Sound of Song: Reeling and rocking

Without magnetic tape, developed and used semi-secretly in 1930s Germany before anybody else really knew what it was, we could not have had so many of the quantum leaps in the pop explosion of the '50s and '60s - slapback echo, low-noise recording, split-second editing or multi-tracking.

If I had to single out one experience I've had during the making of this documentary it has to be the opportunity to record at the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis.

Playing rock-n-roll piano with ex-Johnny Cash bassist Dave Reeve on vocals and rockabilly Hall of Fame drummer JM van Eaton, we recorded the Elvis hit That's Alright Mama, first recorded by The King in that same room on July 5th 1954.

We recorded as he would have done, single complete takes (three in all) into one mike in the centre of the trio, straight onto mono tape - but then engineer Matt Ross Spang put Dave's vocal through the same magical process that Sam Phillips had put Elvis's - tape echo, known as Slapback, which gave a single repeat to the voice less than a second after the original.

And instantly, we had that authentic '50s sound...

While '50s youngsters created their own musical language making and buying rock-n-roll 45 rpm singles, old-style crooners like Frank Sinatra discovered that the future lay in putting swing into old favourites from the pre-war years.

With a genius like Nelson Riddle to arrange these standards to frame Frank's voice to perfection, 33rpm albums that played 20 minutes or more a side and mikes that could record a much wider dynamic range than ever before, Sinatra's records brought near-symphonic sophistication to jazz.

The ability to manipulate music once it was recorded, however, resulted in the growth of a new creative personality in the Sound of Song - the producer.

Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, creators of Hound Dog, Stand by Me, On Broadway and Jailhouse Rock were eager to be their own producers and retain tight control on how their songs were recorded - and in the making of There Goes My Baby, by the Drifters, sparked a new, richly woven and heavily reverberative sound which would massively influence a certain Phil Spector.

But magnetic tape made one more innovation possible - not only could instruments be recorded separately and overlaid onto pre-recorded tracks to enrich the sound, it was even possible to create a song using fragments of tape, editing together tiny bursts of different musical ideas and instrumentation - as Brian Wilson did in 1966 with Good Vibrations, using Spector's house band, the Wrecking Crew, four different studios and eight months of painstaking, intricate work.

The Beatles heard it and, simultaneously inspired and stung by Wilson's ingenuity and showmanship, embarked on Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the 'studio album' par excellence.

But let's return for a moment to Memphis - not jangling, rocky Sun Studio but the gentle, warm, soul-infused Royal Studios, presided over by producer Willie Mitchell, and home to the honeyed tones of Al Green.

Al Green

The gentle, warm, soul-infused Royal Studios was presided over by producer Willie Mitchell, and home to the honeyed tones of Al Green

The sound of Memphis Soul was dry where Sun was echoing, literally so in that Royal studio was one of the first to use swagging and carpets to make a clean sound.

This dryness could be unforgiving for bum notes or loose snare hits but allowed a mosaic of fine musicianship, guitar, horns, organ, backing vocals, to conjure up unmistakeable passion for soul hits such as Let's Stay Together, I'm Still in Love With You and Let's Get Married. Willie Mitchell's son Boo treated us to a masterclass in Memphis Soul with the original 8-track master of Let's Get Married.

When you can pull up each individual pre-mixed track and hear each individual artist's contribution building behind Al Green's beautiful voice, you realise what a great band is - a group of gifted individuals who make room for each other and find that perfect little break at that perfect moment to do their magic...

The second episode in the Sound of Song series was shown on BBC Four, Friday 23 January and is available on BBC iPlayer. Neil Brand's introduction to the third in the series has also been published by BBC Arts, alongside exclusive extras including Public Enemy producer Hank Shocklee's take on Kraftwerk's Autobahn.