My friend John French, who has died aged 75 after heart surgery, was the recording engineer for many artists, including Joe Dolce, whose single Shaddap You Face was a hit worldwide. It sold 6m copies and topped the UK charts for three weeks in 1981.
John was born in Australia, in the Melbourne suburb of Elsternwick, to Merle (nee Fabian) and Arthur French, known as Syd, a musician and, in the 50s, musical arranger for the television variety show In Melbourne Tonight.
Because family life had been, in John’s words, a mix of “opulence and poverty”, Syd would not permit his son to become a musician on leaving Elwood high school. Syd redirected John’s love of music to studio work, first as a stagehand on the In Melbourne Tonight set, then with a cadetship at TCS Studios, the in-house facility used for prerecording music segments for the show.
When John and a colleague began to record rock bands, TCS quickly rose to be one of the top studios in Melbourne, and John became regarded as one of Australia’s finest engineers.
In 1963 he married Sandra Megon. The couple had a daughter, Amy; the marriage was dissolved in 1987. By the mid 70s John had recorded most of the important acts of the era, including Russell Morris, Colleen Hewitt, Blackfeather, Madder Lake, Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, Skyhooks, the Dingoes and Stylus. Of the five top-selling Australian singles of 1972, three were recorded by John.
In the 1980s, John built a custom-made mud brick studio, Fast Forward, where he recorded major acts such as John Farnham, Not Drowning, Waving and Goanna. A perfectionist in the studio, John encouraged guitarists to change strings every second take, to retain the brightness of sound.
In the mid-90s he abandoned the music industry, moved 75 miles to the small village of Guildford in central Victoria, and took up painting.
In 2015 he began co-hosting a weekly radio show on 94.9 MainFM Castlemaine, during which he would reflect upon, tell stories about and play songs associated with his illustrious career. The show proved ideal for a natural raconteur, whose infectious laugh could penetrate the most serious soul.
John is survived by Amy, and by his sister, Jill.
