The Hit Factory

You Can Call Me Al was certainly the most accessible track on Graceland, but it was also true to the spirit of the album.

It was recorded in New York City's Hit Factory, featuring a mix of American performers and African players.

Probably the highlight of You Can Call Me Al came from South African bassist Bakiti Kumalo, who plays a fretless bass solo near the end of the song.

Because this was 1986 and the peak of the MTV era, Warner Brothers knew they needed a video for You Can Call Me Al.

And the entryway was very nondescript, but it had an awning that was torn and had bird droppings on it.

And it said The Hit Factory.

And I thought, wow, you know, that's, you know,

who,

So...

No Surrender was recorded between October 25th and October 27th, 1983 at the Hit Factory in New York City, not the Power Station.

They had to move studios.

We mentioned before that this album was kind of recorded in spurts over the course of two years.

So they had to move studios.

They were no longer at the power station.

They're at the hit factory.

This is amazingly, this is actually not.

So he said, you better come into the office and we talk about it.

Because I still was asking, what's the shot? How am I going to get the picture? What is it? And the juxt of it was that the assignment was clearly to get one photo of both John and Yoko together that could illustrate a press announcement to the world that these famous recording duo were leaving the Dakota and entering this recording studio called The Hit Factory in New York City to begin work on a new record.

And that's a pretty... heavy-duty assignment to encapsulate all that in one image and so from the very start I was asking what's the shot what's the shot because that's how we worked it was always got down to one shot and that's what an editor or a publisher would want to do the five things who what where when why it's a very simple formula and if you can achieve that you fulfilled the assignment and that's how I looked at it very seriously what is the shot I didn't know what the hit factory was.

I didn't know what the Dakota was.

I couldn't develop any images in my mind's eye of what the shot would be.

So we are linked in some way.

So back to the day, then the pictures outside the Dakota were done.

So then you've got to get yourself to the Hit Factory because you've got to be there before them.

Absolutely.

And what, so Roger, what was it like for you to revisit the, All of these photos, I mean, they're just, you know, from the Dakota or outside the Dakota from, of course, the Hit Factory.

I mean, you know, to publish them all together for the first time, all of them.

What was it like to revisit these photos?

I bet.

Now, Ken, you know, talking about the narrative, I really, I have to say, I mean, of course, I've enjoyed all your books, but I particularly enjoyed your writing in this.

I was just riveted when you were telling the story of of like Roger following John and Yoko into the hit factory.

And, you know, you really put us right there.

Songwriting, learning how to songwrite, obviously developing my musician skills.

And then we started the album and we were working in the Hit Factory.

So

it's a new album, your album.

Yeah, this is

my album.

And the Hit Factory is where...

Miami? So it was in New York.

Um, but, uh, we did hire all these, all these musicians.

I remember going to the Hit, Hit Factory.

Uh, I had Dan Huff, Omar Hakim on drums, Greg Phillinganes on keyboards.

I had all these wonderful musicians, and they started learning the song, and we started playing it, and it just didn't sound-

Well, that, that was a, a very, uh, cool story.

We were, uh, supposed to write in New York, Mariah and I, uh, at, I think it was at Right Track Studios.

We always worked there, or The Hit Factory, we always worked there.

We never worked at Sony Studios, and we never really worked anywhere else, 'cause she was quite comfortable either at Right Track or at the big room upstairs at The Hit Factory.

...

the Hit Factory.

I would sit outside of record labels, Def Jam, Universal, in hopes that I would run into somebody.

You know what I'm saying?