The Best of All the Years - A Bonnie Tyler Podcast
Oct 18, 2026 · 1 hr 7 min · 12 segments
Her last project with RCA Records, Goodbye to the Island is one of Bonnie Tyler's most overlooked albums despite its many strengths. It was a record that pushed her sound beyond those early years; a…
Liam BriggHost
And a huge part of that is because it's been really tricky to piece together the process at which Bonnie recorded and released this album.
But it's one of my absolute favourites from her discography and might be my favourite of the four RCA albums.
In this episode, what we're going to do is take a look at the... history of the album the recording process the release what little we have of the critical reception for it as well and a brief look at the transition between Bonnie's RCA and CBS periods but I think we need to start in July 1979, when Bonnie went to the Algarve in Portugal with her managers and producers, Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe, and they started recording the album.
I've seen some of the master tapes from this period, and the earliest record I have of this album's production is a recording session on the 21st of July 1979 using the RAC mobile facility.
And they recorded two rough mixes of Goodbye to the Island and Sitting on the Edge of the Ocean.
Now, what interests me so much about this project is that it's the first time that Bonnie has had just two producers since My My Honeycomb, her first single, which was produced by David Mackay and Ronnie Scott.
Everything else has been produced either by Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe and David Mackay or Robin Jeffrey Cable.
But the early sessions for this record were actually just recorded with Ronnie and Steve.
And you hear the fingerprints of those on some of the early singles on one of the B-sides.
It was like a truck and they hired two villas in Val di Lobo, as Bonnie mentioned in a clip that you've just heard.
Now, I imagined that the RAC mobile facility was some kind of sophisticated, I don't know, futuristic machinery facility.
inside of a van and that everything was actually recorded inside it but it was just a truck with equipment inside in a conversation with kevin dunn the bass player who'd been working with bonnie for many years at this point he sort of reminisced a little bit about how the recording process worked in these early days
it was like an articulated truck and we were set up in a villa you know separate to where we were all staying the truck outside and the truck really was contained all the the desk the recording gear and the mixing desk and all that stuff and uh we that's how we did that and then i suppose they brought the tapes back to rack studios uh in st john's
and mixed them yeah
Now, one of the big differences is that the previous three albums were recorded in a more traditional setting, especially The World Starts Tonight and Diamond Cup, which were both done in studios in London.
Natural Force was predominantly done at David Mackay's studio on his home property.
And a huge part of that is because it's been really tricky to piece together the process at which Bonnie recorded and released this album.
But it's one of my absolute favourites from her discography and might be my favourite of the four RCA albums.
In this episode, what we're going to do is take a look at the... history of the album the recording process the release what little we have of the critical reception for it as well and a brief look at the transition between Bonnie's RCA and CBS periods but I think we need to start in July 1979, when Bonnie went to the Algarve in Portugal with her managers and producers, Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe, and they started recording the album.
I've seen some of the master tapes from this period, and the earliest record I have of this album's production is a recording session on the 21st of July 1979 using the RAC mobile facility.
And they recorded two rough mixes of Goodbye to the Island and Sitting on the Edge of the Ocean.
Now, what interests me so much about this project is that it's the first time that Bonnie has had just two producers since My My Honeycomb, her first single, which was produced by David Mackay and Ronnie Scott.
Everything else has been produced either by Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe and David Mackay or Robin Jeffrey Cable.
But the early sessions for this record were actually just recorded with Ronnie and Steve.
And you hear the fingerprints of those on some of the early singles on one of the B-sides.
It was like a truck and they hired two villas in Val di Lobo, as Bonnie mentioned in a clip that you've just heard.
Now, I imagined that the RAC mobile facility was some kind of sophisticated, I don't know, futuristic machinery facility.
inside of a van and that everything was actually recorded inside it but it was just a truck with equipment inside in a conversation with kevin dunn the bass player who'd been working with bonnie for many years at this point he sort of reminisced a little bit about how the recording process worked in these early days
it was like an articulated truck and we were set up in a villa you know separate to where we were all staying the truck outside and the truck really was contained all the the desk the recording gear and the mixing desk and all that stuff and uh we that's how we did that and then i suppose they brought the tapes back to rack studios uh in st john's
and mixed them yeah
Now, one of the big differences is that the previous three albums were recorded in a more traditional setting, especially The World Starts Tonight and Diamond Cup, which were both done in studios in London.
Natural Force was predominantly done at David Mackay's studio on his home property.
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