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Ken Scott

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Ken Scott

Ken Scott (born 20 April 1947) is an English record producer and engineer known for being one of the five main engineers for the Beatles, as well as engineering Elton John, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Billy Cobham, David Bowie, Duran Duran, the Jeff Beck Group, Supertramp, and many more.

As a producer, Scott is noted for his work with Bowie, Supertramp, Devo, Kansas, the Tubes, Ronnie Montrose, Level 42, Missing Persons, among others.

Scott was also influential in the evolution of jazz rock, pioneering a harder rock sound through his work with Mahavishnu Orchestra, Stanley Clarke, Billy Cobham, Dixie Dregs, Happy the Man, and Jeff Beck.

Scott was born in London, and grew up listening to 78 rpm records of artists like Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, and Eddie Cochran on a wind-up gramophone. In 1959 at the age of 12, he received a tape recorder which he used to record material from the BBC Light Programme Pick of the Pops, but it was an episode of Here Come the Girls, an Alan Freeman-hosted TV show about British female pop artists in recording studios, that first focused Scott's career aspirations as a recording engineer when it featured Carol Deene singing in a recording session from the point of view of Studio Two at Abbey Road Studios, where Malcolm Addey was behind the recording console.

On Saturday, 18 January 1964, Scott wrote letters inquiring about recording engineer job openings and mailed them to several London recording studios. Three days later he was contacted by Abbey Road Studios and subsequently interviewed and offered a position the following day. Scott began working the following Monday at the age of just 16. He received the traditional Abbey Road studio training under engineers like Malcolm Addey and Norman Smith. His first job was in the tape library, and within six months he was promoted to 2nd engineer (known then as a "button pusher"), where his first session was on side two of the Beatles' album A Hard Day's Night.

Among the other artists he worked with as a button pusher were Manfred Mann ("Do Wah Diddy Diddy" was the first UK number one single he worked on), Peter and Gordon, the Hollies, Judy Garland, Johnny Mathis, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, and Peter Sellers.

After a short time as an assistant engineer, Scott was promoted to "cutting" (known as mastering today), where he spent approximately two years cutting not only acetates for artists, but the masters for many of the hits that EMI also distributed at the time, including the American Motown catalogue.

In September 1967, Scott was promoted to engineer, where his first session was with the Beatles on their song "Your Mother Should Know". His first orchestral recording session came a few days later when he recorded the strings, brass and choir for the band's song "I Am the Walrus". During his time with the Beatles, Scott also worked on the songs "Lady Madonna", "Hello, Goodbye" and "Hey Jude", as well as The Beatles and Magical Mystery Tour albums. Among the notable songs from those albums that he worked on are "The Fool on the Hill", "Glass Onion", "Helter Skelter", "Birthday", "Back in the U.S.S.R.", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Not Guilty", the last of which was recorded for the White Album, but not included on it.

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