Producer Ken Scott calls Steve Morse the “best guitarist” he’s ever worked with: “He knew what was needed”
The Deep Purple guitarist’s perfect pitch, in particular, has Scott’s heart (and ears).
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Producer Ken Scott reveals in a recent interview that out of all the guitar player’s he’s worked with, Steve Morse was, without a doubt “the best”.
If you’re into 70s rock, chances are you’ve heard something produced by the legendary Ken Scott. Having worked with artists ranging from the Beatles to Jeff Beck to David Bowie, Scott tells it all about the guitarists he’s worked with on a recent appearance on the Rockonteurs podcast by Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt.
And when asked who was his favourite guitar player, Scott did not hesitate to name Morse.
“Steve Morse, as far as I’m concerned, is the best guitarist I’ve ever worked with. He could cover every style and he knew what was needed,” Scott said.
“Including Jeff Beck?” asked Kemp.
To which Scott replied: “Jeff Beck is great, but Jeff has a certain style which he is brilliant at, whereas Steve, he covers all styles, from classical, acoustic. There’s one track on one of the albums called Little Kids, which is him and just solo violin, which is brilliant.”
The producer even admitted that working with Morse had spoiled his ears, and that after experiencing Morse’s brilliance in 1978 when he produced and engineered the Dixie Dregs’ second and third studio albums What If and Night of the Living Dregs, he had some trouble adapting to other artists who did not have perfect pitch.
“[Morse] has perfect pitch,” said Scott. “I did two albums with him and the next couple of albums after that, I was having major tuning problems with the band. My sense of pitch had become that much closer to perfect pitch that when they were slightly out, it became painful.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Scott also talked about how he recorded Mick Ronson’s guitar sound on records like Hunky Dory and The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And the Spiders From Mars.