Bob Olhsson and Russ Terrana Audio Interview

[bradburger]

Just stumbled across this on you know where : -


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgZytIWYyDM

Cheers

Paul

[lyrie]

Awesome Thanks

[bob_olhsson]

I'll be happy to answer any questions!

[soulster]

Brad, i'm happy you made us aware of this. I'll watch it later, and Bob, nice to hear from you. I don't post much anymore, but I still lurk.

[snakepit]

Nice to hear positive things about Berry Gordy from people who were ACTUALLY there , who knew him, and worked for him.

[snakepit]

Mr Olhsson,
Great to hear your thoughts on your time at Motown.
You probably worked with all the producers.
One of my favourites is Ivy Hunter.
Do you have recollections of his sessions?

[ralpht]

Bob, when was this interview done?

[ralpht]

The Jeff Beck sessions were rocky at first. Apparently, the Funks were giving Jeff a hard time. I don't think they were into jamming with a Rock and Roll guy. The morning after the disastrous episode, Harry and Jeff came to my office to see what we could do. After all, the guy came from England to do this. I told Harry to get Babbitt and Andrew Smith on drums, to come in and do the experiment. That night I stopped into the studio to see how things were going, and they were all stoned and drunk, playing their asses off. Tragedy foiled.

[bob_olhsson]

Jeff and Micky Most, the producer, hadn't been speaking to each other for months which didn't exactly help the situation. It was Beck's drummer, Cozy Powell. He was really good. Beck wanted Babbitt to join the band but Bob had recently signed a deal with Motown and couldn't get out of his contract. Imagine how history would have changed if that had happened.

I didn't understand how great Berry Gordy was until I dealt with other labels and saw their contracts. I told Esther Edwards about this right after she opened the museum and she laughed. She told me that she wanted to write her own Motown history book that told the real story of the contracts which were modeled after Chess because she and Berry considered them to be the fairest in the industry. Motown's artists actually took home more money than most because only the musicians' session pay and money advanced to the artist were deducted from record royalties. Record royalties were never included as part of artist management fees.

[ralpht]

Bob, thanks for the back story on Beck's offer to Babbitt to join his band. I wasn't aware this happened. It doesn't surprise me though. I saw that Jeff was really into Babbitt.

[bob_olhsson]

Ken Scott told me Jeff took the tapes to him for a mix and Mickey Most showed up demanding that they be handed over. I've read that Jeff is considering releasing the recordings so he must have them at this point.