Keith Grant

About

From Wikitia:

Keith Grant was a leading British recording engineer, studio manager and studio founder. The creator of Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, the leading British recording studio by the turn of the 1970’s, he also personally engineered 120 songs reaching the top 10. Grant was a mentor to producers of later eras, and has been described as a seminal figure in the history of recording.

From The Independent:

The recording and production engineer Keith Grant was a legendary character in the British music industry and worked with many of the most popular acts of the Sixties and Seventies, including The Beatles, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, The Eagles, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Led Zeppelin, Queen, the Small Faces, Dusty Springfield, Scott Walker and The Who.

A mainstay of Olympic Studios at both its central London location and its subsequent home in the suburb of Barnes from the mid-Sixties, Grant was an inspirational figure to many, and helped engineers-turned-producers Glyn Johns, Eddie Kramer and Chris Kimsey and their clients make many of the albums that defined the classic-rock era. In the early Seventies, Olympic eclipsed rivals with a turnover that reached £4m a year as it juggled bookings for rock, pop, classical, advertising jingles, TV scores and film soundtracks. […]

On May 11, 1967, The Beatles recorded and mixed the track “Baby, You’re A Rich Man” in a six-hour session at Olympic Sound Studios. As a result, it was The Beatles’ first song to be recorded and mixed entirely away from Abbey Road. The balance engineer for the session was Olympic’s manager Keith Grant.

We recorded [Baby, You’re A Rich Man] at a rather exciting recording session at Olympic, in Barnes, where Keith Grant mixed it, instantly, right there. He stood up at the console as he mixed it, so it was a very exciting mix, we were really quite buzzed. I always liked that track.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

I’m a terrible pusher on sessions. I do a lot of orchestral work and you naturally push people along. The Beatles said that this was the fastest record they’d ever made. They were used to a much more leisurely pace. We started the session at about 9pm and it was finished and mixed by about 3am, vocals and everything. They kept playing, version after version, then we spooled back to the one they liked and overdubbed the vocals

Keith Grant – From “The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions” by Mark Lewisohn, 1988

Last updated on March 28, 2023