by tomsakic on Wed Apr 16, 2003 12:19 pm
Hi David,
I checked the book I have - that information is not from J. Devlin, but from Prophet Of The Heart by Dorman and Rawlins, 1990, page 193: "On the album the backing vocal is played by the psychedelic group Kaleidoscope, which highlights the mood, if not the depths of the relationship." (So Long, Marianne). That's the only mention of the group, there's nothing in Devlin's book or Ira Nadel's biography. But various sources mentioned "female backing group" on So Long Marianne and Teachers.
Only sleeve credit are John Simon's - as musical director and producer, and photo taken by Machine. As I said, there's no any other info about early albums, unfortunately, except those mentioned in various books, especially in Devlin's.
Maybe the best way would be looking for the original articles from 1967 and 1968 - check Marie Mazur's site.
John Hammond started the album, but withdrew after 1) he had heartattack, 2) he got ill 3) his wife got ill - the first probably correct.
John Simon (Janis Joplin producer) took over and "try to make [my] songs into music" (Cohen). There were Simon's piano on Suzanne and many violins during the record, but LC made the final mix as good as he could with 4-track tapes, although the arrangements remained Simon's.
There was 1 producer more involved in LC's debut album, but that was before he met John Hammond - in 1966 LC made even demos in Vanguard Studios. But I forget the possible producer, I remeber it was somebody famous, from The Band.
