He is the Brooklyn boy who lived the ultimate rock'n'roll fairytale. Producer Tony Visconti talks to Stephen Dalton about Bowie and Bolan, and we publish extracts from his autobiography

 

 

From the blue-collar Brooklyn suburb of Bay Ridge to the bohemian enclave of Greenwich Village is a journey of less than five miles, but Tony Visconti took the scenic route. Growing up in a Mafia-controlled Italian-American ghetto, he was the bright, musically-gifted misfit who dreamt of escape. But it took the Beatles to show him the way out, Swinging London to open his mind, and 20 years of wrestling with some of the biggest egos in rock before he finally found his way home.

“My life has a kind of fairytale quality,†says the former heroin addict who went on to produce a string of all-time classic albums by David Bowie, Marc Bolan and Morrissey. “If you knew where I came from, the bowels of Brooklyn where nobody escapes. I had this vision of going to England and meeting the Beatles. And within a couple of years, that’s what happened.â€

 

 

 

Trim and youthful at 62, Visconti meets me at his ninth-floor studio overlooking Broadway. But although he has been back in New York for almost two decades, he remains a devout Anglophile. It was Britain, after all, where he made his reputation. Touting his skills as an arranger, musician and apprentice sound engineer, he arrived in London in April 1967. “I met Brian Jones the third day there,†he recalls. “I saw Jimi Hendrix burn a guitar. It was an overwhelming experience.â€

 

Before long, Visconti was recording with Procol Harum, The Who, Joe Cocker and the Moody Blues. Going native with his love of real ale and Are You Being Served?, he settled in Britain, marrying the Welsh singer Mary Hopkin. He later worked with Thin Lizzy, Sparks, the Boomtown Rats, U2, Paul McCartney, Manic Street Preachers and dozens more.

 

Last year he made his biggest splash for years by producing Morrissey’s acclaimed chart-topper, Ringleader of the Tormentors. And it is Morrissey who provides the gushing foreword to Visconti’s autobiography, which is published next month. “Tony understands the code of music brilliantly,†the singer enthuses. “He is a noble example of the self-flogger who understands that the song doesn’t end just because it’s over.â€

 

But the book’s subtitle speaks volumes about Visconti’s time-frozen reputation: Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy. Surely he resents being third on the bill in his own life story? “No,†Visconti shrugs. “We live in an age where everyone’s a brand name now, regrettably. But I don’t mind if people think of me as the guy who did Bolan and Bowie. I was really involved in their careers. With Marc it was about eight albums, and with Bowie a dozen. I’m very proud of that.â€

 

The book is a breezy read, with plenty of sex and drugs to go with the rock’n’roll. One surprise revelation is that Visconti became a heroin addict in his late teens while playing with a jazz band. He set about tracing the fellow musician who had got him hooked. “When I wrote about him in the book, I thought he was dead,†he says. “The amount of heroin he took would have killed 15 horses.â€

 

In fact, he was still alive. Visconti offered him anonymity. It was a kind of closure. “That was really cool, that completion, because I hated him,†Visconti agrees. “It took me quite a few years to really get that out of my system, because heroin is extremely addictive, extremely seductive. I read a statistic: people who start on heroin, only 3 per cent escape that life.â€

 

Ironically, heroin proved a blessing in disguise for Visconti, saving him from conscription to the Vietnam War. As a musician, he told the draft board, drug addiction was an “occupational hazardâ€.

 

Excused from military service, he promptly kicked the habit. But during the next 20 years in the music business, every other type of chemical high was freely available. “Marijuana, alcohol, cocaine — all a waste of time,†he sighs. “I wish I had never taken them. I nearly had two heart attacks on cocaine. I had two heroin overdoses. I nearly went psychotic on strong marijuana.†Only regular LSD trips in his early twenties, Visconti says, proved worthwhile.

 

“They got this kid out of Brooklyn and thinking on a more global level.â€

 

Drug-free for two decades, and a non-drinker since 1999, Visconti has outlived most of the famous rockers in his memoir. Hendrix, Bolan, Lennon, Brian Jones, Phil Lynott: all gone. He now suffers from the form of diabetes that killed his father at 89. All the same, he still seems in remarkably good shape for a 62-year-old ex-junkie.

 

Visconti has mostly positive things to say about his famous collaborators. He calls Bowie a “man of honourâ€, and declines my invitation to share some filthy gossip about Morrissey. “I have never seen him with a member of either sex,†he insists. “I honestly think his whole love life is his music. He prefers writing a song to having sex.â€

 

Unusually for a rock memoir, there is little score-settling in Visconti’s book. He recalls a marathon two-day session arranging the strings for Paul McCartney’s Wings, something he then had to wait 25 years to get a credit for. But only his bitter fall-out with Marc Bolan seems to have left any lasting scars. Although intimately involved with T. Rex from the start, the producer suddenly found his royalty rate slashed when success loomed. Bolan’s death in September 1977 left the wound untreated.

 

“Marc was a nasty person; he treated a lot of people very badly,†Visconti says. “Towards the end of my relationship with him he was into this pure self-destruction. His cocaine habit was really awful, and drinking. Everybody who had really supported him dropped away. He really needed help.â€

 

 

the rest of the interview is Here!

 

 

An excellent read (I'd just read it in a thread on Bowie's Wonderworld site).

 

Being a fan of Bowie, T-Rex & Morrissey I own many of Tony Visconti's productions.