Recording
Recorded during a series of prolific recording sessions, there was more than enough material to fill a double-album. Morrison proposed the idea to Warner Bros. Records, but he was ultimately convinced to release a single LP. During the recording sessions held between August and November 1972, there were nearly thirty songs recorded in all, at least three quarters of them original compositions. A few leftover tracks were saved or re-recorded for future albums like Veedon Fleece, but most would not see release until 1998's compilation of outtakes, The Philosopher's Stone, when nine of the songs would be used. Biographer Clinton Heylin suggested that "only 'Warm Love' and 'Hard Nose the Highway' could have sat comfortably alongside 'rejects' like 'Madame Joy', 'Bulbs', 'Spare Me a Little', 'Country Fair', 'Contemplation Rose' and 'Drumshanbo Hustle'."
By Morrison's own account, this was the first album that was completely produced under his complete control. The recording sessions even took place in a recording studio he had built next door to his home in Fairfax, California. He remarked on the album: "As a concept for the album, I was just trying to establish how hard it was to do what I do. Plus there were some lighter things on the other side of it. One side has a kind of hard feeling while the other is soft."
Read more about this topic: Hard Nose The Highway
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Write while the heat is in you.... The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He shall not die, by G—, cried my uncle Toby.
MThe ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)