Recording "Mull Of Kintyre"

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Mobile recording engineer Tim Summerhayes recently shared his memories of his stay at Paul McCartney’s farm during the recording of Mull of Kintyre.′′ The head of engineers of the sessions was Geoff Emerick (he’s not pictured, maybe he was the photographer though I can’t remember when the image was taken.) However, it’s sad that Linda, Trevor Jones and Mark Vigars are no longer with us. I was the 2th assistant and took care of the team and Mark was the main one. Mark and I shared a caravan at the farm and Geoff had his own little caravan next to ours.Towards the grass hill, about 50 yards was the cottage the band lived in (although Denny had his personal caravan and lived near the recording room (the stable)..] When we could, we all ate at the house except for Paul and his family who lived in their own home within a short distance.As far as I can remember, we took the mobile to the farm a few days before the sessions and spent some time preparing the control room and recording room. We unload the equipment and carry them in a wheelbarrow to an improvised control room supervised by Geoff.Most of the band came a day early than planned to start the recording and someone (Trevor Jones I think) organized a dinner at the house. After eating, Geoff, Mark and I went to our respective caravans and fell asleep relatively early as we had a lot of work to do the next day..!The only bathroom, showers etc were in the house so the next morning we took turns using the facilities. Something was wrong and it was evident that a rock and roll incident had taken place sometime after dinner. The place was a little less than a mess with food debris in places that shouldn’t have..! Paul appeared on stage sometime in the morning and I think he held a ‘ band reunion ‘. I don’t know what was said or what really happened that night, but I remember Jimmy McCulloch went home and as I remember, never made it to sessions that day, or any other “.

Left to right:Heather McCartne; Trevor Jones (Wings Roadie); Duncan Cairnes (Paul’s Farm Manager); Paul; Linda; Joe English; Tim Summerhayes (RAK Mobile Recording Engineer); Alan Crowder (MPL) Joe English; Stella McCartney ; Mary McCartney; Denny Laine and John Hammel (Wings roadie)….

About RAK Studios Mobile, from RAK Studios – Posts | Facebook:

In 1974 RAK Records founder Mickie Most bought a mobile recording studio housed in a fully air conditioned custom built truck from Doug Hopkins, who at the time worked for Advision Studios, best known for voice overs and jingles.

The mobile, previously known as Team Mobile, was equipped with an API 2488 recording / mixing desk, two 3M multitrack machines, limiters, compressors, an echo plate and closed circuit TV.

Its primary function was to record outside performances and broadcasts at a time when there were surprisingly few mobile units around. After it had been bought by Mickie it was run by Doug Hopkins and Tim Summerhayes both of whom drove it around and also engineered a lot the sessions. Early clients included Thames Television, LWT and the BBC.

The RAK Mobile also toured extensively in and around Europe, this from Tim Summerhayes:

“Before RAK had its own Studio in London’s St John’s Wood, Mickie Most used to use the Mobile at The Chateau Du Regard at Coye-la-Forêt in Northern France for album recordings. The Chateau was normally a boutique hotel but if RAK sent enough people there, it would close for business and let Micky have the run of the place.

We used the basement as the live room. On top of that we were very well looked after with some superb food and wine, I remember sessions there with Donovan, Hot Chocolate (Band), Julie Felix, Back Street Kids, etc… I was generally assisting Doug and Mickie, but was let loose on a few occasions to look after an overdub or two.

Because of this, we amassed a good selection of microphones as well as all the paraphernalia needed for location studio recording. We used the RAK mobile as the control room there, but all the equipment could be easily de-rigged from the truck and into a location control room. It would take about a day. We did this in Scotland for Paul McCartney’s ‘Mull of Kintyre’ project and subsequently at Lympne castle in Kent for Wings ‘Back to the Egg’”.

It’s Scottish. It sounds so different from the songs we did on the boat, we thought it should be a single and it sounds very Christmassy and New Yeary. It’s kind of ‘glass of ale in your hand, leaning up against the bar’ tune. We had the local pipe band join in and we took a mobile studio up to Scotland and put the equipment in an old barn. We had the Campbeltown Band and they were great – just pipes and drums. It was interesting writing for them. You can’t just write any old tune, because they can’t play every note in a normal scale.

Paul McCartney – From Hog Hill Mill Blog (@hoghillmillblog) • Instagram photos and videos

When the time came to record, I had the local pipe major come up to the house with his pipes, a gentleman named Tony Wilson. It was a very little house, and when he played it was so loud that I said, ‘Let’s go out into the garden,’ which again was a very little garden, and we just sort of played and I got some ideas. I figured out which chords would work with what he was playing – what key he was in, because you can’t change key on the bagpipes; what you hear is what you’ve got.

Paul McCartney – From “The Lyrics” book

Last updated on September 3, 2022

Songs recorded

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