Ron Albert and Chuck Kirkpatrick were already staff engineers at Criteria alongside Mack, and I was the third guy." "We would try loads of different things with a lot of different microphones before using them on a client. It was quite an education, and soon Richardson also found himself assisting as a recording engineer on albums by Eric Clapton, the Average White Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
John, the Young Rascals, Brook Benton and whoever else was on the Atlantic roster at that time, as produced by Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin. So it was that he cut his musical teeth listening to Aretha Franklin, Dr. And there to assist them as a co-producer and engineer was Karl Richardson, a man whose impressive track record is one of the industry's better kept secrets.Ī Miami native, Richardson began his studio career there in 1969 at Criteria, mastering a wide variety of mixes and popular hits of the day, not least because Atlantic Records block-booked Studio B for an entire year. It is therefore interesting that this track, along with 'How Deep Is Your Love' and 'More Than A Woman', was originally penned for a completely different project: the follow-up to the Main Course and Children Of The World albums that had seen the Bee Gees reinvent and reestablish themselves as a chart force, thanks to hits such as 'Jive Talkin', 'Nights On Broadway', 'You Should Be Dancing' and 'Love So Right'.
Yet it is 'Stayin' Alive', which played over the movie's opening credits while John Travolta's Tony Manero strutted down the New York streets in his polyester suit, that best evokes the era and its promotion of sex, drugs and breathless boogying as some form of decadent compensation for a humdrum daily existence. In addition to the Bee Gees' recordings of 'Stayin' Alive', 'How Deep Is Your Love', 'Night Fever', 'More Than A Woman', 'Jive Talkin' and 'You Should Be Dancing', the two-LP set contained their compositions being covered by the Tavares ('More Than A Woman') and Yvonne Elliman ('If I Can't Have You'), alongside lesser material by the likes of Walter Murphy, David Shire, Ralph MacDonald, MFSB, the Trammps, Kool & the Gang, and KC & the Sunshine Band. Still, as Barry later asserted, it did put food on the table, while the Saturday Night Fever album was a significant moment in the annals of pop culture a moment when a trio of white Englishmen almost single-handely ignited a widespread mania for the disco music that had previously been the domain of the black and gay sub-cultures in America, and had been superseded by punk in Europe. The next, thanks to a soundtrack album that sold a then-record 25 million copies worldwide and topped the US charts for 24 weeks - where it spawned four number one singles, three of them their own - they were the Kings of Disco and all that encompassed, reaping the rewards and then the brickbats. One minute, they were the purveyors of 'blue-eyed soul', melding their pop roots, trademark harmonies and Barry's newly discovered falsetto with their love of early '70s Philadelphia funk, crafting heavily rhythmic dance music that was finding its way onto black American radio stations. Years after the '70s disco fad and subsequent backlash had subsided, Maurice Gibb told an interviewer that he'd like to dress up the Saturday Night Fever album in a white suit and gold medallion and set the whole thing on fire, such was the stigma that had been attached to him and his brothers Barry and Robin by press and public alike. Photo: Dick Ashbyĭisco was an American phenomenon, but its greatest hits were recorded in France by an English band who were trying to play R&B. The Bee Gees: from left, Maurice, Robin and Barry Gibb.
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