Tom Wilson - Revision history

Spider of Destiny at 17:37, 22 May 2026

2026-05-22T17:37:39Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 14:12, 29 November 2021

2021-11-29T14:12:32Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 16:35, 29 September 2021

2021-09-29T16:35:49Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 13:17, 29 September 2021

2021-09-29T13:17:42Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 13:10, 1 September 2021

2021-09-01T13:10:49Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 14:50, 26 August 2021

2021-08-26T14:50:26Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 20:46, 17 August 2021

2021-08-17T20:46:37Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 19:21, 10 August 2021

2021-08-10T19:21:20Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 21:24, 19 July 2021

2021-07-19T21:24:55Z

PopFanDoug: cite 1967 interview; title sources.

2020-11-07T19:14:56Z

cite 1967 interview; title sources.

@@ Line 52: / Line 52: @@
 [[Category:Supporting Cast|Wilson, Tom]]
-[[Category:Producers|Wilson, Tom]]
+[[Category:Record Producers|Wilson, Tom]]
 [[Category:Freak Out! (The List)|Wilson, Tom]]
 [[Category:The Real Frank Zappa Book (The List)|Wilson, Tom]]
 [[Category:We're Only In It For the Money (The List)|Wilson, Tom]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[File:Tom Wilson.jpg|350px|thumb|right|Tom Wilson as featured on the cover of ''We're Only In It For The Money''.]]
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 ==Zappa and Tom Wilson==
-[[David Anderle]] was a talent scout in LA and he persuaded Wilson to come from [[New York]] to see [[The Mothers]] at the [[Whisky a Go-Go]]. He liked what he saw and signed them up to [[Verve Records]]. Zappa was so grateful that he named Wilson among his list of influences in in the sleeve of Zappa's debut album ''[[Freak Out!]]'' (1966), under the heading: ''"These People Have Contributed Materially In Many Ways To Make Our Music What It Is. Please Do Not Hold It Against Them."'' However, Wilson was under the wrong impression that Zappa and the Mothers were merely a white blues rock band. In ''[["MGM"]]'' Zappa said: ''""When they first heard us, we were working in a club in Hollywood called the Whisky a Go-Go and the A&R man, uh, producer Tom Wilson, came in, he heard us play one song, it was [[Trouble Every Day|the Watts Riot Song]], and it's some sort of an R&B-type thing, so he figures, topical R&B group, just what we need, [laughter], so he phones up the company, … I got one, datadah, we're goin' into the studio, you know, not too much later we're going to the studio to record and they didn't know what was happening. He got on the phone, we … first we did [[Any Way The Wind Blows]], that was the first thing we recorded and the second thing we did was [[Who Are The Brain Police?]] and by the time we finished Brain Police his head going around like this, y'know 'n' he says, what happened to the other one that I heard at the "Whisky a Go-Go", and he called back to New York and he said, I got something strange happening here in the whole project, just expanded incredibly and everybody got really thrilled over suddenly, thought they got a real hot item on their hands."''
+[[David Anderle]] was a talent scout in LA and he persuaded Wilson to come from [[New York]] to see [[The Mothers]] at the [[Whisky a Go-Go]]. He liked what he saw and signed them up to [[Verve Records]]. Zappa was so grateful that he named Wilson among his list of influences in in the sleeve of Zappa's debut album ''[[Freak Out!]]'' (1966), under the heading: ''"These People Have Contributed Materially In Many Ways To Make Our Music What It Is. Please Do Not Hold It Against Them."'' However, Wilson was under the wrong impression that Zappa and the Mothers were merely a white blues rock band. In ''[["MGM"]]'' Zappa said: ''""When they first heard us, we were working in a club in Hollywood called the Whisky a Go-Go and the A&R man, uh, producer Tom Wilson, came in, he heard us play one song, it was [[Trouble Every Day|the Watts Riot Song]], and it's some sort of an R&B-type thing, so he figures, topical R&B group, just what we need, [laughter], so he phones up the company, … I got one, datadah, we're goin' into the studio, you know, not too much later we're going to the studio to record and they didn't know what was happening. He got on the phone, we … first we did [[Any Way The Wind Blows (The Track)|Any Way The Wind Blows]], that was the first thing we recorded and the second thing we did was [[Who Are The Brain Police?]] and by the time we finished Brain Police his head going around like this, y'know 'n' he says, what happened to the other one that I heard at the "Whisky a Go-Go", and he called back to New York and he said, I got something strange happening here in the whole project, just expanded incredibly and everybody got really thrilled over suddenly, thought they got a real hot item on their hands."''
 Zappa recalled in ''[[Absolutely Frank. EQ Magazine Interview]]'' about the recording of ''[[The Return Of The Son Of Monster Magnet]]'': ''"Tom Wilson, who was the producer on that session, admitted to me several years later that he has taken acid that night, so he was in there in the control room turning the knobs on acid. And I didn't even know. So he must have had some kind of weird experience.
@@ Line 30: / Line 32: @@
 ==Zappa about Tom Wilson==
-''Tom Wilson, who was producing records for [[MGM Records|MGM]] at the time, came to the [[Whisky a Go-Go]] while we were a five-piece group, while [[Henry Vestine]] was still with us. He heard us sing "[[Trouble Every Day|The Watts Riot Song (Trouble Every Day)]]." He stayed for five minutes, said "Yeah, yeah, yeah," slapped me on the back, shook my hand and said, "Wonderful. We're gonna make a record of you. Goodbye." I didn't see him again for four months. He thought we were a rhythm and blues band. He probably went back to New York and said, "I signed me another rhythm and blues band from the Coast. They got this song about the riot. It's a protest song. They'll do a couple of singles and maybe they'll die out". He came back to town just before we were going to do our first recording session. We had a little chat in his room and that was when he first discovered that that wasn't all that we played. Things started changing. We decided not to make a single, we'd make an album instead. He wouldn't give me an idea of what the budget would be for the album, but the average rock and roll album costs about $5,000. The start-to-finish cost of [[Freak Out!|FREAK OUT]] was somewhere around $21,000. The first tune we cut was "[[Any Way The Wind Blows]]." Unfortunately, it's a bad mix, but the track is really good. Then we did "[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]" When Wilson heard those he was so impressed he got on the phone and called New York, and as a result I got a more or less unlimited budget to do this monstrosity. The next day I had whipped up the arrangements for a twenty-two piece orchestra. It wasn't just a straight orchestra accompanying the singers. It was the Mothers five-piece band plus seventeen pieces. We all worked together. The editing took a long time, which ran the cost up. Meanwhile, Wilson was sticking his neck out. He laid his job on the line by producing the album. MGM felt that they had spent too much money on the album and they were about to let it die, but it started selling all over the place. Like, they'd sell forty copies in some little town the size of a pumpkin in Wyoming. We sold five thousand albums all over the country with no extra-hype or anything. Finally the company started pushing the album and sales went even higher."'' -''[[The Incredible History Of The Mothers]]'',  Frank Zappa in ''[[Hit Parader]]'', No. 48, June 1968.
+''Tom Wilson, who was producing records for [[MGM Records|MGM]] at the time, came to the [[Whisky a Go-Go]] while we were a five-piece group, while [[Henry Vestine]] was still with us. He heard us sing "[[Trouble Every Day|The Watts Riot Song (Trouble Every Day)]]." He stayed for five minutes, said "Yeah, yeah, yeah," slapped me on the back, shook my hand and said, "Wonderful. We're gonna make a record of you. Goodbye." I didn't see him again for four months. He thought we were a rhythm and blues band. He probably went back to New York and said, "I signed me another rhythm and blues band from the Coast. They got this song about the riot. It's a protest song. They'll do a couple of singles and maybe they'll die out". He came back to town just before we were going to do our first recording session. We had a little chat in his room and that was when he first discovered that that wasn't all that we played. Things started changing. We decided not to make a single, we'd make an album instead. He wouldn't give me an idea of what the budget would be for the album, but the average rock and roll album costs about $5,000. The start-to-finish cost of [[Freak Out!|FREAK OUT]] was somewhere around $21,000. The first tune we cut was "[[Any Way The Wind Blows (The Track)|Any Way The Wind Blows]]." Unfortunately, it's a bad mix, but the track is really good. Then we did "[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]" When Wilson heard those he was so impressed he got on the phone and called New York, and as a result I got a more or less unlimited budget to do this monstrosity. The next day I had whipped up the arrangements for a twenty-two piece orchestra. It wasn't just a straight orchestra accompanying the singers. It was the Mothers five-piece band plus seventeen pieces. We all worked together. The editing took a long time, which ran the cost up. Meanwhile, Wilson was sticking his neck out. He laid his job on the line by producing the album. MGM felt that they had spent too much money on the album and they were about to let it die, but it started selling all over the place. Like, they'd sell forty copies in some little town the size of a pumpkin in Wyoming. We sold five thousand albums all over the country with no extra-hype or anything. Finally the company started pushing the album and sales went even higher."'' -''[[The Incredible History Of The Mothers]]'',  Frank Zappa in ''[[Hit Parader]]'', No. 48, June 1968.
-''"Tom Wilson was a great guy. He had vision, you know? And he really stood by us ... I remember the first thing that we recorded was '[[Any Way The Wind Blows]],' and that was okay. Then we did '[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]' and I saw him through the glass and he was on the phone immediately to New York going, 'I don't know!' Trying to break it to 'em easy, I guess."' - [[Biography|Frank Zappa]], [[Rolling Stone Interview, 1988]]
+''"Tom Wilson was a great guy. He had vision, you know? And he really stood by us ... I remember the first thing that we recorded was '[[Any Way The Wind Blows (The Track)|Any Way The Wind Blows]],' and that was okay. Then we did '[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]' and I saw him through the glass and he was on the phone immediately to New York going, 'I don't know!' Trying to break it to 'em easy, I guess."' - [[Biography|Frank Zappa]], [[Rolling Stone Interview, 1988]]
 ''"Well, Tom was a great guy. Uh, he had a fascinating ability to read the [[Wall Street Journal]], have a blonde sitting on his lap and tell the engineer to add more compression to the vocal all at the same time. But, by the time we started working on our third album, uhm, he was not talking to the engineer as much and talking to the Blonde a little bit more and so I said, 'Blonde, just let me produce this. I know, you have other things in your mind, and the' … uh, "We're Only In It For The Money" was the first album that I produced, he produced the first two."'' - MTV interview with Frank Zappa, 1986, recorded on ''[[Tom Wilson (The Track)]]'', from ''[[The MOFO Project/Object (Deluxe Edition)]]''.

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 Zappa recalled in ''[[Absolutely Frank. EQ Magazine Interview]]'' about the recording of ''[[The Return Of The Son Of Monster Magnet]]'': ''"Tom Wilson, who was the producer on that session, admitted to me several years later that he has taken acid that night, so he was in there in the control room turning the knobs on acid. And I didn't even know. So he must have had some kind of weird experience.
-Wilson produced Zappa's albums ''[[Freak Out!]]'' (1966), ''[[Absolutely Free]]'' (1967) and ''[[We're Only In It For The Money]]'' (1968). He also produced [[Eric Burdon|The Animals]]' album ''[[Animalism]]'' (1966) and the single ''[[Boy Wonder I Love You]]/[[Orange Colored Sky]] (1966)'' featuring [[Burt Ward]]. On both Zappa was arranger/conductor.
+Wilson produced Zappa's albums ''[[Freak Out!]]'' (1966), ''[[Absolutely Free]]'' (1967) and ''[[We're Only In It For The Money]]'' (1968). He also produced [[Eric Burdon|The Animals]]' album ''[[Animalism]]'' (1966) and the single ''[[Boy Wonder I Love You|Boy Wonder I Love You/Orange Colored Sky]] (1966)'' featuring [[Burt Ward]]. On both Zappa was arranger/conductor.
 Wilson can also be seen on the far left of the album cover of ''[[We're Only In It For The Money]]'', where he strikes a Napoleon pose.<ref>[http://donlope.net/fz/notes/We%27re_Only_In_It_For_The_Money_Cover.html We're Only In It For The Money Cover Art]</ref>

@@ Line 34: / Line 34: @@
 ''"Tom Wilson was a great guy. He had vision, you know? And he really stood by us ... I remember the first thing that we recorded was '[[Any Way The Wind Blows]],' and that was okay. Then we did '[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]' and I saw him through the glass and he was on the phone immediately to New York going, 'I don't know!' Trying to break it to 'em easy, I guess."' - [[Biography|Frank Zappa]], [[Rolling Stone Interview, 1988]]
-''"Well, Tom was a great guy. Uh, he had a fascinating ability to read the Wall Street Journal, have a blonde sitting on his lap and tell the engineer to add more compression to the vocal all at the same time. But, by the time we started working on our third album, uhm, he was not talking to the engineer as much and talking to the Blonde a little bit more and so I said, 'Blonde, just let me produce this. I know, you have other things in your mind, and the' … uh, "We're Only In It For The Money" was the first album that I produced, he produced the first two."'' - MTV interview with Frank Zappa, 1986, recorded on ''[[Tom Wilson (The Track)]]'', from ''[[The MOFO Project/Object (Deluxe Edition)]]''.
+''"Well, Tom was a great guy. Uh, he had a fascinating ability to read the [[Wall Street Journal]], have a blonde sitting on his lap and tell the engineer to add more compression to the vocal all at the same time. But, by the time we started working on our third album, uhm, he was not talking to the engineer as much and talking to the Blonde a little bit more and so I said, 'Blonde, just let me produce this. I know, you have other things in your mind, and the' … uh, "We're Only In It For The Money" was the first album that I produced, he produced the first two."'' - MTV interview with Frank Zappa, 1986, recorded on ''[[Tom Wilson (The Track)]]'', from ''[[The MOFO Project/Object (Deluxe Edition)]]''.
 ==Notes==

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 Zappa recalled in ''[[Absolutely Frank. EQ Magazine Interview]]'' about the recording of ''[[The Return Of The Son Of Monster Magnet]]'': ''"Tom Wilson, who was the producer on that session, admitted to me several years later that he has taken acid that night, so he was in there in the control room turning the knobs on acid. And I didn't even know. So he must have had some kind of weird experience.
-Wilson produced Zappa's albums ''[[Freak Out!]]'' (1966), ''[[Absolutely Free]]'' (1967) and ''[[We're Only In It For The Money]]'' (1968). He also produced [[The Animals]]' album ''[[Animalism]]'' (1966) and the single ''[[Boy Wonder I Love You]]/[[Orange Colored Sky]] (1966)'' featuring [[Burt Ward]]. On both Zappa was arranger/conductor.
+Wilson produced Zappa's albums ''[[Freak Out!]]'' (1966), ''[[Absolutely Free]]'' (1967) and ''[[We're Only In It For The Money]]'' (1968). He also produced [[Eric Burdon|The Animals]]' album ''[[Animalism]]'' (1966) and the single ''[[Boy Wonder I Love You]]/[[Orange Colored Sky]] (1966)'' featuring [[Burt Ward]]. On both Zappa was arranger/conductor.
 Wilson can also be seen on the far left of the album cover of ''[[We're Only In It For The Money]]'', where he strikes a Napoleon pose.<ref>[http://donlope.net/fz/notes/We%27re_Only_In_It_For_The_Money_Cover.html We're Only In It For The Money Cover Art]</ref>

@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
 Wilson produced Zappa's albums ''[[Freak Out!]]'' (1966), ''[[Absolutely Free]]'' (1967) and ''[[We're Only In It For The Money]]'' (1968). He also produced [[The Animals]]' album ''[[Animalism]]'' (1966) and the single ''[[Boy Wonder I Love You]]/[[Orange Colored Sky]] (1966)'' featuring [[Burt Ward]]. On both Zappa was arranger/conductor.
-Wilson can also be seen on the far left of the album cover of ''[[We're Only In It For The Money]]'', where he strikes a Napoleon pose.<ref>[http://globalia.net/donlope/fz/notes/We%27re_Only_In_It_For_The_Money_Cover.html We're Only In It For The Money Cover Art]</ref>
+Wilson can also be seen on the far left of the album cover of ''[[We're Only In It For The Money]]'', where he strikes a Napoleon pose.<ref>[http://donlope.net/fz/notes/We%27re_Only_In_It_For_The_Money_Cover.html We're Only In It For The Money Cover Art]</ref>
 He appeared in ''[[Uncle Meat (The Film)|Uncle Meat]]'' (and can also be heard on ''[[Uncle Meat Film Excerpt]]'') & ''[[Video From Hell]]''.

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 [[Image:Dylan wilson 200.jpg|thumb|right|Tom Wilson with Bob Dylan]]
-In 1955 Wilson set up his own jazz label, Transition, while he worked as a radio producer until the late 1950s. One of his releases was the jazz compilation album ''[[Jazz in Transition]]'' (1957). During the early 1960s he became A&R director for Savoy Records, before he became a producer for [[Columbia Records]] in 1963 – producing early recordings by [[Bob Dylan]], such as the albums ''The Times They Are-A Changin''' (1963), ''Another Side of Bob Dylan'' (1964) and ''Bringing It All Back Home'' (1965), as well as the single ''[[Like A Rolling Stone]]'' (1965). He also produced ''The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra'' (1961) by Sun Ra.
+In 1955 Wilson set up his own jazz label, Transition, while he worked as a radio producer until the late 1950s. One of his releases was the jazz compilation album ''[[Jazz in Transition]]'' (1957). During the early 1960s he became A&R director for Savoy Records, before he became a producer for [[Columbia Records]] in 1963 – producing early recordings by [[Bob Dylan]], such as the albums ''The Times They Are-A Changin''' (1963), ''Another Side of Bob Dylan'' (1964) and ''Bringing It All Back Home'' (1965), as well as the single ''[[Wikipedia:Like a Rolling Stone|Like A Rolling Stone]]'' (1965). He also produced ''The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra'' (1961) by Sun Ra.
 Wilson added a rhythm section to [[Simon & Garfunkel|Simon and Garfunkel's]] accoustic ''"The Sounds of Silence."'' and released it as a single. It went to number 2 in the charts. Wilson later left Columbia and went to [[Verve Records|MGM/Verve]] where he would work with [[The Velvet Underground]]. He produced their records ''[[The Velvet Underground & Nico]]'' (1967) and ''[[White Light/White Heat]]'' (1968), as well as Nico's ''Chelsea Girl'' (1967) and ''The Soft Machine'' (1968) by [[Soft Machine]].

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 ''Tom Wilson, who was producing records for [[MGM]] at the time, came to the [[Whisky a Go-Go]] while we were a five-piece group, while [[Henry Vestine]] was still with us. He heard us sing "[[Trouble Every Day|The Watts Riot Song (Trouble Every Day)]]." He stayed for five minutes, said "Yeah, yeah, yeah," slapped me on the back, shook my hand and said, "Wonderful. We're gonna make a record of you. Goodbye." I didn't see him again for four months. He thought we were a rhythm and blues band. He probably went back to New York and said, "I signed me another rhythm and blues band from the Coast. They got this song about the riot. It's a protest song. They'll do a couple of singles and maybe they'll die out". He came back to town just before we were going to do our first recording session. We had a little chat in his room and that was when he first discovered that that wasn't all that we played. Things started changing. We decided not to make a single, we'd make an album instead. He wouldn't give me an idea of what the budget would be for the album, but the average rock and roll album costs about $5,000. The start-to-finish cost of [[Freak Out!|FREAK OUT]] was somewhere around $21,000. The first tune we cut was "[[Any Way The Wind Blows]]." Unfortunately, it's a bad mix, but the track is really good. Then we did "[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]" When Wilson heard those he was so impressed he got on the phone and called New York, and as a result I got a more or less unlimited budget to do this monstrosity. The next day I had whipped up the arrangements for a twenty-two piece orchestra. It wasn't just a straight orchestra accompanying the singers. It was the Mothers five-piece band plus seventeen pieces. We all worked together. The editing took a long time, which ran the cost up. Meanwhile, Wilson was sticking his neck out. He laid his job on the line by producing the album. MGM felt that they had spent too much money on the album and they were about to let it die, but it started selling all over the place. Like, they'd sell forty copies in some little town the size of a pumpkin in Wyoming. We sold five thousand albums all over the country with no extra-hype or anything. Finally the company started pushing the album and sales went even higher."'' -''[[The Incredible History Of The Mothers]]'',  Frank Zappa in ''[[Hit Parader]]'', No. 48, June 1968.
-''"Tom Wilson was a great guy. He had vision, you know? And he really stood by us ... I remember the first thing that we recorded was '[[Any Way The Wind Blows]],' and that was okay. Then we did '[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]' and I saw him through the glass and he was on the phone immediately to New York going, 'I don't know!' Trying to break it to 'em easy, I guess."' - [[Frank Zappa]], [[Rolling Stone Interview, 1988]]
+''"Tom Wilson was a great guy. He had vision, you know? And he really stood by us ... I remember the first thing that we recorded was '[[Any Way The Wind Blows]],' and that was okay. Then we did '[[Who Are The Brain Police?]]' and I saw him through the glass and he was on the phone immediately to New York going, 'I don't know!' Trying to break it to 'em easy, I guess."' - [[Biography|Frank Zappa]], [[Rolling Stone Interview, 1988]]
 ''"Well, Tom was a great guy. Uh, he had a fascinating ability to read the Wall Street Journal, have a blonde sitting on his lap and tell the engineer to add more compression to the vocal all at the same time. But, by the time we started working on our third album, uhm, he was not talking to the engineer as much and talking to the Blonde a little bit more and so I said, 'Blonde, just let me produce this. I know, you have other things in your mind, and the' … uh, "We're Only In It For The Money" was the first album that I produced, he produced the first two."'' - MTV interview with Frank Zappa, 1986, recorded on ''[[Tom Wilson (The Track)]]'', from ''[[The MOFO Project/Object (Deluxe Edition)]]''.