Starting at Trident Studios in London and then the now legendary Island Record's Basing Street Studios, Tony worked as an assistant on sessions with the likes of Traffic, The Who, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.
He engineered on sessions with John Martin, Free and many more, leading to him mixing the “Catch A Fire” album for a hitherto unknown Jamaican artist, Bob Marley and then rec...
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Starting at Trident Studios in London and then the now legendary Island Record's Basing Street Studios, Tony worked as an assistant on sessions with the likes of Traffic, The Who, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.
He engineered on sessions with John Martin, Free and many more, leading to him mixing the “Catch A Fire” album for a hitherto unknown Jamaican artist, Bob Marley and then recording and mixing the “Burnin” album - albums which arguably would launch reggae music into the mainstream for good. This association led him to complete ”Funky Kingston” for Toots and the Maytals and work with several other notable Reggae artists such as ZapPow, Lorna Bennet, Harry J’s All Stars, Aswad and The Cimarons.
His later reputation is principally based on work in the world of rock with the various spin off projects from Free and as engineer for Muff Winwood on the debut Sparks album “Kimono in my House” along with Sharks, John Martin and many others.
Turning freelance he recorded demos that prefaced deals for Thin Lizzy and the Stranglers before becoming engineer for Mutt Lange and working on the AC/DC albums “Highway to Hell” and “Back in Black”, Foreigner – “4”, Boomtown Rats – “Fine Art of Surfacing’ and Broken Home.
Joining the Zomba producer roster in 1980 he produced and engineered the work of artists such as Samson (with Bruce Dickenson singing), Iron Maiden, Krokus, Motorhead, Gary Moore, Cheap Trick, Ronnie Dio, The Cult and Marillion.
Being fortunate to have grown up alongside the rapid advances in audio and music technology has left him with a constant desire to try new recording techniques and musical styles which in turn has led to involvement with artists from many musical genres.
He recorded two albums for Buddy Guy - the Grammy winning “Damn Right I Got the Blues” and the follow up “Feels Like Rain” before developing a close involvement with the well respected “boutique” Jazz label, Dune Records, working with all their artists including Mercury nominated Soweto Kinch, Denys Baptiste, and Abram Wilson. Other productions in the Jazz genre have included Clare Teal’s “Don’t Talk” – her first for Sony Jazz which entered at 19 on the album chart and the most amazing U.S. band, The Bad Plus. He produced and engineered a solo album with Jacquie Dankworth before also producing a collaboration with her late father John Dankworth.
His engagement with rock continues however, and he has been involved in the development of a Canadian rock band, State of the Art over a three year period. Further development work with Dublin based songstress Grace Wilde followed a live acoustic album released and an E.P released during 2016.
Running from 2015 into 2016, Tony mixed an album by Spanish improvisational jazz trio Naima, and completed an album with a Dutch 5 piece girl “rock” band called Bells of Youth released on V2 Records. Also released in 2017 was the new album Soweto Kinch.
More recently he has produced, recorded and mixed an album by French Ska/Punk band Two Tone Club recorded in the fabulous new DAFT Studio in Belgium and an album with Chilean virtuoso guitarist, Nano Stern recorded in Chile and mixed in London. Another exciting project released last year was a Direct to Disc recording of U.S. jazz/funk band “Butcher Brown” for Gearbox Records. This was done between Mark Ronson’s Zelig Studio at the Tileyard complex and the Gearbox mastering room next door.
Another exciting Gearbox project was an album with Abdullah Ibrahim recorded direct to 1/2" analogue at RAK Studios.
Lockdown saw a flurry of mixes for Irish Singer/Songwriter Stephen Weir
A project with Soweto Kinch and the London Symphony Orchestra recorded at the Barbican provided some very special moments alongside some very careful innovation.
Tracking back into his past Tony was asked to complete an album started in 1999 with Indy/Rock band Supakarma
Tony's mix room at home to replace the room he used to share at Strongroom Studios in is working very well and now sports 32 Channels of Rupert Neve Designs Summing!
In addition to all this he is a member of the steering group for the APRS/MPG education initiative J.A.M.E.S. (Joint Audio Media Education Support), he teaches two modules on the BA Hons Music degree at University of Northampton whilst occasionally providing guest lectures, master-classes and workshops for several other universities running music industry courses worldwide.
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