This is my third, and saddest, post about Norman Smith. My previous posts are here and here.
When I first heard the name Hurricane Smith, I didn’t know it was the title of a 1952 Yvonne DeCarlo movie, and I still don’t know for certain if Smith borrowed it for his pseudonym. But before I knew who he was, or anything else about him, I loved listening this song.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/MAR/OhBabeWhatWouldYouSay.mp3]
I transferred that from an original 1972 45 rpm single. As Hurricane Smith, Norman scored big with this international hit, ‘Oh Babe, What Would You Say?’ This is the flip side, ‘Getting to Know You.’
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/MAR/GettingToKnowYou.mp3]
It wasn’t until many years later I learned that under producer George Martin, Smith had been The Beatles’ first recording engineer at EMI’s Abbey Road studios. In fact, Norman was among the first studio professionals to hear something special in the Fab Four’s music, as described in this quote about their ‘artist test’ recordings at EMI, from The Beatles Recording Sessions, by Mark Lewisohn.
Paul sang ‘Besame Mucho’, the Latin crooner, then they layed down three Lennon-McCartney originals, ‘Love Me Do’, ‘P.S. I Love You’ and ‘Ask Me Why’. It was during ‘Love Me Do’ that Norman Smith pricked up his ears. “Norman said to me ‘Go down and pick up George [Martin] from the canteen and see what he thinks of this’,” recalls [second engineer Chris] Neal.
Of his first encounter with The Beatles, Norman had this to say.
They had such duff equipment. Ugly, unpainted wooden amplifiers, extremely noisy, with earth loops and goodness knows what. There was as much noise coming from the amps as there was from the instruments. Paul’s bass was particularly bad and it was clear that the session wasn’t going to get under way until something was done about it.
Spoken like a true recording engineer! First step: getting the gear right. In Lewisohn’s The Beatles Recording Sessions, Paul McCartney said…
Norman Smith was a great engineer, we were all so sad when Norman became a producer because we wanted him as our engineer, he was dynamite. Geoff was dynamite too, in fact that was the great thing about all of the EMI guys. Training. Anyone you get who’s been EMI trained really knows what he’s doing.
‘Geoff’ refers to Geoff Emerick, whose second day on the job at EMI happened to be the very first studio session by the Beatles, after George Martin decided to sign them to a recording contract. I previously featured Emerick’s memoir, Here There and Everywhere in this post. Geoff wasn’t at the artist test recording session, but he heard this about it.
Richard [Langham, assistant engineer] had heard good things about the Beatles’ artist test, too, and not just from Chris. Apparently there was quite a buzz around the studio about them…”
Norman Smith was the Beatles’ recording engineer through the Rubber Soul sessions. By then, in his 40’s, Smith wanted to be a full-fledged record producer, and as Emerick recalls…
I can equally understand George Martin’s adamant refusal to allow Norman to receive the promotion and remain as the Beatles’ engineer.
Smith felt he was onto something with his discovery of a new and unusual band called Pink Floyd, and indeed he was proven right. He produced three of their first four albums. It was Smith’s departure that made it possible for Emerick to be promoted to Engineer. From that point on, his recording techniques defined the sound of Beatles records.
This is a recent snapshot of Norman Smith with the authors of the RTB Book: Recording The Beatles, Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan. Before I wrap up, I’ll embed this video of Hurricane I spotted on YouTube.
[flv:/Video/2008/MAR/HurricaneSmith.flv 440 330]
Norman Smith, 85, recording engineer and recording artist, died on March 3 at his home in Rye, England. Goodbye, Hurricane.
