Terry Manning dies: Producer/engineer worked with music icons from Isaac Hayes to ZZ Top
Bob Mehr- Terry Manning's career spanned more than six decades, working with iconic artists like Isaac Hayes, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top and Shakira.
- He honed his skills at Stax and Ardent Studios in Memphis, learning from legends like Willie Mitchell and John Fry.
- Throughout his life, Manning remained grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from countless talented individuals in the music industry.
Terry Manning — the noted engineer, producer and musician who worked with a galaxy of stars over his sixty-plus year career — has died. A key figure in Memphis music and beyond, Manning would work closely with artists across generations and genres, from Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers, to Led Zeppelin and ZZ Top, Joe Walsh and Joe Cocker, Lenny Kravitz and Shakira, among many others.
Manning died Tuesday at his home in El Paso, Texas. He was 77. His son Lucas Manning confirmed his passing.
Born in Oklahoma in 1947 and raised in Texas, Manning had an itinerant childhood. His father was a traveling minister in the Disciples of Christ Church. Though gospel was his first exposure to music, Manning's real conversion came in hearing rock 'n' roll as a teen in El Paso.
"I was 14, 15, listening to Elvis and whatever was blasting out of the radio," Manning recalled in a 2008 interview with The Commercial Appeal. "That's usually how the affliction strikes."
Before long it was time for Manning's father to be reassigned to another church, and he consulted the family on where they might prefer to move.
"He had a few options — and one of the choices was Memphis," Manning said. "Well, I remember buying 'Last Night' by the Mar-Keys on the Satellite label — I loved that song, played it over and over. On the bottom of the record it had an address: '926 E. McLemore, Memphis, TN.' So I lobbied for Memphis — because I knew there were records made there."
Manning's family did end up relocating to the Bluff City in 1963, where he began playing in a couple of bands at Central High. But it wasn't long before the fresh-faced Manning made his way to 926 E. McLemore, to what had become Stax Records.
"I took a bus over to Stax and took my guitar with me," recalled Manning. "The secretary at the front desk that day was Deanie Parker. She let me come in. Before long, Steve Cropper happened to walk by, saw my guitar case. We talked and I told him what I wanted to do — which was work at the studio. Steve was good enough to let me come in and copy tapes and sweep the floors and learn."
Aside from his unofficial internship at Stax, Manning had also fallen in with an East Memphis electronics whiz named John Fry, whose parents' house had become a recording studio and hub for aspiring musicians. When Fry moved his home studio into a commercial building on National Street in 1966, Manning would become one of Ardent Studios' first paid employees.
Though Fry was not much older than Manning, he would play a crucial mentor role in his life. "John was the consummate technical engineer. Studied it, knew it, was into the science of it: how sound waves were propagated, where things came from, what types of mics were best. Being around John was like a class itself. And then, a lot of times I'd also just learn on the job."
Manning had ample opportunity to do just that, as Ardent soon became an auxiliary studio for Stax. "We were almost around the clock working on Stax (product) at that point," said Manning, who would record seminal efforts by Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Booker T. & the MGs. He would also learn his craft at the feet of esteemed Hi Records producer Willie Mitchell.
"Willie would be guiding me as to what he wanted to hear. I noticed that his guidance was not based on technical things — like, 'I want to hear more 10k EQ on the vocal.' He would guide me based on feel: 'I want the bass to thump a little more,' 'I want the bass to get up underneath that vocal and push me.' He used artistic or emotional terms."
"I got a full education," Manning said. "I learned the technical side from John Fry and the emotional aspects with someone like Willie Mitchell, and the music and in-between parts from people like Steve [Cropper] and Booker. T. [Jones]. I could not have asked for any better school."
As much as he respected and revered his Memphis teachers, Manning — a smart kid with a comic sense — wasn't above poking a little light fun at the local scene and its players, which is how his first solo album, 1970’s “Home Sweet Home,” came about.
The project was originally conceived as something of a lark: Manning had recorded a hard rock take on the Box Tops' "Choo Choo Train," intended as an inside joke for his friends, band leader Alex Chilton and the song's author Eddie Hinton. "I did two or three more songs like that and started playing them for people. It was fun to sort of [spoof] the whole Memphis music scene, and it sort of grew into this monster," Manning said.
Stax vice president Al Bell heard the songs and encouraged Manning to make a full album in a similar vein for the company's Enterprise label. A mix of wigged-out originals (like the faux dance-craze number "Trashy Dog") and heavily stylized covers — everything from Beatles gems to Jack Clement classics — the album played as a cheeky musical homage.
"I've always thought something funny was almost better than something good," said Manning. "Maybe that's one of my failings." Serious or not, the album would go on to become a cult classic with rare original vinyl copies fetching several hundred dollars eventually.
While his solo album was a pleasant detour, Manning continued to grow his abilities in the studio. Beyond his work with Stax, he began to amass a number of high-profile rock credits, including Led Zeppelin's “III,” which Manning mixed at the insistence of his old friend Jimmy Page. Into the ‘70s and ‘80s, Manning would establish long and fruitful working relationships with acts like ZZ Top (engineering a succession of platinum and multi-platinum albums for the band) and George Thorogood.
In the mid-'80s Manning spent a year working out of London's famed Abbey Road Studios. After returning from England, he continued to produce projects at Ardent's Midtown complex, and even launched his own facility called Studio 6.
In 1992, Island Records head and Compass Point Studio owner Chris Blackwell approached Manning about taking over and revitalizing the once-legendary recording facility in the Bahamas, which had fallen into disrepair. "It had an incredible history and was a great place to live, of course. It seemed like a worthwhile challenge," recalled Manning.
For the next two decades Manning would operate and manage the studio, which attracted A-list stars from all over the world. Manning’s latter-day credits would include work with rocker Lenny Kravitz, country musician Zac Brown, and pop star Shakira.
In the late ‘90s, Manning also launched his Lucky 7 record label and released a number of archival CDs by Memphis acts he was involved with, including Big Star precursor Rock City, bluesman Furry Lewis, rockers Cargoe, and pop tunesmith Van Duren.
In the 2000s, Manning also began showing his photography. A shutterbug since the 1960s, Manning had worked as a stringer for the UK rock press, writing and taking pictures for the New Musical Express. Manning covered events like the Miami Pop Festival and famous recording dates, including Dusty Springfield’s sessions at American Sound Studios, and he was on hand to capture historic moments in Memphis, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s final visit to the city in 1968. After exhibits of his work were displayed in Boston and Memphis, Manning published a book of his images from the '60s, and another volume of his photographs of Cuba.
Over the last decade-plus of his life, Manning also returned to his solo career, releasing a series of albums including 2013's “West Texas Skyline” a tribute to his friend Bobby Fuller, and “Playin' in Elvis' House,” recorded live at Presley's Audubon Avenue home in Memphis, and released in 2019. This past January, Manning released his final album, "Red and Black."
Manning would often marvel at his Zelig-like career, the great artists he encountered, and whose work he helped enhance.
"You know, they once asked (Atlantic Records founder) Ahmet Ertegun what it was like being in the music business. So he closed his eyes, put his hands out like he was blind, and started feeling around. He said, 'I just stumble around in rooms full of creative people and I bump into them.' And that's how I feel," said Manning.
"The people and places I've bumped into have been amazing. To have been in Stax, in Ardent, Abbey Road, Compass Point. I can't believe it sometimes. I'm just lucky, very lucky, to have done all that."
Manning is survived by his wife, Janet Brunton-Manning, and his sons Lucas Manning and Michael Manning. Plans for a memorial service are pending.