“I tried my best to make it an honest playback of the original tapes.”įor Joshua, watching Powell work on his late father’s recordings was a special, intimate experience, and when the session stretched to four hours he blew off his return trip and extended his stay in Nashville so he could see the process through. In fact, more than three decades ago with co-author Dorothy Sherman, he wrote the Omnibus Press text The Wild One: The True Story of Iggy Pop. “I didn’t do any computer mumbo jumbo, I didn't make it quieter, I didn't take the noises and buzzes and clicks and pops and distortion out,” Powell says. Iggy & The Stooges: On Stage 1967-1974 certainly isn’t the first book about Iggy Pop or The Stooges, and Nilsen is no stranger to writing music biographies. He worked to raise Iggy’s vocals, equalize the track and make the sound more full, he says. “It was far from a pristine recording, by any means,” says Powell, who has mixed and engineered records for White, Kings of Leon, LeAnn Rimes, Chris Stapleton, Buddy Guy and more. He invited Joshua down to Nashville sit in on the session. That gave time for Blackwell toenlist Vance Powell, a Grammy-winning engineer and producer, to spruce up the sound and bring it to life. They discussed the potential of putting it out and various release dates, and figured they’d hold off until 2020, which aligns with the 50th anniversary of the Goose Lake performance. The other edits were still rough, but when he played him the rest of the recording, “he’s just lighting up, he’s clearly into it.” “I wanna hear more!” Blackwell remembers him saying.
Blackwell had primed McGroggan on what he had, but the only cleaned-up song was “TV Eye.” When Blackwell put it on, McGroggan instantly perked up and his eyes grew wide.