Mentored by engineers Mike Weighall and Gerald Chevin, he learned the ropes of operating the eight- and 16-track equipment, as well as miking assorted instruments. The producer and/or engineer of records by a long list of other rock luminaries - including Harrison, Orbison, Freddie Mercury, Uriah Heep, Joe Cocker and Ringo Starr - Richard Dodd commenced his music career in 1970 at central London's Recorded Sound Studios. "All of these incredible musicians were working on each other's records and I was there to record most of them.” Pilot's Licence "That was an amazing period,” says Dodd, the recipient of five Grammy Awards, including that in 1995 for Petty's second solo excursion, Wildflowers, being voted 'Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical)'. The man with his fingers on the faders for the second of those records was Richard Dodd, who fulfilled the same role on a number of their other joint projects, including those as members of supergroup the Traveling Wilburys alongside George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison. Both albums, co-produced by Petty and Lynne, feature several of their co-compositions as well as the latter's trademark, ELO-infused sound. Tom Petty on stage, 1990.The opening track on Into The Great Wide Open, the eighth studio album by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, 'Learning To Fly' carried on in the same Byrds-inspired, 12-string-guitar-adorned vein as 'Free Fallin'' which had led off Full Moon Fever, Petty's 1989 solo debut (even though it, too, had featured contributions by the Heartbreakers). Either way, they kick off a classic heartland rock number that, written by Petty and co-producer/fellow musician Jeff Lynne, spent six weeks atop the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart following its July 1991 release, equalling the run of his 1981 single 'The Waiting', on its way to becoming one of his signature songs. Some say the lyrics are about heroin withdrawal Tom Petty himself has said they were inspired by Gulf War TV images of bombings and blazing oil wells, together with an interview in which a pilot described the difficulties of landing his plane. "Well, I started out down a dirty road / Started out all alone / And the sun went down as I crossed the hill / And the town lit up, the world got still / I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings / Coming down is the hardest thing.” While Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne's songwriting partnership was certainly successful, it was the partnership between Jeff Lynne and engineer Richard Dodd that gave the records their distinctive sparkle. Coming down and landing safely is a challenge, and it’s crucial to a successful flight of any kind.A young Richard Dodd at London's Marquee Studios, 1977. Second, there’s a constant danger when in flight, as a fall is always possible. First, it’s tough to come back down after being up in the air or at a high place. The second part speaks to the high we get from escaping the surface, and the difficulty involved with coming back down. Over time we learned about the physics of flight, and have since mastered the art with heavier-than-air machines. We began by trying to imitate birds by giving ourselves wings (looking at you, Daedalus and Icarus), but these attempts were unsuccessful. We can’t do this on our own, of course, because we don’t have wings. The first part deals with humanity’s incessant need to achieve flight throughout our history. ‘I’m learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings’ Various theories exist about the meaning behind the lyrics, but the words speak volumes about the human relationship with verticality. These lyrics are from the song Learning to Fly by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, written by Tom Petty with Jeff Lynne in 1991. Tom Petty, American singer and songwriter, 1950-2017
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