Steve Sutherland

It may seem counter-intuitive, perverse even, to begin this account of Windmill Lane Studios by dwelling on one of its early shortcomings, but hey, what the heck? When U2 rocked up in the late summer of 1980 to record their debut LP, Boy, producer Steve Lillywhite was far from impressed with the facilities on offer. The band's recent single, 'A Day Without Me', which Lillywhite had produced, had failed to chart and he'd been beating himself up over the way it sounded, particularly the drums.

Chances are you won't be familiar with Marshall Chapman, but she's an American singer/songwriter and one of the unsung heroes of our story. On the 10th of January 1978, she was working on Jaded Virgin, her second LP, when a fire broke out in the studio next door. Chapman downed tools and helped other musicians and engineers who were in the vicinity to carry priceless master recordings to safety outside the building.

During my late teens in the mid 1970s, whenever I browsed through the stock in a record shop, if I came upon an album produced at Wally Heider Studios, no matter who it was by, I was more than likely to buy it. Such was the quality guaranteed by the Wally Heider brand that the studio became a kind of shrine to me, a far-off holy grail that shone in my imagination as did that holiest of live venues, the Fillmore West.

What's the greatest guitar solo ever? Well, off the top of my head I'd say Jimi Hendrix on his version of Bob Dylan's 'All Along The Watchtower', where he makes a number of miraculous stylistic changes and creates mysterious sounds never heard on this planet before or since. Then I'd go for Frank Zappa just letting rip on his dope-growing satire 'Montana' from Over-Nite Sensation. And thirdly I'd plump for Jimmy Page ascending into the stratosphere on Led Zeppelin IV's 'Stairway To Heaven'.