Road's Studio Two.
Andy Timmons has released a new recording captured at Abbey Road Studio 2. His critically acclaimed 2011 instrumental power trio version of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band received rave reviews from everyone from Beatles engineer Ken Scott to being named Top 10 Record Of The Year by the writers of Guitar World magazine.
He shares, “I was familiar with ‘I’m In Love’ as recorded by the Brian Epstein managed group The Fourmost for years. When John’s original piano/vocal demo from 1963 surfaced in the early 2000’s, I was completely blown away by how great the song really is. I truly felt The Beatles should have recorded it! My version is a humble attempt at how the arrangement might have been fleshed out by the Fab Four.
Andy Timmons records rare Lennon/McCartney song "I'm In Love" at Abbey Road Studio 2
Andy Timmons reflects, “Entering Studio 2 is like walking into a movie you’ve been watching your whole life. So much of my favorite music was created in that room, and it looks the same as it did all those years ago. It has a palpable magic. That said, once the awe sunk in, I had one of the best working days of my recording career. Someone asked if it was intimidating to work there, and strangely, I felt completely at home. Very much like I was meant to be there.”
Timmons was born in 1963, and grew up with a brother twelve years his elder. Every Beatles record was inches away and truly a significant part of the soundscape of his youth. He shares, “I’ve literally experienced all their music from the cradle to today. My earliest musical memories, and essentially my musical foundation, were all formed in the Sixties with their music. I can’t imagine life without them.”
The recording features Timmons performing drums, bass, guitars, vocals and handclaps. Background vocals were contributed by Matt Bissonette. Additional handclaps and acoustic guitar was performed by Craig Hopkins and Dennis Poggenburg. Lastly, some additional handclaps and the 1961 Vox AC30 was provided by Daniel Steinhardt.
The recording was engineered by Chris Bolster at Abbey Road Studios in London. Additional engineering and mixing by Casey Diiorio at Valve Studios in Dallas, TX. Mastering by Alan Douches at West West Side Music. The video footage from the sessions was captured by Dennis Poggenburg, while the clip was then created by Rich Sumner at Surfware Media.
Earlier this year, Timmons released a tribute to his guitar hero Peter Frampton titled “The Boy From Beckenham,”. The recording and video feature a collaboration between the two artists. At the time of release, Timmons shared, “Inspired. Joyous. Driven. Inventive. Determined. Thankful. Funny. So many words and emotions come to mind when I see Peter Frampton do what he LOVES to do. Easily one of the greatest guitarists I've ever seen. Despite incredible adversity, he plays with more intent, love, joy and wonder than anybody. I hope everyone who sees and hears this song or video connects with the music and feels the impact of how special he is from the archival footage as well as his outstanding modern day playing shared within one of the most meaningful recordings to me personally I’ve ever created.”
For more information, please visit andytimmons.com.
“Music is inherently a collaborative process, and quite often, our heroes work better together.”
In 1986, my friend Jon Small produced the video for Run-DMC and Aerosmith’s version of “Walk this Way.” Small starts the video with Aerosmith loudly jamming in a rehearsal space with an annoyed Run-DMC shouting from the adjacent room, “Turn that noise down, man.” When DMC realizes they can’t get around it, they have to get into it.
They rap the first verse, and then Steven Tyler breaks down the wall between the rooms and joins Run-DMC on the chorus. The metaphor is pretty brilliant, tearing down the wall between hip-hop and rock, tearing down cultural walls and unifying two audiences that seem totally different but are way more similar than anyone suspected.
Tyler, being a drummer at heart, wrote the lyrics with this perfect percussive flow that was essentially rap before rap was rap. Tyler also peppered the lyrics with double entendre, which became a huge part of hip-hop.
“Walk This Way” was 10 years old at the time, and Aerosmith had been through it all. The band's drug use had taken its toll. Joe Perry and Brad Whitford had both quit and rejoined, labels were skeptical, and radio was ignoring them. But this crossover collaboration reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and its frequently aired video resurrected Aerosmith’s career by introducing the band’s music to a new generation. It also paved the way for a melding of rock and hip-hop in the hands of acts like Rage Against the Machine, Kid Rock, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and all the others who jumped into these blurred lines created by this collaboration.
Music is inherently a collaboration. In every band, orchestra, duo, etc., players join together to achieve a common goal. Even if you’re a soloist, your arms, legs, and fingers are doing wildly different, complicated tasks separately while working together, hopefully in harmony. The best collaborations happen when the energy/talent/spirit/personality jell in such a way that it brings the best out of everyone, creating work that neither party could have done alone. Beatles, Stones, Aerosmith … none of the members’ solo work is as good as the band collaborations that made their careers.
Collaborations go the other way as well, like those big, epic closing jams at a concert, where 5 to 15 guitarists get on stage and each player tries to kick the ass of the person soloing before them. They usually turn into an unwatchable dweedlely-dweedle wank fest. A three-diva sing off is equally torturous: no melody, all riffs. That’s ego getting in the way of being part of something bigger than you. That’s why most supergroups are usually less than super. But great artists thrive with collaboration.
“Iggy Pop seems like a feral animal compared to elegant Bowie, and yet the two wrote and produced a ton of legendary music together throughout the ’70s and ’80s.”
One of the attributes that made David Bowie such a next-level talent was his love of collaboration, particularly with artists who were so different from himself. Bowie’s hit “Fame” was a collaboration with John Lennon. One of my favorite Christmas songs is Bing Crosby and Bowie’s “The Little Drummer Boy.” In 1981, Bowie and Queen were both recording their own projects at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland. This led to Queen inviting Bowie to sing on a track, which led to an impromptu writing/recording session, which led to the creation of “Under Pressure.”
Bowie brought in a young and unknown Stevie Ray Vaughan to be the rude, angry counter to Nile Rodgers’ slick and funky rhythm on “Let’s Dance.” Iggy Pop seems like a feral animal compared to elegant Bowie, and yet the two wrote and produced a ton of legendary music together throughout the ’70s and ’80s. Together, they served each other as perfect foils.
Clapton’s guitar weeping over George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” Eddie Van Halen’s rearranging Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” then laying down his iconic solo over the new section, or more recently, Bonamassa’s guitar driving under Glenn Hughes’ soaring vocals and Jason Bonham’s thunder with Black Country Communion’s new single, “Stay Free,” collaboration can take it to places where no one has gone before.
When I moved to Nashville 32 years ago, a writer told me this town was built on collaboration; it’s all co-writing, jamming, working together on life’s never-ending art project. Not only do you get a fresh direction in your work, but your chances of success double when two people are working on promotion rather than doing it all alone. The best part is the relationships you form. As your peer group comes to power, you all help each other along the way.
There are two collaborations I would love to see happen:
Ultimate collab #1:
Jack White and Jack Black. They are already friends. Both have an over-the-top, theatrical delivery. The project name options are numerous and brilliant. Call this unholy union “Jack White and Black” or “Jack Jack White Black.”
Ultimate collab #2:
Marcus King and Kingfish. Both brilliant guitarists deep in the blues/rock world, but with sophisticated jazz leanings. Both sons of the South. Proposed name: Marcus King Fish.
Marcus, Chris, Jack, and Jack, if you are reading this, know that your audience awaits with eager anticipation.
Our columnist considers why we love to accumulate so much gear.
I’ve got stuff. Lots of stuff. It fills up my home and my shop. One of the many things that I’ve collected over the years are backstage passes. My occupation has taken me to a lot of shows—sometimes two or three a night. I’d come home and throw the evening’s pass into a box on a shelf in my coat closet. When the box got full, instead of tossing it, I’d put it away and start another one. This went on for decades. I probably just saved those passes for the same reason I’ve wound up with a lot of things—I like stuff. But not just any stuff. I like good stuff, quality stuff, interesting stuff. As a consequence, I have a lot of it. I’m betting a lot of you do too. Maybe you started young, by collecting trading cards. Maybe you came to it later in life. Maybe you’re thinking of tossing off the anchor and sailing away free.
In my dreams, I have a grand garage sale. I see table after table of NOS tubes, capos, cords, pedals, and straps, all laid out neatly and tagged with reasonable prices. There would be cabinets full of tools and electronic gizmos from ages past. I imagine a spread of guitars on stands and amplifiers lined up neatly like buildings on a boulevard—all plugged in and ready to demo. I’d say goodbye to all those years of guitar and automobile magazines organized neatly on my bookshelves, along with books about those two subjects. There would be a section for microphone and music stands, photo lights, cameras, and microphones. It would be a picker’s dream come true. Somehow this exercise gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, and I’m not sure why, because I love my stuff.
So, why do we cling to these artifacts? You might say it’s your hobby, or if you are a pro, they are work tools. But that’s not the whole story. When I started playing, guitarists didn’t have collections. Professionals had one or two main guitars and maybe a 12-string. If you broke a string onstage, you’d either change it while talking to the audience or grab your one backup guitar. Studio cats might have accumulated a small array of stringed instruments (like banjos or mandolins) that they could deploy as needed in order to secure more work, but even some of the legends would borrow when the situation called for something different. Running parallel with the normalization of mass consumerism, it has become acceptable to own more than one or two guitars—maybe even 20.
"When I started playing, guitarists didn’t have collections. Professionals had one or two main guitars and maybe a 12-string."
That’s probably why when you think of the classic acts, you naturally picture those players with a certain guitar. John Lennon had his black Rickenbacker and George Harrison had his Gretsch. Paul McCartney is forever associated with Höfner. Clapton you have to define by era, but a few, like his “Fool” SG and his Bluesbreaker Les Paul—superseded by his now ubiquitous Stratocaster—were and are touchstones. When you think David Gilmour, you see a Strat. Likewise Rick Nielsen with his Hamer “Explorer” and Randy Rhoads on a white Les Paul. As different as they are stylistically, Elvis Costello, Thurston Moore, and J Mascis converge on the Jazzmaster. I could go on. For the first 40 years of its existence, the electric guitar wasn’t much of a collectible. But as we stand here today, most of us have a gaggle of guitars that may or may not be a collection.
So, do we or don’t we have collections? When I use a good piece of gear, whether it’s a guitar or a chisel, I feel joy. It’s a feeling that goes beyond mere possession, and it’s not just that the widget works. It’s recognizing that years of experience have led me to the point of knowing what quality is and why it’s important. I’ve read that holding on to physical things is hanging on to the past when we should be living in the present. I’m not going to dispute that, but my stuff and I have a grip on each other that’s more like a friendship than a psychological hardship. I’m not a working pro, but music has been my life since I was 12, and I don’t apologize for that.
Should I pare down my tools? Would I be happier without a selection of fine instruments? Perhaps purging the tonnage of stuff that anchors me down would open up a whole new take on life, but I’m not ready. Maybe you’ve thought about this too, but I wouldn’t worry too much. Chalk it up to whatever you like, but I’m fine with it for now, and I adore finding new things that make my life a little easier, and maybe a little more joyous.