Meet the Producers

Here's a cool pub quiz question for you: who links 1960s Russian leader Nikita Kruschev to The Eagles' Hotel California? The answer? Bill Szymczyk. And while we're at it, here's another. How the heck do you pronounce that surname? Answer: Sim-Zik.

The singer was suicidal. All he did in his down time was compile list after list of the songs he wanted played at his funeral. Luckily, if you want to put it that way, there was actually very little down time because the singer was labouring in the studio 16 hours a day under the illusion that what was expected of him was to make, in his own words, 'the next album to set the world on fire'.

The producer remembers it this way: 'Billy wanted to make a record that people would put on and say, "What the f*** was that?"'.

It's the 13th of October 1974, a date remembered in some circles as Black Friday. The facts are somewhat sketchy but it seems a couple of police officers decide that some black dude is driving suspiciously through Cricklewood in London. They pull him over and are about to arrest him when he legs it into The Carib Club. Six officers give chase and grab him in the toilets. They're bringing him out with a bit of a struggle when some club-goers, mates of the pursued, tackle the cops, stabbing one and setting the fugitive free.

It's a Sunday afternoon late in 1966 and we're in South London working overtime at Olympic Studios. The band have already done their stuff – the basic track was laid down a few weeks earlier at the RCA Records Studio in Hollywood. So today it's just us, the producer, his chauffeur, the engineer and the singer, who's busy behind that screen putting down vocal takes between hitting on a mighty spliff he's rolled to keep him in the zone.

When the Californian singer Kesha recently sought through the courts to escape her contract with producer Dr Luke, claiming harassment, abuse, violence and emotional distress among many other allegations, she lost her case, but many prominent figures within the music industry offered moral support. Taylor Swift donated $250,000 to her cause, Adele spoke up for her while receiving an award at the Brits, while Lady Gaga, Iggy Azalea, Lily Allen, Lorde, Haim, Miley Cyrus and Ariana Grande were among those who took to social media to express their backing and their disgust.

It was a job you wouldn't wish on anyone, even your worst enemy. A deadly odds-on no-win nightmare. And Jeff Lynne had just been handed the gig.

'Every morning I would wake up with half dread, half exhilaration,' he remembered later. 'The idea of doing it was the most thrilling thing imaginable… but messing it up would be horrible.' The terrible task in hand? To reanimate The Beatles!