Audio apprenticeships don't come any better than assisting on Beatles sessions at Abbey Road studios. Richard learnt the ropes from Geoff Emerick -- ramping the varispeed on the ADT machine, and cutting up tape slivers for Sgt. Pepper's -- engineered solo albums for Lennon and McCartney, before moving to Australia where he had a string of No. 1s, including Sherbet's Howzat and Stevie Wright's Evie. We were honoured to present Richard with the Producer/Engineer Lifetime Achievement Award as a part of ARIA Week at Studios 301's 90th birthday celebration. Richard Lush was a Stones fan. Everyone else at his school were "Beatle-people", but a bunch of Liverpudlians in twee jackets flipping their mop tops wasn't doing it for the self-described rebel; he liked the rawness of the Stones and Mick Jagger's attitude. Then he heard Twist & Shout, a feistier cut which tipped him towards The Beatles before he had any idea his career would forever be linked with the band. Maybe he would have turned sooner if he'd met Jagger as a school kid instead of later in life. "He came in on a Beatles session once wearing a white suit and I couldn't believe how tiny he was," remembered Richard, demolishing the giant stature he'd cultivated of the singer.
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