The Gospel According To Luke
I was playing on a lot of hit records back then. One smash record I worked on during that year of 1981 was by Olivia Newton-John. Four years earlier, I had worked on a few things with Olivia and her Australian producer, John Farrar. John was also a great guitar player and songwriter, who back then wrote all of Olivia’s songs. She, meanwhile, sang like a bird and was so beautiful that it made it hard for me as a wide-eyed kid to concentrate.
Now, the pair of them had got down to work on a song by another Australian, Steve Kipner, for which they needed a guitar solo. John called me up and invited me out to Shangri-La, the famous studio in Malibu where Dylan and the Band, Clapton, and Crosby, Stills and Nash had all worked at one time or another.
John gave me directions to the studio but I got lost. Even now with GPS, that for me is by no means an unusual happening. I rolled up an hour late, which sucked, but John was cool as it was an overdub session, so I didn’t hold anyone up too badly. There was a little partying going on and the vibe was very relaxed. He played the song for me and I just cracked up at the chorus, which went: “Let’s get physical, physical. Let me hear your body talk.” John took it with good grace and told me: “I know, mate, but all jokes aside, this is going to be a big one, I think.”
He had me do three or four takes, no more, and from that comped together the solo that’s on the record. John was spot on, too. “Physical” went on and became one of the first huge things on MTV and sold more than two million copies in the States. That’s a platinum single, which is a distinction I don’t think even exists any more.
Every time I heard that record, I would laugh out loud again. Some of the things that I have played on! It could be the coolest thing in the world, like “Breakdown Dead Ahead” for Boz, or else “Let’s Get Physical,” and it’s the same guy. Ме.