Best known for his work on The Beach Boys’ Smile, Parks is a student of serious music, whose flirtation with the counterculture saw him fall in with unlikely company. His first job was arranging “The Bear Necessities” for Disney’s Jungle Book, but his association with Brian Wilson led to him producing debuts by Ry Cooder and Randy Newman, as well as making idiosyncratic solo albums. As he prepares to release his new album, Songs Cycled (reviewed in this month’s Uncut, dated June 2013), we look back to July 2010’s issue, where Parks reflects on a career that’s straddled the worlds of serious music and pop, without fitting in to either. Words: Alastair McKay
Andy Johns has died at the age of 61.
The producer and engineer was hospitalised last week, collaborator Stacy Blades told Billboard, partly due to liver problems, though no cause of death has yet been announced.
The younger brother of producer Glyn Johns, Andy Johns was born in 1952. He began studio work as tape operator on The Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1967, before going on to engineer legendary albums such as Led Zeppelin's II, III and IV and The Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street.
The new issue of Uncut, out today (January 31), features Tom Waits, Jimi Hendrix, Richard Thompson and David Bowie.
Tom Waits is on the cover, and inside, friends and collaborators tell the story of the singer-songwriter’s development from a Beat-obsessed San Diego youth to a hip Los Angeles troubadour, culminating in the making of his debut album, Closing Time, which is four decades old this year.
