Notes and Quotes: "Not Fade Away"

The sound of this recording marks it as something special in early 1964. Their cover of Buddy Holly's version of a Bo Diddley song features an acoustic guitar (Richards), harmonica (Jones), and Watts playing most of the accompanying pattern on his tom toms (reinforced by Wyman's bass line).

Phil Spector's presence in the small cramped studio clearly dominated the proceedings. The various percussion additions are one characteristic of his productions (although lacking here is his typical multiple tracks of the same thing). Regent's equipment, although capable of clean recordings, would not have allowed multiple generations of overdubs.

Richards: We did our early records on a two-track Revox in a room insulated with egg cartons at Regent Sound. It was a little demo studio in "Tin Pan Alley," as it used to be called, Denmark Street in Soho. It was all done on a two-track Revox that he had on the wall. We used to think, "Oh, this is a recording studio, huh? This is what they're like." A tiny little back room. Under those primitive conditions it was easy to make the kind of sound we got on our first album and the early singles, but hard to make a much better one.

Owner James Baring believes that Richards is confusing Regent with another studio: Regent never used Revox tape decks. However, Regent's facilities were very basic.

"Not Fade Away" was the first recording that disk jockies played on the first pirate radio station, Radio Caroline.

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27 February, 2012