Bowie, Bolan & the Brooklyn Boy - Tony Visconti’s autobiography
Bowie, Bolan & the Brooklyn Boy - Tony Visconti’s autobiography
Tony Visconti & Richard Havers
Tony Visconti has worked with the most dynamic and influential names in pop; no record producer in the history of popular music has enjoyed such a varied and distinguished career. From T.Rex and Iggy Pop to David Bowie and U2. This is the compelling life story of the man who helped shape music history.
Visconti was born in New York in 1944. By the 1950s he was inspired from seeing Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry on stage at New York’s Paramount theatre. He worked as a musician in the Catskill Mountains, in a hotel not unlike the one featured in ‘Dirty Dancing’. He also became an accomplished photographer and his autobiography is complemented by unseen photographs from his personal archive. It provides a unique insight into life in London during the late 1960s and '70s and a glimpse at music history that few have witnessed so intimately.
He abandoned his native New York for ‘Swinging London’ in 1967 - the summer of love - with no idea how the long strange trip of his life would unfold. He set about learning the arcane studio secrets that he felt were known only to the British. Within a few years Visconti was present at the birth of glam rock, working with T.Rex and the then-unknown David Bowie; he was also creating studio secrets of his own
Visconti has worked with such names as Thin Lizzy, Paul McCartney, Joe Cocker, Sparks, The Boomtown Rats, Marsha Hunt, Procol Harum, Elaine Page and more recently Ziggy Marley, Mercury Rev, the Manic Street Preachers and Morrissey on his acclaimed No.1 album 'Ringleader of the Tormentors'. Visconti has helped redefine eclectic.
Even Visconti's personal life betrays an existence utterly immersed in music. Married first to Siegrid Berman, then to Mary Hopkin and later to May Pang. Tony Visconti is one of the rare record producers that has mastered the three major arts of recording, when most only offer one or two. Like a film director he coaches the performers he works with in singing and playing, he writes and conducts orchestral scores and he is considered to be a consummate recording engineer. He currently lives in Manhattan, New York where he practices Tai Chi daily and twice a week with his neighbour Lou Reed.