Matt Monro Music

Excerpt from Matt Monro Book

In July, Matt went into Quadradial Studios in Miami with Leonardo and his new partner Gary Mason. The two men had met and become partners in the early 1970s and had collaborated with Jose Feliciano, Demis Roussos and Shirley Bassey.

As Leonardo had previously worked on a Spanish album with Matt and secured a massive hit with Alguien Canto, Gary didn’t object to his partner’s proposal of doing another Spanish album with the star. Gary knew of the singer’s pedigree, because Born Free and From Russia with Love had both been big hits in the American market, so he was more than happy to put up the finance for the new project and negotiate a tour with the singer to promote future products. At a meeting at Matt’s condominium, Leonardo and Gary presented the singer with contracts with Supreme Enterprises for signature. The paperwork specified that Matt would commit to three tours over a two and- a-half-year period and perform three working weeks out of four, with a maximum of”“nine shows a week. Although Matt signed the contracts, he never got the opportunity to go on another South American tour.

Un Toque de Distinción aka: Camino al Amor - was laid down in stages. Mason and Schultz recorded the music at George Martin’s AIR London Studio between 12 and 24 June and then hooked up with Matt in Miami in July. Matt’s vocals were recorded in two days and they shot the album cover at the Doral Hotel in Miami Beach. Gary and Leonardo then flew to New York to have the album mixed at Phil Ramone’s A&R Studios with engineer Tom Greto. The final stage saw Gary take the mixed album back to LA, where it was mastered at Hitsville Recording Studios with John Matousek.

The sessions originally started at Criterian Studios, but we were unhappy with the facilities and moved over to Quadradial in Miami. Matt was recording and we just couldn’t get the right echo. I suggested he try singing in the studio’s bathroom, it worked, and Matt ended up recording all his vocals in there. He had a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other and I asked him “how the hell he could smoke[…]”

“Unfortunately the album did not fare as well as the others. Leonardo was an artist, not a businessman, and bad production decisions, with massive overspending made the album extremely expensive to produce. There was absolutely no reason for Supreme Enterprises to record in London, one of the world’s most expensive cities, especially as Matt wasn’t doing his vocals there. Leonardo spent as much on hotels and airfares as he did in studio time, when the whole thing could have been done for half the cost in Los Angeles. Leonardo also thought that using four different locations would make the album more prestigious and sound better. Gary felt that his partner was still living in the 1960s, when it was nearly unheard of for an Anglo artist to record in Spanish. In the 1980s that fact alone would not guarantee record sales. Spanish ballad singers were already emerging as major players in the business and standards were much higher than they were in years past.

With all that said, Gary Mason did enjoy the sessions and his time with Matt. Artists like Paul McCartney and Lulu popped into the studios to say hello and there were plenty of jovial moments[…]”

“Matt’s sense of humour was always in evidence and he managed to convince Gary Mason that he was seriously thinking about having surgery in Hong Kong to make himself a foot taller. He told the producer he felt his height was holding back his career, and Gary bought the story, hook, line and sinker. He told Matt that height was irrelevant and that there were plenty of tall people who were very small, and a lot of short people who were very big. The next day, while shooting a photographic session for the album cover at the Doral Beach Hotel, Gary took off his shoes, placed his knees on them and stood next to Matt. It was a great moment.”

Excerpt From
Matt Monro: The Singer's Singer
Michele Monro
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/matt-monro-the-singers-singer/id505999122?mt=11
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