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Fact #14065

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Sixteen year old Wyoming music lover David Briggs arrives in Los Angeles, California, USA, where he will soon become an influential record producer, working with Neil Young, Alice Cooper, Nils Lofgren, Spirit and many others.

Full article:

DAVID BRIGGS In-your-face producer who brought gritty realism to Young’s recorded sound

If not for his abusive father, David Briggs might have remained in Douglas, Wyoming, where he had been born on February 29, 1944.

Instead, he ran away from home at fifteen, worked briefly down a mine, then pitched up in Los Angeles on Christmas Day, 1960.

Briggs tried various unskilled jobs before landing a staff producer gig with Bill Cosby’s Tetragrammaton Records, notching up one of his first productions on an album for acerbic comedian Murray Roman. According to Briggs himself, this was "the first record released to ever say 'f*ck' on it."

His relationship with Neil Young began in the late sixties when fate brought them together entirely by accident. Briggs picked up a long-haired hitch-hiker in Malibu, took an instant liking to him, and then learned that he was Neil Young. Their working partnership started immediately and resulted in no less than eighteen albums.

“David was more of an alchemist than anything,” is how Graham Nash summed him up. “David was into capturing the moment, and fully knowing when that moment was and when that moment had passed. So he was perfect to work with Neil.”

As a denizen of LA’s rock star infested Topanga Canyon, Briggs was in the right place when, in the spring of 1970, cult psychedelic combo Spirit fell out with their original producer, Lou Adler. Spirit’s guitarist Randy California wandered up the canyon to seek Young’s advice, and found himself directed back down the canyon to Briggs’ pad.

The result of the Briggs/Spirit liaison was Twelve Dreams Of Dr Sardonicus, widely acknowledged as a psychedelic rock classic. “David became a sixth member,” stated Randy California, “ He guided us to our very best studio performances … this album could not have happened without David.”

Another 1970 project for Briggs was the Alice Cooper album Easy Action which features an early use of a spoken word sample in the track Lay Down And Die Goodbye, where a voice can be heard stating, “If you don’t like what we say, you have a choice. You can turn us off.” In his book No More Mr Nice Guy, Cooper’s guitarist Michael Bruce reveals, “That was from a tape David Briggs had of Tommy Smothers from the Smothers Brothers show.”

The following year, Briggs’ relationship with Young spun out into a gig with Nils Lofgren’s first successful band, Grin. According to Lofgren, Briggs, “took us under his wing and we became the house band at the Topanga Corral.” Briggs agreed to record them and, says Lofgren, ”We made the record at his house with a mobile truck, which was an amazing experience.”

For Briggs, this approach lay at the core of his recording philosophy. Rather than working in the biggest and best studios, he was more at home in a comfortable environment where musicians could feel relaxed and, hopefully, give their best. “When I’m making records it’s like group art,” he once explained. “Everybody participates.”

A complex character, Briggs kept a low profile and was perceived by the outside world as blunt and opinionated, but his mood could swing quickly from towering rage to tears of nostalgia induced by memories of hearing Little Richard. Young’s biographer Jimmy McDonough has written of how Briggs “enjoyed chasing beautiful women, driving fast cars, going to Las Vegas, insulting managers, lawyers and record executives.” Somewhat elliptically, McDonough also alluded to Briggs’ indulgence in, “other endeavours ill-suited for publication.”

Briggs’ reputation and standing in the music industry throughout the seventies meant that he could have worked with virtually any rock superstar of his choosing but, instead, he devoted himself almost exclusively to Neil Young.

In 1988, he married Bettina Linnenberg who also functioned as production co-ordinator for many of his subsequent projects. This was a period when he was beginning to involve himself in a few more outside projects, including Nick Cave, Royal Trux and the Canadian band Thirteen Engines, whose founder John Critchley has recalled their first meeting in Toronto. “He was dressed in black. Black boots, black leather jacket and reflective aviator sunglasses – drinking Mexican coffee in an upscale downtown restaurant. After a twisted weekend, we agreed that he would produce our next album which came to be known as A Blur To Me Now.”

“When you make rock’n’roll,” explained Briggs around this time, “the more you think the more you stink … Rock’n’roll is not sedate. Is not safe, has nothing to do with money. Rock’n’roll is elemental. It’s like wind, rain, fire. It has to do with how much you can thumb your nose at the world.”

Neil Young’s Sleeps With Angels, in 1994, was Briggs last released album and, on November 26, 1995 Briggs died of lung cancer at his home in San Francisco, leaving the world a slightly less colourful place.

(This feature by Johnny Black was first published in Mojo Magazine)