Moline’s Kerry Tucker Lives The Dream By Recording at Abbey Road Studios
Kerry Tucker of Moline fulfilled a lifelong dream last January by recording his own songs at the famed Abbey Road Studios in London.
His four-song EP, “Undertow,” was released in May (available on vinyl, CD and streaming) and Tucker’s band Einstein’s Sister will perform songs from it, plus others, at the Redstone Room at Common Chord (2nd and Main streets, Davenport), on Friday, Oct. 3 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance and $18 at the door.
Scheduled nearly a year in advance, the January 2025 visit was his third time at the legendary Abbey Road, where The Beatles recorded many of their albums (including the eponymous 1969 classic, the Fab Four on the cover, crosswalk outside the studios), as well as countless other major bands and artists. Tucker, a huge Beatles fan, first visited in 2019 for a seminar, and then in April 2023 with his late wife Tracey (who died in December 2023 at 54 from colon cancer), but he had never before recorded in one of the three main studios.
The cover of Kerry Tucker’s new 16-minute, four-song EP, “Undertow.”
The Einstein’s Sister 2023 EP “Exit Strategies” was mixed by Abbey Road’s Nick Davis (XTC, Genesis, Phil Collins, Mike and the Mechanics), and mastered by Miles Showell. Tucker worked with both men during his 2023 visit to the studios. In addition to mastering the 2023 Beatles song, “Now and Then” (based on a John Lennon demo from 1977) and re-mastering The Beatles’ groundbreaking “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (50th anniversary edition) in 2017, Showell’s stacked resume includes Queen, The Rolling Stones, The Police, The Who, Tears for Fears, Paul McCartney, Genesis, Sade, Phil Collins, and Dire Straits.
For mixing of a 2020 reunion single for Einstein’s Sister (“Begin Again” and “Standing Still”), Kerry contacted Nick Davis in London, who mixed one of his favorite albums, XTC’s “Nonsuch” from 1992.
“That album was our reference album for Einstein’s Sister. That was always the album we brought in when we were mixing an album, and said this is what we want our album to sound like,” Tucker has said.
The mixing process is the combination of several instrumental and vocal tracks into one seamless recording, whereas mastering is a collective equalization, because every track is recorded differently. The mastering engineer balances all the tracks by volume and brightness, for example.
Abbey Road mastering engineer Miles Showell (left) with Kerry Tucker in January 2025.
For “Undertow” (which features many supporting musicians and vocalists), all the tracks were already recorded by Tucker and others at home before he got to Abbey Road, where he just recorded piano and British backup singer Dorie Jackson did vocals for “It’s Time.” All songs were written by Tucker, except that one, featuring lyrics by his Einstein’s partner Bill Douglas (they also often perform as Douglas & Tucker).
Each song features a different drummer – Einstein’s drummer Marty Reyhons on “Emily”; plus Chris Cushman, John Hunter, and Rodney Smith on the other three, with Mike Mudd on percussion for two songs.
“I wanted local talent to be part of this – that was really important to me because a) this could be the last time I go to Abbey Road, and b) just to give other people that credit as well,” Tucker said Tuesday. He wanted to limit his actual studio time in London because of expense and convenience, and to give himself as much time to enjoy the experience. The studio he recorded at is where the Beatles did most of “The White Album” and Pink Floyd recorded “Dark Side of the Moon,” and while Tucker didn’t use it in his recording, he got to play the upright piano Paul McCartney played for “Fool on the Hill,” “Lady Madonna,” “Martha My Dear,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” and “A Day in the Life.”
Tucker playing a piano at Abbey Road’s Studio 3 for his new solo EP, “Undertow.”
Tucker also got to borrow an acoustic guitar used by another favorite band, XTC.
The upright piano dates from the 1950s (known as Mrs. Mills’ piano). “Paul loved it because the action was really soft,” he said of the piano. “He really gravitated toward this piano.”
But when Tucker was there, it hadn’t been tuned, instead the studio’s grand piano was tuned – it had been used for “Dark Side of the Moon” and by McCartney for many recordings, that Tucker recorded in Studio 3 (smaller of the three studios). Amy Winehouse, Tony Bennett and John Legend are among other A-list names who have set down tracks there. Tucker didn’t record his vocals in the two days he was there. Dorie Jackson used John Lennon’s vocal mic for her song on “Undertow.”
The EP includes a big choir of over 100 people (including Chris Bernat of Tripmaster Monkey and Josie Abigail) singing for “Hold Back Rosalee,” recorded upstairs at Common Chord in late December 2024. “There are so many talented people here,” Tucker said.
Other special guests on the disc include Josie Abigail (backing vocals on “Undertow”), Jeff Howard (backing vocals on “Emily”), and Perry Hultgren (Wurlitzer piano on “Undertow”).
Moline’s Kerry Tucker (co-leader of Einstein’s Sister) playing a guitar recorded by XTC at London’s Abbey Road Studios in January 2025.
Tucker recorded with Nick Davis on a Thursday and Friday, and then mastered with Showell on Monday at Abbey Road.
“Most mixes today are done on computers. At Abbey Road, I had this beautiful SSL console,” Ticker said. “It’s a massive board. There’s the advantage of having analog gear that’s been there for 70 years…A bass compressor that Paul McCartney uses all the time you can plug into, and this beautiful mixing console.
Watching Davis at work is “stunning,” Tucker said, almost like playing another musical instrument. “His hands are constantly moving.”
Showell is “so aware of every format he listens to outside the studio,” he said. “He knows every aspect of sound, what the repercussions could be.”
“He makes it sound great on vinyl and great on downloads,” Tucker said of his EP. “I listened to it with headphones for the first time just a week ago, and it’s stunning.”
Einstein’s Sister (to play Friday, Oct. 3 at the Redstone Room) is, clockwise from upper left — Bill Douglas, Marty Reyhons, Kerry Tucker, and Andrew Brock.
“It has a very British sound to it,” he added, noting it’s more warm and nostalgic. “It’s got more of an earthier sound to it. It doesn’t go for a lot of processing. It basically sounds like a classic tape.”
The other great thing about this Abbey Road experience was that renovations were happening to the huge Studio 1, including reconstructing the control room, Tucker said. It was all the more special to share the trip with his 22-year-old son Dylan (who went on the 2019 trip, but not in 2023), and they got a hard-hat tour of that studio.
Their tour guide was like, “John Lennon sat here for ‘All You Need Is Love,’ Mick Jagger sat on the floor here for ‘A Day in the Life,’ and John Williams conducts the orchestra right there,” Kerry said. Studio 1 hosts orchestra recording for just about every major movie, he said. Dylan was blown away by that, and the Abbey Road staff loved him, his proud dad said.
Studio 2 is where The Beatles recorded most of their albums, and is the preferred studio for contemporary bands. “It’s like a small high school gym,” Tucker said.
They were in London about a week altogether, courtesy of money that Tracey had set aside before her death. “Having Dylan there, that was nice,” Kerry said. “Dylan is at an age, he just finished an internship in Alabama, so he was gone for three months. And if he gets this job, he’ll get his own place, so this was our last thing we were able to do together. It was a really nice bonding thing for both of us.
“We both focused on that – that’s what Tracey would have wanted,” he added. “It was a really special experience because he was there to see it. I know the older he gets, he will realize what he got to see. If I was 22, even knowing what I knew at that time, it was just a room with microphones. I think as he gets older, these things were recorded there, he’ll sense that.”
Kerry and his current girlfriend (Cheri Mohr) happened to see John Lennon’s son Sean (who turns 50 on Oct. 9!) in New York City this summer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Though he’s accomplished this unreal dream, Tucker said it also would be cool to record at Abbey Road someday with Einstein’s Sister. “That would be incredibly hard to pull off,” he said. “Just coordinating Nick with his mixes, that was hard just to get him. I had to wait almost a year to get him. But man, I’ll die a happy man with where I am now. I know how fortunate I am to have done what I accomplished.”
Of Douglas, Tucker added: “There’s no way I could have gotten there without Bill. There’s no way I could have accomplished what I accomplished without Bill, so I felt Bill needed to be a part of it. Plus, it was one less lyric I had to write.”
Friday’s concert will feature Josie Abigail and Alex Axup as openers. For tickets, click HERE.
Abbey Road mixing engineer Nick Davis (left) with Kerry Tucker in January 2025.
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