Angus Boyd "Gus" Dudgeon
Gus Dudgeon
Gus Dudgeon was an English producer best know for his work with Elton John during Elton’s classic period from 1970 to 1976.
Dudgeon was born in Surrey, England in September 1942. He began his career as a sound engineer for Decca Records in the mid sixties and worked on some notable recordings, including the Rolling Stones, the Zombies, John Mayall, the Small Faces, Marianne Faithfull, and Them. His first production credit came on Ten Years After’s self titled debut album. He soon started his own production company and quickly scored hits with David Bowie’s Space Oddity and the Locomotive's Rudy's in Love. he also produced the Bonzo Dog Band albums The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse and Tadpoles and two highly successful albums for Elkie Brooks: Pearls and Pearls Two.
His collaboration with Elton John began in 1970 with Elton’s successful self titled album and it continued on to include 1971's Madman Across the Water, 1972's Honky Chateau, 1975's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and 1975's Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, among others. Dudgeon was sometimes critical of John's work calling the 1974 "Caribou" album "a piece of crap ... the sound is the worst, the songs are nowhere, the sleeve came out wrong, the lyrics weren't that good, the singing wasn't all there, the playing wasn't great and the production is just plain lousy." During this period, Dudgeon also produced other artists including Joan Armatrading, Ralph McTell, John Kongos, and Chris Rea.
Dudgeon and John parted ways after 1976’s Blue Moves, but reunited in the 1980’s for three albums but did not achieve the success of the previous decade. After his reunion with John, he started working with alternative bands such as XTC, Menswear, and The Frank and Walters. In 1989 he produced the debut solo-album of Thomas Anders. The Guinness Book of Records recognises Dudgeon as the first person to use sampling on his production of John Kongos' hit He's Gonna Step On You Again (1971), which used a tape loop of African tribal drumming. Dudgeon was a founder of The Music Producers Guild.
Dudgeon and his wife Sheila were both killed in a car accident in 2002 returning to their home in Surrey after a party. Dudgeon lost control of his Jaguar convertible on the M4 motorway, plunged down an embankment and landed upside-down in a drainage ditch. Elton John was deeply saddened by his death and called him "the greatest producer of his generation.”
