Guthrie, James

Born in Edmonton, Middlesex (UK) on 14 November 1953, Brian Guthrie began his career on 1 October 1973 at Mayfair Studios in London as a trainee tape operator and later assistant engineer, initially trained by studio owner John Hudson. A year later he moved to Audio International studios, working under Richard Millard. His earliest credits are as an assistant engineer on the first two albums by glam rock singer Alvin Stardust.

By 1976 Guthrie was employed as one of the engineering team at Utopia Studios which also included John Mackswith and Ian Cooper. During his tenure he worked as the engineer on releases by the Bay City Rollers, Dead End Kids as well as the first two albums for London-based R&B band Heatwave. Guthrie later worked at other London-area studios such as The Manor, Advision, and Britannia Row. His initial producer credits would be for singer-songwriter Arlen Greene and Fury. Guthrie’s connection with GTO Records landed him engineering and production duties on the second and third albums for The Movies, followed by work with Runner. After producing the Judas Priest track ‘Better By You, Better Than Me’ for the album ‘Stained Class’, he was selected to produce their follow-up album ‘Hell Bent For Leather’ (aka ‘Killing Machine’).

In 1978 he was introduced to Pink Floyd. He worked with the band on their album The Wall, then supervised the front of house engineering team on most of the live performances of that album, and then went on to co-produce the follow-up album ‘The Final Cut’. In 1985, he worked as an engineer on Kate’s album Hounds Of Love (during all orchestral sessions).

In 1986 Guthrie emigrated to the United States, first residing in Los Angeles where he and his business manager/partner Larry Belling owned and operated Slippery Studios, a recording facility specifically geared towards sessions for film. Guthrie eventually settled in Lake Tahoe, California where he designed his own home-based studio, das boot recording (named in tribute to Guthrie’s love of WWII-era American submarines).

In 2011 Guthrie contributed to two major reissue projects for Kate Bush and Pink Floyd. For Pink Floyd, he remastered their entire back catalogue. On Kate’s album Director’s Cut he performed the mix of the revision of The Song of Solomon as well as the mastering of the album in collaboration with Doug Sax and Sangwook “Sunny” Naam of The Mastering Lab. The trio also performed a remastering of The Red Shoes from the original analogue back-up copies of the master recording.