Without a doubt, if George Martin was the fifth Beatle, then Chris Thomas was the fifth Pretender. He was hands-on in all aspects of the recording, whereas a lot of producers produce from their phone in the car. He was there for every moment of whatever was going on, directing either me or the musicians.
Photo: Mark Douet
When it came to her vocals [on Learning to Crawl], Chrissie was great so long as nobody else was in the room. The band, everybody, was kicked out…Only Chris Thomas and myself were in the control room while Chrissie sang, and he’d have to coax a performance out of her. Chris was all about that. On a vocal day we might sit around for hours and drink tea and have lunch and chat about everything other than what we were about to do, and then at a certain point — which was part of Chris’ gift as a producer — he would say, “Okay, how about now?”
— Steve Churchyard, engineer (from Sound On Sound, 9/05)
