Let it out and let it in

Last Wednesday, I went in search of an excellent breakfast and may have found the most influential musical instrument in history. I know, big claim, but bear with me.

In London, an old friend led me down St Anne’s Court - a narrow alley in Soho - to show me the blue plaque honouring where Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory, Space Oddity were recorded. In this tall, slim building greatness was created.

On the train home, fully breakfasted, I (and he, back in London) got inquisitive. The greatness started even before Bowie’s early 70s brilliance.

The building was Trinity Studios. Started in 1968 by Barry and Norman Sheffield, it was immediately different to others in two important regards: where most studios had 4 tracks to record on, Trident was the first in Europe to offer 8 and to use Dolby noise reduction. Frustrated by Abbey Road’s 4 track set up, Paul McCartney visited the newly opened Trident.

In the middle of the room sat a piano; a handmade Bechstein grand, over 100 years old. Despite stiff keys, the sound was remarkable, unique: clear and sweet in tone. McCartney loved it.

Just a few weeks later, behind these doors, he came back and recorded Hey Jude, that piano taking the lead. The piano recorded as beautifully as it sounded.

The piano sound on Hey Jude caught the imagination. While The Beatles returned to record some of The White Album, others formed a queue to use the studio: a couple of Rolling Stones tracks, a bit of Bee Gees, some of The Small Faces’ Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, and Bowie’s Space Oddity album followed over the next few months. Soon after, a little-known Elton John arrived to record and mix his early albums - albums that launched him half a century ago - that piano all over songs like Your Song and Tiny Dancer.

Bowie returned, Rick Wakeman in tow to play the piano on the Hunky Dory album - that opening to Life On Mars and Changes for heaven’s sake - and jazz pianist Mick Garsen to add his atonal brilliance to Aladdin Sane.

Wakeman announced that it was the ‘best sounding piano in London’.

More came.

Among them Lou Reed - fresh out of The Velvet Underground - to record his legendary second album, Transformer. Bowie was between recording the Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane albums, and produced - along with his guitarist Mick Ronson - Transformer. Ronson’s guitar playing on tracks like Ziggy Stardust and Rebel Rebel pretty much defined that period of music and influenced what was to follow; for Transformer he swapped playing guitar for that unique piano, giving us Perfect Day, Walk on the Wild Side and Satellite of Love.

Later came Genesis, T Rex, Rush, Supertramp, Carly Simon (including You’re So Vain), Boomtown Rats (I Don’t Like Mondays has that piano all over it), Harry Nilsson and others. An almost unknown Queen recorded their first albums there, using studio time McCartney donated them.

You might argue that these songs would have been recorded elsewhere - and you may be right - but not all instruments, occasions, football pitches, rooms, nights are made the same; some just invite greatness. When an instrument sounds that special it invites playing, assumes prominence, it encourages you to build a song around it, it inspires brilliance. Listen to Hey Jude, Changes, Satellite of Love, Tiny Dancer, Perfect Day and Life On Mars and that piano is the golden thread sown through each of those wildly influential songs.

Here it is.

In 1981, Trident was sold. Name and personnel changes followed with a shift to TV and film sound mixing, which is how it is today: Sonorous Trident, where the sound mixing for Doctor Who amongst other shows takes place.

So what of the piano?

As you might expect, little is clear.

It may even have been ruined; falling from a hoist as it was being moved and smashing to the ground. Others say that while it was badly damaged, it was rebuilt and is owned by Roy Thomas Baker, one of the original engineers.

Or…in May 2011 it was apparently sold by auction with a guide price of £400,000. Neither the purchaser or figure it sold for were revealed.

In a 2020 interview, Rick Wakeman said no-one he knew knows where it is, and that numerous people claim to have it.

If it was sold for £400,000, it may have been a bargain: George Michael paid $2.05 million for the piano John Lennon played on Imagine.

Walking out towards Wardour St, I couldn’t help imagine that these paving stones were the ones where so many greats walked on their way to Trident; imagining living a floor up at 15 St Anne’s Court in the turn of the 60s/70s, and hanging out of that first floor window just above the purple paint to see one or more of John, Paul, George and Ringo, Lou Reed, Jagger, Richards, Elton, or so many others walking up the alley.

If you fancy hearing what was so special about that piano’s sound, here’s a playlist of some of the tracks it’s all over.

Two final dorky points: listen to the original recording of Hey Jude (it’s on the playlist) and you can just hear at 2:58 someone shout ‘fucking hell’, the result (depending on who you believe) of a McCartney bum note or the headphones set too loud; and on the album version of James Taylor’s Carolina On My Mind - quite different to the more familiar version - recorded between sessions for The Beatles’ White Album, you can hear McCartney playing bass and George Harrison on backing vocals, as both were just at Trident at the time. There’s no piano on it, but still, interesting to anoraks with too much time on their hands.