When discussing his storied career as a guitarist, Elliott Randall often makes reference to “the search for the lost chord.” He once described the object of that pursuit as “the simplest and most effective melodic statement.”
This quest, now several decades on, has seen Randall give standout performances as a session ringer for countless artists, chief among them Steely Dan, for whom he delivered the incendiary solo on “Reelin' in the Years” for the band’s 1972 debut, Can’t Buy a Thrill. Perhaps his most left-field collaboration came about ten years later, when the music-dabbling British fashion photographer Steve Hiett summoned Randall to Tokyo to assist him in making an album.
The two had previously cut a couple tracks together at Blue Rock Recording in New York City. Holed up with their guitars for a week in the well-appointed CBS/Sony Shinanomachi Studio, they recorded Hiett’s one and only LP, Down on the Road by the Beach. The sublime, mostly instrumental tunes hover somewhere between early tremolo-soaked surf rock and Brian Eno’s ethereal Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. The album also includes Hiett’s interpretations of a few formative singles from his youth: Eddie Floyd’s “I’ve Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do),” Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over, Beethoven,” Cliff Richard’s “The Next Time”—and, most significantly, Santo & Johnny’s “Sleep Walk,” whose wistful, dreamlike atmosphere seems to haunt Hiett’s best songs.
In the studio Randall and Hiett made a somewhat odd pairing: the skilled veteran and the enthusiastic dilettante. “It was all very seat-of-the-pants—no pre-written arrangements or anything,” Randall recalled recently during a video interview from his home in London. “A lot of the stuff was just simply in Steve’s mind, and it was up to me to get into his head and see what I could do to facilitate the making of this recording.”
Originally available only in Japan, Down on the Road was finally reissued beyond the island seven years ago thanks to the efforts of London’s Be With Records and Melbourne’s Efficient Space. The labels also mined Hiett’s Paris home recordings from 1986 to ’97 for the compilation Girls in the Grass.
As those projects were being organized, Hiett was battling cancer. Sadly, he would not get to see them come to fruition. He died at the age of 78 in late August of 2019, less than a month before the albums were released.
In addition to my interview below with Randall, please also check out the Hiett tribute mixtape I put together. It draws from Down on the Road, Girls in the Grass, Hiett’s ’60s sunshine pop group the Pyramid, and his collaboration with the French singer Valli. The playlist follows the Q&A.
