Producer Steve Lillywhite shares career nuggets at Canadian Music Wk (Moz mention)

Producer Steve Lillywhite Shares Career Nuggets on The Rolling Stones, U2, David Byrne & More at Canadian Music Week - Billboard.com
By Karen Bliss.

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"On Morrissey:
Still don't really know him. He's the only artist I know that wears a Morrissey T-shirt, He literally comes down for breakfast with a Morrissey T-shirt. He's a very gentle vegetarian and that's probably the most untidy hair I've ever seen him have [shows photo]. I mean he would always be perfectly quiffed and just a lovely man who was very shy... I always remember the story, I was in the studio, he would just let me and the band do all the music, he wouldn't come in. I would work on the song with the band and then Morrissey would come in and listen. Anyway he would say, "Steve, The Who, Sheppard's Bush, 1965," and then just walk out. Okay. I sort of got the idea of what he meant. He was a man of very few words and actually most of the words he uses he steals. There's no question he's a poet who loves his Oscar Wilde and he takes vast swathes of lyrics from other people."

Just a brief mention.
Regards,
FWD.
 
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" He's the only artist I know that wears a Morrissey T-shirt". I guess he means that he's the only artist to wear his own T-shirt, because otherwise there have been plenty of Moz shirts in the world of rock & pop. (It's Lillywhite with two l's, btw).
 
Oh yeah, what about the Lillywhite documentary that was about to come out lats year (?) There was even a trailer posted here....
 
Wasnt it Lillywhite who hated Morrissey's voice and said he could not sing when they originally worked together?
 
Wasnt it Lillywhite who hated Morrissey's voice and said he could not sing when they originally worked together?
Truthfully he only "sang" on the occasion in his earlier years. But it worked really well and was enjoyable. Plenty of people can't sing and have successful careers. He's just one of the weird ones who learned how along the way.
 
Wasnt it Lillywhite who hated Morrissey's voice and said he could not sing when they originally worked together?

I doubt they would have made three albums together if that was literally the case. But Morrissey's voice is very stuffy on Southpaw Grammar, he apparently suffered from a long bout of flu.
 
I doubt they would have made three albums together if that was literally the case. But Morrissey's voice is very stuffy on Southpaw Grammar, he apparently suffered from a long bout of flu.

It doesn’t matter.
Southpaw is and was a brilliant album and the Morrissey band rocked hard and was in great shape!

I remember Moz just informed the audience at his BBC2 radio show just before Years of Refusal was released saying this: (or something very similar)

“We’re also very pleased to announce in the beginning of April, a re-issue of a cd-album you didn’t really care too much about”. :rolleyes:

And to the cries of the audience shouting NOOOO!!! asking “But did you buy it though? Can you prove it?
Do you have the receipts?” :lbf:
 
Morrissey's voice is very stuffy on Southpaw Grammar, he apparently suffered from a long bout of flu.

Funnily enough, I quite like the sound of his voice on the Southpaw-era songs. Though I don't wish another bout of flu on him.
 
It doesn’t matter.
Southpaw is and was a brilliant album and the Morrissey band rocked hard and was in great shape!

I remember Moz just informed the audience at his BBC2 radio show just before Years of Refusal was released saying this: (or something very similar)

“We’re also very pleased to announce in the beginning of April, a re-issue of a cd-album you didn’t really care too much about”. :rolleyes:

And to the cries of the audience shouting NOOOO!!! asking “But did you buy it though? Can you prove it?
Do you have the receipts?” :lbf:

One of the few times Morrissey has made any attempt to "promote" a reissued album while on tour. I believe many of the Years of Refusal shows included two tracks from Southpaw - "Reader Meet Author" and "Best Friend on the Payroll".
 
"On Morrissey:
He was a man of very few words and actually most of the words he uses he steals. There's no question he's a poet who loves his Oscar Wilde and he takes vast swathes of lyrics from other people."

Doesn't exactly come across as high praise for Morrissey ... rather it makes him sound plagiaristic and derivative. I guess it's proof that people don't need to necessarily admire each other to produce good work. What has Morrissey said about Steve Lillywhite over the years?
 
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Actually, lots of artists, from Mick Jagger to Kurt Cobain to Kanye West, have worn t-shirts of themselves. And it's become a full-on celebrity trend in recent years.

Oh, and it's Shepherd's Bush, not "Sheppard"......
 
I doubt they would have made three albums together if that was literally the case. But Morrissey's voice is very stuffy on Southpaw Grammar, he apparently suffered from a long bout of flu.
I love his voice on southpaw,very nasally.hes probably the only artist whos ever made an album with a heavy cold,most would cancel for a few weeks.
 
I love his voice on southpaw,very nasally.hes probably the only artist whos ever made an album with a heavy cold,most would cancel for a few weeks.
If only he had the same gusto and fortitude for live shows when he's got the sniffles.
 
Doesn't exactly come across as high praise for Morrissey ... rather it makes him sound plagiaristic and derivative. I guess it's proof that people don't need to necessarily admire each other to produce good work. What has Morrissey said about Steve Lillywhite over the years?

Yeah, because Morrissey has kept it a big secret that he borrows from others. He put people he borrowed from all over cover sleeves and t-shirts and went on about them in interviews and whatnot, but he didn't want people to know! There's nothing wrong with stealing from others, as long as you're stealing good stuff.

Lillywhite's not attacking him. He's just repeating what he said in more detail here, where it's clear he very much does admire him and found him to be a beautiful man (though also a strange one):
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98385068

I recall Morrissey praising Lillywhite on Modern Rock Live while promoting Maladjusted, something about bringing the best out of the band, getting them to go outside their comfort zones, etc., if I recall correctly (it's over 20 years ago). But then in the Maladjusted reissue liner notes it sounds like he settled on Lillywhite when his preferred choices (like Joe Strummer) didn't work out.
 
Interesting. What backhanded praise. You're seeing a lot more of this from people who've met him.

But let's be honest, the narcissism has always been there with Morrissey. Even the self-deprecation he has engaged in comes across as self-deprecating narcissism.

I remember in the Morrissey documentary from the mid 2000's one of his associates said he probably thinks he's the most attractive person in the world, and one of his favorite things to do is to put on a pot of tea, and destroy people's characters.

Even his friends can't help but take swipes at him.
 
On the borrowing lyrics topic, that's what creative people do. The best artists are collage artists, and in the realm of pop lyric writing, it's a worthy tactic. It's the tune that ultimately matters. It's not Byron.

Although, am I the only one who thinks Morrissey's lyric writing became patchier, and patchier the less he appeared to have borrowed wholesale from texts, and film?
 

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