Susan Shelley
Susan Shelley | |
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 Susan Shelley, 1962 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 3 January 1926 Etra, Alscia |
| Died | 16 December 2016 (aged 90) Mişeyáke, Mişeyáke, Gylias |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1950–2016 |
| Labels | |
| Associated acts |
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Susan Shelley (Gylic transcription: Suzyn Şeli; 3 January 1926 – 16 December 2016) was a Gylian record producer, arranger, composer, audio engineer, and musician. She was considered one of the greatest producers and arrangers in Gylian music, and was best-known for her work with The Beaties. She produced all of the Beaties' releases during their career, and was referred to as the "fifth Beatie".
Susan began her lengthy career by producing comedy and novelty records by acts like Kay and Windsor, Niní Marshall, and Terri "Cupcake" Mason. Her work with the Beaties was greatly influential, in establishing their innovative recording practices and developing the recording studio as an instrument. Interviews and appearances in specials like The Beaties at Work and The Beaties Anthology further added to her recognition by highlighting her distinctive public image, which would have an impact on popular culture and be immortalised by documentaries like Susan Shelley: A Musical Life.
Susan was one of Gylias' most prolific producers and arrangers, working with a huge variety of musicians during her six decades-long career. She was Gylias' most successful composer of contemporary classical music, earning public favour for her melodicism and avoidance of dissonance and atonality. She also composed, arranged, and produced film and television scores.
Early life
Susan Shelley was born on 3 January 1926 in Etra. She was an Anglophone of mixed Allamunnae and Shalumite descent.
She was born into a prestigious and affluent family, and had an older sister, Irene. Her parents Henry and Beatrice managed the Royal Concert Hall in the capital, and Henry also served on the Legislative Council as a member of the National Unity Party, and would later serve in the Senate for the same party after the Liberation War.
She described her childhood as "very happy, very disciplined, and very artistic". She was thoroughly imbued with the values of the "hurried province", producing the regal personality that marked her throughout her life.
She recalled her childhood in Susan Shelley: A Musical Life as follows:
"I lucked into the most fortuitous, warm, constructive kind of family context imaginable. My father was a councillor. My mother worked with some of the best musicians of the time at the Royal Concert Hall. They were wholesome, they neither smoked nor drank, and they never used bad language. I never heard a four-letter word. It didn't exist in my wholesome family setting."
Susan was a bright student who did very well in school. She gained a reputation among her classmates for being unusually mature for her age, and was often consulted for advice or trusted with important information. When she was 6, her parents acquired a piano, which sparked her interest in music. She took piano lessons from the age of 8. Her parents' occupation allowed her to meet many famous musicians from an early age. As she wrote in her autobiography:
"By the time I'd entered adolescence, there was no question in my mind: I would be a musician. The idea of dedicating my life to anything else was simply laughable. My parents were passionate about music, and the decision pleased them greatly. My mother advised me to aim higher: that I should be the best musician in the world."
After Alscia voted to join the Free Territories, the family initially moved to Molise, to escape the Liberation War, and subsequently to the Northern States. She continued her education in the Northern States, and attended the Royal Northian Conservatory of Music, where she studied piano, clarinet, and orchestration. She graduated in 1948, and the same year married her husband.
Susan's ambitions changed while at the conservatory, where she was exposed to early electroacoustic music. She wrote:
"Suddenly, my fantasies about being the next Rachmaninov seemed a bit ordinary. What if I could be both Rachmaninov and thoroughly modern? This became the question that drove me for the next few years."
Career beginnings
Northern States
While still attending the conservatory, Susan began working as a session musician to earn additional money. She played piano and wrote brass and strings arrangements. She also wrote and published several art music pieces under her name, but found difficulty drawing interest in them.
She began working for a Northian record label's classical music department, which she credited with training her to be a music engineer. She mainly recorded classical music, and folk music from around the Northern States.
By the 1950s, she was growing disillusioned with her career's path. She thought the classical music department too traditionalist and unwilling her accomodate her interest in modern music, and had concluded that publishing her works alone wasn't enough to gain an audience.
Nevertheless, she stated: "I don't want to give the impression I was miserable … the Northern States treated us very well. We had a nice home. I had a rewarding job, my husband had a rewarding job. We lived comfortably. Our only indulgence was the department store, so we were always well-dressed."
Free Territories and Gylias
With the Liberation War now in its final stage, Susan moved with her husband to the Free Territories. The move greatly benefited her career, and she joked that it made her "a giant fish in a very small pond" compared to her situation in the Northern States.
Besides her work as a session musician and arranger, she found work as an engineer and producer for radio. This provided her with her first opportunities to work with comedians. She produced Kay and Windsor's The Best of Kay and Windsor (1958) and The Rest of Kay and Windsor (1959), the first Gylian comedy albums recorded in a studio. With their mixture of spoken sketches and music spoofs, the albums were critical and commercial successes in Gylias. She went on to work with other comedians like Niní Marshall and Terri "Cupcake" Mason, and in 1962 collaborated with Megelanese musician Maddalena Fagandini on the single "Time Beat"/"Waltz in Orbit".
A recording session with the Hilda Wechsler Big Band increased her fame within the Gylian music industry. Although Hilda had a reputation as a strong disciplinarian and a control freak in the studio, Susan challenged her and got her to accept her authority in the studio. The status of "the woman who made Hilda Wechsler back down" burnished her reputation.
The Beaties
Beginning of collaboration
In 1962, Susan was contacted by Hiroshi and Misaki Morishima, the managers of The Beaties, to see if she would be interested in working with them. Susan first met with Hiroshi and Misaki, who made a good impression on her. She thought they were "serious and honest", and discovered they were also the parents of two of the bandmembers, which made her interested.
The Beaties travelled to Mişeyáke, where Susan was then located, to have an "audition" for her. Susan thought their original songs were weak, but liked the sound of Haruka Morishima and Tsukasa Morishima's vocals. In the discussion afterwards, she asked if there was anything they didn't like, to which Sæna Kaþa replied, "I don't like your tie." That was the turning point of the conversation: Haruka and Tsukasa chimed in afterwards with jokes and comic wordplay, and Susan decided that she should work with them for their wit alone.
Susan traveled to Kyman to produce the Beaties' first singles and the Class Session EP, all released in 1962. At their first session, she tried to suggest they recorded a song written by a professional songwriter, but Haruka and Tsukasa declined, since it wasn't written by them. Susan accepted and adopted the same mindset, refusing to let the Beaties record songs not written by themselves in the studio, with the sole exception of the Class Session EP.
Having initially commuted between Mişeyáke and Kyman, Susan settled in Kyman more permanently starting in 1964, when she helped the Beaties establish Beat Studios. Once the Beaties entered their "part-time years" in 1970, she resumed her commuting lifestyle, traveling to various other studios to work with other musicians whenever there were no Beaties projects in the works.
Producer and band
Susan produced every Beaties release throughout their career. She was initially also the sole audio engineer for their studio recordings, before assistants were hired.
The band and producer enjoyed a strong and close friendship that lasted throughout their lives. The Beaties trusted Susan completely, and let her handle decisions they couldn't agree on. In the studio, Susan enjoyed full control. She made the final decisions for what takes were acceptable and what songs were fit for release, in close consultation with the band. The Beaties were happy to let Susan exercise authority in the studio, because she did so in a discreet manner, and entrusting her with responsibility helped defuse creative arguments.
As their assistant Mal Evans wrote in Living the Beaties' Legend:
"They could talk among themselves all they wanted, but once they stepped into the studio, Ms. Shelley's word was law. The idea of questioning one of Ms. Shelley's decisions simply never occurred to them. Once she made a decision, the only thing to do was to nod and obey.
Ms. Shelley was amazingly artful in the way she held sway in the studio. She talked with all of the Beaties, individually and as a group, to find out where they stood. She tailored her decisions as much as possible to please all of them the most. Sometimes, all she needed was to parrot back an opinion they'd just expressed, and they'd cheer and acknowledge how great she was."
In the studio
Susan was very disciplined in the studio. She disliked jamming as a waste of recording time, and after adopting the band's emphasis on original songs, mainly tolerated playing covers as a way to calibrate recording equipment before a take.
She allowed the band's wives, family, and friends to visit them at the studio, but denied them access to the control room, and only allowed them in the recording area if they were playing an instrument or singing backing vocals on a song. Mal Evans wrote that she "made you feel welcome but made it clear you were a guest and expected you to behave appropriately."
She brought an element of ceremony to recording sessions. When the Beaties once showed up for a session dressed casually, she sent them home to "get dressed"; once they returned wearing their band outfits, she declared the session could proceed.
At the beginning of their working relationship, she played a major role in refining and arranging the Beaties' songs. She described the early days in Susan Shelley: A Musical Life:
"I would meet them in the studio to hear a new number. I would sit on the chair and Miss Morishima and Miss Morishima would stand around me with their acoustic guitars and play and sing it. Then I would make suggestions to improve it and we'd try it again.
I taught them the importance of the hook. You had to grab people's attention right off, so when they came in with a new song, I'd generally get a hold of it and 'top and tail' it — work out the beginning and the end. Anytime they came in with a new idea, I'd show them ways we could do it, or suggest improvements. What I loved most about the girls was they were always eager to try anything."
As the Beaties' artistry flourished, Susan's control in the studio was relaxed. She still engaged in extensive pre-production meetings with the band to decide on the direction and sound of a new project before recording would begin. She never attempted to influence the band's decisions — indeed, she embraced the stripped-down sound of 1970s releases like Plugged In, Wildlife, and Amplified.
Mal Evans recounted an anecdote from the mixing session of "Savoy Truffle", illustrating Susan's intuition for when to defer to the band's preferences:
"Ms. Shelley and Sæna were standing in the control room, listening to the mix. Sæna had asked for the saxophones to be distorted, she thought they were too clean. Sæna was getting pretty excited about the mix, and Ms. Shelley just stood peacefully smiling, as she always did. At one point, Ms. Shelley remarked, 'It's toppy.' She made no judgement, it was only an observation — heavy on the high-end. After a long pause, Sæna replied, just as happily, 'Yeah. It is.' Afterwards, Sæna broke into a bit of a dance because she loved the guitar solo, and Ms. Shelley just smiled at her like a delighted mother basking in her daughter's happiness."
Keeping the peace
Susan had a reputation for being "marvelously unflappable" in the studio. Mal Evans recalled: "Her face sported a permanent serene smile, and no mishaps or setbacks ever caused her to lose her cool or temper."
One incident during the "White Album" sessions illustrates Susan's relaxed demeanour and talent for defusing arguments. After recording what became the final track for "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", Haruka expressed a desire to remake the track. Susan replied, "No. This is the take. You won't improve on it." Haruka accepted and the band moved on to overdubs.
Later, Susan gave some advice to Haruka while she was unsatisfied with her lead vocal attempt, and Haruka replied, "Well, you come down and sing it." Susan did so: she ushered Haruka out of the studio and sang a vocal. Then she returned to the control room and asked, "I trust that's what you wanted?". A chastened Haruka replied, "Yes, now I know how to sing it." Haruka then went into the studio and sang the final vocal take.
After completing the take, Haruka returned and apologised to Susan. Susan laughed and replied, "My dear Miss Morishima, you were not at fault, and I would never hold it against you. Everything is alright." The two then embraced.
Arranging and producing
Susan's formal musical expertise helped fill the gaps between the Beaties' unrefined talent and the sound which distinguished them from other groups. She created all of their orchestral arrangements, and performed keyboard parts, in collaboration with the less musically experienced band. Famously, their releases until 1966 listed Susan as the only other musician besides the band.
One of her first crucial contributions to a Beaties recording was asking the Beaties to speed up "Please Please Me", originally written as a slow ballad, turning it into an upbeat pop rock song.
Susan's notable ideas included scoring "Yesterday" for a string quartet (convincing an initially reluctant Haruka), arranging the trumpet solo on "Penny Lane" based on Haruka's wishes, creating the quirky arrangement of "I Am the Walrus", helping Haruka implement the orchestral climax of "A Day in the Life", playing the honky-tonk piano solos on "Lovely Rita" and "Rocky Raccoon", and the sped-up baroque piano solo on "In My Life".
She provided the title of "Eleanor Rigby", after Haruka asked her for suggestions on a good English name.
One of Susan's most famous contributions, assisted by Amalareiks, was merging two separate takes of "Strawberry Fields Forever" into a single master through careful varispeeding and editing. These, plus innovations like automatic double tracking or the use of a Leslie speaker for vocals on "Tomorrow Never Knows", led the Beaties to refer to Susan as a "studio magician".
Susan played an integral role in assembling much of the material of Plugged In (1972), Wildlife (1974), and Amplified (1974). Much of it emerged from jams and improvisations by the Beaties, which Susan instructed them how to edit and refine into songs.
Dynamic
The Beaties greatly admired Susan, and trusted her completely, deferring to her on creative decisions that they didn't allow others to make for them. The respect was mutual: Susan loved the Beaties, and often praised them in the studio as "the greatest musicians in the world".
Susan's older age and distinctive appearance made a strong impression on the Beaties from their first meeting, and many witnesses would characterise their dynamic as "motherly". One measure of their mutual respect was their defiance of the Gylian norm of addressing someone by their first or full name: Susan maintained a sense of decorum — for her, "the girls" were always "Miss Morishima", "Miss Kaþa", and "Miss Ståblom" —, and the Beaties reciprocated, always addressing her as "Ms. Shelley" (Sheri-sama for Haruka and Tsukasa). Susan would similarly address assistants and other Making Records personnel with honorifics and surnames, which they considered a charming novelty coming from her.
Haruka once commended Susan by saying "Ms. Shelley was quite experimental for who she was, a grown-up". Indeed, Susan and the Beaties bonded over a shared sense of humour, and the Beaties enjoyed her work with Kay and Windsor. Susan enjoyed working on some of their psychedelic-era material like "Yellow Submarine" and "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)", fondly remarking during the sessions, "This is just like Kay and Windsor again."
Tsukasa similarly praised Susan: "Ms. Shelley made us what we were in the studio. She helped us develop a language to talk to other musicians."
Susan's comparatively conventional musical background fit together well with the Beaties' more instinctual approach. When producing the single "She Loves You", Susan diplomatically remarked that "most people" would not end the song with the major sixth chord used, to which Haruka replied, "It's such a great sound, I don't know why they wouldn't". When showing Haruka the possible voicings for "Yesterday", Susan remarked that "normally, one would avoid the D# in this context", to which Haruka replied, "Well, let's use it then, Ms. Shelley! Can't let a good note go to waste!".
From the beginning of their collaboration, Susan noticed that Sæna Kaþa seemed to be the most shy Beatie, as well as the one most intimidated by Haruka and Tsukasa's prolific songwriting. Susan encouraged Sæna: she helped devise melodies for guitar solos like "A Hard Day's Night" (which she doubled on sped-up piano) and "Michelle", and privately listened to her efforts at songwriting. Susan was a firm but fair critic, candidly telling Sæna which ideas she felt were not good enough to pursue, and helped her build up confidence before presenting material to the band.
"Fifth Beatie"
Due to her unbreakable bond and close friendship with the Beaties, Susan was referred to as the "fifth Beatie". The Beaties themselves described her as the "fifth Beatie" in the studio, acknowledging her crucial role in the creative side of their career.
Susan's importance to the band was reflected in the fact that she was the only person not in the band to appear occasionally in album artwork and covers. The cover of At Home with the Beaties was photographed at her house, and the inner sleeve showed her and her family alongside the Beaties. The record sleeve of the "White Album" had a set of five photographic portraits of the Beaties and Susan. Haruka had insisted that Susan be included in the set, and this served as an official acknowledgment of her as the "fifth Beatie".
Making Records
Susan became by default the main producer and engineer of Making Records. For the acts personally discovered or supported by the Beaties, it was a great honour to have Susan produce them as well; many attested to feeling overwhelmed during initial studio sessions by the sense of event.
Susan mainly worked in Beat Studios, and usually had few reasons to visit the Making Records office. However, she was instrumental in realising the tight-knit camaraderie among its staff, who held her in highest regard and would often visit Beat Studios to socialise and observe her at work. The Beaties' publicist Maya Takahashi described Susan as "a wonderful woman enveloped in this aura of effortless majesty, who made you feel at ease merely on sight".
Among the Making Records staff, Susan's closest friendships were with the label's personal stylist Deirdre Ní Gabhann, secretary Mary Willett, and "general factotum" Chris O'Dell.
Deirdre shared Susan's belief in sartorial excellence and especially admired her sense of style and the "touch of class" she brought to the studio. While most of the staff regarded Susan as a comforting maternal figure, Deirdre developed a dynamic with her that others likened to a mother and a daughter. Deirdre looked up to Susan and sought to model herself after her, both in terms of appearance and personality. Susan noticed this and once said, "Miss Ní Gabhann, they don't call you 'Smiling Deirdre' for nothing!", which became her nickname among colleagues.
In the documentary Susan Shelley: A Musical Life, Susan spoke fondly of Mary, describing her as "a lovely lady whose presence in the studio was welcome and unobtrusive". Susan observed that the Beaties seemed to most care about the opinions of two people regarding their music: herself and Mary. She recalled when she sensed the Beaties' own opinions on a song were divided, she "quite cheerfully" made sure Mary was present for the sessions, to smooth over tensions. She commented:
"The girls would never argue among themselves in my presence. It was simply not done. Arguing in front of Miss Willett was similarly unthinkable. Having the both of us in the studio was strength in numbers, a cast-iron guarantee everyone would be on their best behaviour. It was also useful because Miss Willett had this pleasantly passé taste in music. She loved the kind of music her parents and grandparents listened to.
Naturally, when we recorded songs like 'When I'm Sixty-Four', 'Your Mother Should Know', 'Honey Pie', or the Country Hams single, it was obligatory for Miss Willett to be in the studio. She'd be the first to rush in after a take and cheer about how fabulous the song was. And if any of the girls had misgivings about the song, they'd kindly keep them to themselves out of respect for Miss Willett. They would keep them to themselves out of respect for me as well, but it gave Miss Willett such joy to see the girls working on such songs."
Other artists
While the Beaties remained Susan's priority, she produced and arranged for many other artists.
Art music
She worked with Kaida Rakodi and Sofia Demes, Gylias' leading art music vocalists. She got along excellently with Kaida due to their shared perfectionist tendencies and playful senses of humour.
Another significant art music collaboration was with Quenminese pianist Jocelyn Tran, beginning in the 1990s. Susan produced several of her albums at the Palace of Sound, and the two recorded an album of piano duets together, Piano Duets. Susan and Jocelyn formed a close relationship, and Jocelyn spoke admiringly of Susan's unflappable and supportive personality.
Popular music
In 1988, she produced Elena Tessari's self-titled debut. Elena had sought her out specifically, and Susan was impressed by Elena's candour in wanting "Gylias' greatest producer" to handle her debut. Susan helped Elena achieve the jazzy, lush sound she sought, and arranged a crack team of session musicians to record the album. When Elena asked if "it would be a bother" to bring them together for an unknown's debut album, Susan laughed and replied, "Signorina, I arranged the Rockestra session, this is a piece of cake!". Susan went on to produce Elena's next 5 albums, working with her until 1994.
In 1989, Susan was approached by Samantha Thompson about a new band she managed, The Stone Roses. Susan attended one of their gigs, and agreed to work with them. She produced their first albums The Stone Roses (1989) and Turns Into Stone (1990), and her production received a lion's share of the credit for making them one of the most successful Gylian dance-rock bands.
Susan began working with Stella Star in 1993, and produced all their releases from Bossa Nova 2001 until they disbanded. Stella Star had sought her out as a producer, with Maki Nomura telling her, "You've made the Beaties great, and it would be an honour if you could make us great as well." Susan enjoyed working with Stella Star, but joked in an interview with This Year's Star that with its members already quite experienced at recording and Kotomi Nakamura's role in the studio, "I didn't even have to do very much, and that made them very relaxing sessions."
In 1997, Susan produced The Verve's Urban Hymns. She described the sessions as "some of the most troublesome sessions I've ever been in" due to the band's internal tensions at the time. She had to frequently serve as peacemaker between vocalist Richard Ashcroft and guitarist Nick McCabe, whose visions for the band had become severely at odds. Although both were pleased with Susan's production and her string arrangement for "Lucky Man", Susan lamented being unable to reconcile the two and the arguments that erupted over the final tracklist.
Yoko Kanno asked Susan to produce Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts as they worked on the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, a collaboration that lasted from 1998 to 2002. Yoko was motivated to do so by Susan's reputation for making sessions run smoothly, as well as the great prestige of attaching her name to the project. Yoko also insisted that Susan deliver the spoken word introduction at the beginning of "Tank!", the anime's theme song, against her initial modesty. Yoko felt that Susan was the ideal person for the task, as her voice was both elegant and playful.
Aided by their collaboration for the soundtrack of The Magnificent Mademoiselles, Susan ended up producing Combustible Edison's albums Schizophonic! (1996) and The Impossible World (1998).
In 1999, Susan produced Stereolab's Voyage in the Milky Night, widely considered the band's masterpiece. The band credited Susan with helping clarify the vision and achieve the desired sound for the album.
One of her last sessions before her death was producing Mondo Fine.
Comedy
Susan's work with Kay and Windsor established her as one of Gylias' leading comedy producers. She produced numerous comedy and novelty records, and became a major figure in the development of recorded Gylian comedy.
Susan frequently used comedy records to experiment with recording techniques and sound effects, developing her talent for "painting sound pictures". Nelly Kay described Susan's own preference as being for "genteel and playful humour", especially absurd humour presented in a straight-faced manner.
Susan produced Terri "Cupcake" Mason's albums Songs for Adults Only (1960) and Back for Seconds (1960). Terri attributed the success of the albums largely to Susan's production, saying that the most valuable advice Susan gave her was to aim to be "funny and charming", and to effectively combine suggestive lyrics with an innocent demeanour.
Susan produced Niní Marshall's album Gylias for the Confused (1961), which compiled and polished the parodic travelogues she had been performing on radio in the Free Territories. She particularly enjoyed working on the album due to her fondness for Niní's deadpan narration presenting fictional locations, whose names were often made up of Gylic puns. This made it one of the best illustrations of Susan's love of "genteel and playful humour", as Nelly Kay stated.
Studio philosophy
Susan was an influential champion of the recording studio as an instrument. She believed that studio and live recordings were so different that trying to make them equivalent was pointless, and that it was a musician's duty to fully expore the musical possibilities of the studio without worrying about live performance.
She strongly believed that studio environments had to be relaxed and comfortable, so that the musicians would feel comfortable and thus maintain their concentration. She shared the Beaties' horror of "sterile" studio environments, and took the opportunity to realise her vision with Beat Studios and the Palace of Sound, which provided both a relaxed environment to encourage creativity and a professional recording atmosphere.
Susan's dynamic with the Beaties, which Haruka once described as "her as the straight woman and us as the loonies", manifested itself in numerous other collaborations. Susan was unfailingly pragmatic in the studio, insisting on professionalism during recording, and this gave her a reputation as a master organiser, capable of keeping sessions running smoothly.
A family woman with an abhorrence of debauched lifestyles, Susan strictly limited the durations of her sessions to a maximum of 6 hours. She was the first to declare a session ended on the dot and leave, politely declining any requests from musicians for a few more minutes. She also refused to work at night, stating, "Night time is for sleeping."
She did not allow musicians to drink or take drugs in the studio, and would remind them, "You can take whatever you want to celebrate after we've finished. Right now, we're recording, and I ask that you please remain sober until we finish." She personally set an example in this regard by only ever drinking water in the studio.
In order to avoid nervousness caused by knowingly recording songs, Susan removed red lights that indicated recording was underway from studios she worked in, and had none installed in Beat Studios or the Palace of Sound in the first place. She would keep recording from the beginning of a session until its end, and asked musicians to run through the songs without knowing they were recorded. When they took a break from recording, Susan would keep the best takes and erase and reuse the rest of the tape.
Similarly, she used the punch in/out technique heavily. She would ask musicians before a take to run through the complete song, not stopping regardless of any mistakes. If the take was sufficiently strong, she would erase the parts with mistakes and ask musicians to overdub them.
As a result of Susan's disciplined approach to the studio, few outtakes or alternate takes exist from projects she worked on.
Starting in the 1990s, Susan enthusiastically embraced digital non-linear recording and editing. She believed that non-linear editing meant that musicians would have to record fewer takes, and enabled more seamless editing. Yoko Kanno described Susan as "probably the most computer-savvy grandmother I've met", noting how knowledgeable and enthusiastic she was about using computers and the latest technology to record and edit music. As an inside joke, the staff at Beat Studios and Palace of Sound decorated the monitors of the master computers with miniature hats and bows like the ones Susan wore, a gesture that touched her greatly.
Composing
Susan composed orchestral music, and published it under her own name. Her music was performed by various Gylian orchestras, and she attended several concerts in her honour. One held to mark her 80th birthday proved such an overwhelming experience that her son Paul reported she "cried with happiness all the way home and well into the evening".
She was one of Gylias' most prolific composers. Her numerous compositions include orchestral suites, song cycles, compositions for solo instruments, symphonies, sonatas, and ballets.
She managed to capitalise on her fame as "Gylias' greatest producer" to gain an audience for her music, making her Gylias' most successful composer of art music. Her music was not just critically acclaimed, but also gained popularity because of its accessibility. Susan's orchestral works prioritised melody and beauty, and avoided dissonance or atonality. She stated her belief that "an audience must leave a concert feeling their soul has been nourished, and humming or whistling whatever fragment they've heard that impressed them the most." Her aesthetic preferences and approach to composing meant she was often described as a neoclassicist.
She composed and published works of popular music as well, like her 1962 single with Maddalena Fagandini, "Time Beat"/"Waltz in Orbit". She sometimes straddled the two worlds: in 1964–1966, she recorded three albums of instrumental arrangements of Beaties songs as "Susan Shelley and Her Orchestra".
She composed, arranged, and produced film and television scores since the early 1960s. Some of her best-known soundtracks included:
- My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988), which she "scored as if it was a serious film" in order to enhance the comedy;
- The Magnificent Mademoiselles (1994–1997), a heavily jazz-oriented collaboration with Combustible Edison;
- The Amazing Inflatable Girl (2014), whose Alscian-tinged fusion of art music and jazz was hailed as a late-career highlight.
She was commissioned to write themes for Gylian Radio and Gylian Television on special occasions.
Sound Records
Susan established Sound Records in 1966. She had no interest in the economic side of the music industry, and treated the label mainly as an organisational tool. She used it to release her own works and negotiate co-distribution agreements for albums she produced.
She stated in an interview:
"Sound Records exists to keep my catalogue in order, that's all. Anything that comes out on it is something I've worked on — composing, arranging, producing, and so on. Orchestral pieces and scores I wrote, bands I produced and arranged for. It's purely a label. Everyone owns their master recordings and can negotiate distribution deals elsewhere. I don't make any money from it. I just ask nicely if I could put the logo on their CD as well so people know I was involved. Nobody's refused."
Palace of Sound
Encouraged by her experience at Beat Studios, Susan established the Palace of Sound in Mişeyáke in 1968. She ambitiously envisioned it as "the greatest recording studio in Gylias", and received approval to make the complex one of the largest buildings in Mişeyáke.
The complex was built to Susan's precise specifications, and the result combined state-of-the-art recording facilities with a comfortable environment and numerous amenities, achieving her vision of a relaxed space that would encourage musicians' creativity while still providing a professional recording atmosphere.
Susan was proud of having achieved her ambitions with Palace of Sound, and particularly enjoyed the way its Art Deco architecture and large size made it one of Mişeyáke's beloved landmarks. Palace of Sound remains one of Gylias' premier recording locations, for both music and film, television, or video game productions, and is Gylias' largest recording complex, containing a total of 5 studios.
Books and documentaries
In 1979, Susan published All You Need Is Ears, a memoir that described her work with the Beaties and other artists. It was a critical and commercial success. The Gylian Herald's review praised the book's "appealing tunnel vision", writing: "Susan cheerfully disregards most of her early life in order to write almost exclusively about music, which she does with the clarity and serenity of a woman who's achieved enlightenment."
In 1984, she wrote How to Make Music, a lengthy guide to writing, recording, and performing.
She published a second memoir in 1999, With a Little Help from My Friends, covering her career and collaborations from the previous 20 years.
She appeared in the documentaries The Beaties at Work, The Beaties Anthology, The Band of 20th Century, and Cowboy Bebop: The Documentary, and received a Rasa Ḑeşéy documentary dedicated to her career, Susan Shelley: A Musical Life. Additional interview footage from the latter was included in Rasa's 2012 documentary Our Clothes.
Reputation
Gylias Review wrote in 2006 that "At age 80, Susan enjoys a godlike reputation, and her life is spoken of in superlatives." It described her as "the most revered woman in the Gylian music industry".
Susan was hailed as "the greatest producer in Gylias" during her lifetime, and continues to be held in high esteem by musicians. For generations of Gylians, she represented the ideal record producer: a sympathetic adult figure, both disciplined and playful, who worked with musicians as equals and used her talent to achieve the most favourable studio results.
Susan was praised by many of the musicians she worked with. Maki Nomura said of their collaboration: "It was wonderfully comforting to know that Stella Star were in very good hands once Susan walked into the studio." Her contemporary Charlotte Böttcher lauded Susan as "the greatest producer in Gylias, and so modest I sometimes wonder whether she spirits specifically created her to be the perfect person." Jane Birkin similarly called her "the greatest producer" and said that "without her, my career wouldn't have been possible", crediting Susan with establishing the role and importance of a record producer in the Gylian music industry.
Jocelyn Tran similarly spoke highly of Susan's comforting and serene demeanour in the studio, as well as her patience and encouragement. She called Susan "the best collaborator I ever had".
Susan's passion for music drove her extraordinary prolific streak. She worked with countless musicians throughout her career, and indeed jokingly expressed a desire to "produce every Gylian musician in existence". According to her friends, she particularly enjoyed the chance to work with seemingly "limited" musicians or celebrities interested in branching out into music, as she would apply her full talents to the task of squeezing out credible creative works from them. Her son Alex commented: "Mother was just fundamentally serious about music. Even if she was producing a comedy track, she still treated it as if it was a masterpiece in waiting. It was the only way she could work."
Musical Update wrote that "Susan Shelley forever determined the sound of Gylian popular music: sexy, playful, charming, and aspiring to beauty and high production standards. Her work with the Beaties became the model for how to polish rock music with touches of jazz and class without losing its elemental energy and excitement."
Saorlaith Ní Curnín remarked that Susan "has come closest out of us all to living a spotless life. She has no blemish or controversy on her record, she never said an unkind word about anyone, and all the people who've worked with her, nobody has ever had a bad word to say about her."
Commercial performance
Susan's albums of art music were the most commercially successful in Gylian history. She reflected with pride that her albums of original orchestral works were best-sellers: many of them distributed at least 1 million copies, and even the least successful had reached over 500.000 copies. She cheerfully acknowledged that her name and face on the album covers was likely a big factor in the commercial success, but expressed pride that "in whatever small way" she contributed to introducing newer generations and audiences to art music.
Between her involvement with the Beaties, Stella Star, and others, Capital described her as "by an overwhelming margin, the most commercially successful musician in the history of Tyran." Liisa Salmela similarly observed that while vocalists like Kaida Rakodi and Sofia Demes were more vocal about their ambition to carve a place for art music in a scene dominated by pop and rock, "the public quietly bought Susan's album in droves and flocked to her concerts".
Susan's best-selling release is The Works of Susan Shelley, a 10-disc box set of her orchestral works released in 2006, on her 80th birthday. The box set's distribution figures surpassed 10 million copies in Gylias. It was released simultaneously with the box set The Productions of Susan Shelley, which compiled her popular music works and collaborations, specifically excluding her work with the Beaties in order to highlight lesser-known parts of her career.
Hearing
Susan was famed for her finely-tuned hearing, and was regarded by her peers as having golden ears. In old age, she showed no decline in hearing acuity.
In the 1980s and 1990s, she was a consultant for Gylmuse on digital audio systems, and for Proton on selecting the ideal file formats for digital distribution of music.
She enforced strict rules in the studio for protecting herself and the participants from hearing loss. These included: maintaining a distance between the musicians and their amplifiers, having musicians wear thick headphones while recording, and listening to playbacks at a comfortable volume. Haruka stated in The Beaties Anthology: "The one sacred rule of the studio, observed most rigorously, is that Ms. Shelley and Ms. Shelley alone controls the volume."
She also drew humour out of the subject to relax her collaborators. Yoko Kanno recalled in Cowboy Bebop: The Documentary:
"When we were recording 'Tank!', Ms. Shelley made a habit before a take to raise her finger to her mouth and say 'shhhh', in jest. It made us laugh, because the opening is this great big grab you by the neck moment, and the ending is of course an almighty racket itself. [laughs] It became this silly tradition of sorts, that Ms. Shelley would do before we recorded any Seatbelts song."
Views on fame
Susan was praised by her family and collaborators for her humility. While she enjoyed critical acclaim and was held in high regard throughout her career, she lived her life "politely oblivious to her fame", in the words of her husband.
She was aware of her reputation, and avoided doing anything in public that would tarnish it or her public image. Beyond that, she avoided reading reviews of her work. She stated: "In order to function properly, musicians and music journalists must maintain a respectful separation."
Responding to the death of Liisa Salmela, who had championed both her work and that of the Beaties, Susan commented that "Ms. Salmela gave me the sweetest kisses" — her sole acknowledgement of reviews.
She was easily recognised in public due to her distinctive outfit. She would react to being recognised with "genteel bemusement" and make small talk, while jokingly feigning ignorance of her fame or beauty.
She was sometimes described as a "paragon of tact" because she always talked diplomatically about those she worked with and carefully avoided blaming anyone for difficult situations or unsatisfactory works. Cultural commentator Hanako Fukui wrote that Susan's way of talking about her own works was equally renowned: "She had an astonishing ability to convey a quiet enthusiasm about her work while discussing it with a detachment that made her seem like her own impartial commentator."
In the studio, Susan was noted for being generous with praise for those she worked with, but would always modestly decline or play down praise she received for her contributions. Chris O'Dell remarked that "Ms. Shelley always denied she was the best if someone said that to her — and that's what made her the best."
She elaborated on her philosophy in Susan Shelley: A Musical Life as follows:
"One of the greatest lessons I learned from my parents was how to say 'no' with elegance. It is an art, to decline an invitation or an offer but with such grace that the other person takes it as an honour. I would never have had my career without such an ability. Praise can be intoxicating. It can go to your head, and you lose sight of things, you come to think you're invincible. Hubris always begets Nemesis.
I understood that the best course for my career was to be a smiling sphinx. I remain composed because it puts others at ease — by creating peace, I am at peace. I understand that I am famous, but only in the abstract way in which I am still Alscian. Praise is something that must be generously bestowed on others, never oneself. My music must speak for itself — careless chatter can only bungle. I've always been proud of my music, but only now, in old age, do I feel I've fallen in love with it. It is a most marvelous reward."
Public image
Appearance
Susan's public recognition was aided by her distinctive appearance and outfit: long strawberry blonde hair, round framed glasses, a white collared shirt with a black ribbon and black dress, and a black wide-brimmed hat with a dark purple bow.
Susan first adopted the outfit while at the Royal Northian Conservatory of Music. She wore it to a session one day, and when she dressed differently the next day, someone arrived at the studio and asked for "the girl with the black hat and the white shirt". She was then inspired to adopt the outfit as her trademark. For the rest of her life, she wore it exclusively in public.
She had blue-green eyes, which Deirdre Ní Gabhann described as "kind eyes, ones you could look into for hours and hours".
Susan's interviews and public appearances made her an unexpected style icon, featured in fashion-oriented magazines like L'Petit Écho and Silhouette, and seen by many as an ideal of the "elegant older lady". Susan was amused by this, and embraced the image. She was fond of responding to compliments about her appearance with: "If you think I look beautiful, wait until you hear the music I'm working on!".
Her outfit complemented the elegant and unflappable personality she was renowned for. Rasa Ḑeşéy said admiringly while working on her documentary that Susan "is a woman with only two facial expressions, which are the most important — a serene smile, or a sly smile."
She appeared on the covers of all her albums, singles, or published scores, and hired Gylias' best possible photographers to take pictures of her.
One of Susan's only ventures into business unrelated to music was to collaborate with several Gylian clothesmaking companies to offer reproductions of her outfit, as well as with optics manufacturers to offer reproductions of her specific model of glasses. These proved greatly popular.
As she grew older, she maintained her hair colour by regular dyeing. She joked in an interview: "I just wouldn't look right with white hair."
She understood and appreciated the way her beauty had aided her career. When ArtNet was set up, she collected and uploaded all of her photographs and portraits onto the site, making her one of the most popular members of the site.
Voice
Susan had a mellifluous voice that contributed to her "motherly" image and reputation. Maki Nomura commented:
"Ms. Shelley believed words were precious, not to be wasted. She spent most of her time in the studio lost in thought with a serene smile. She let everyone else talk first, and only then would she say her part, and it had the greatest weight. When you asked her anything, she would pause before answering, like she was weighing her words carefully."
Susan described her own voice as a contralto, and often sang backing vocals on projects she worked on, or occasionally contributed spoken word parts. She remarked in Susan Shelley: A Musical Life:
"I began intentionally trying to lower my voice in adolescence. I liked that it seemed to give me more gravitas, made me sound wiser. And then I noticed the effect it had on the boys. It certainly helps with flirting, I can say! [laughs]
I used to do these speaking exercises at home to try and get the right sound. I'd speak while rubbing my belly, to make sure the voice came from there. I had a very specific idea what the perfect voice would be for me — it should sound full and warm, like rich chocolate. I don't think I would've gotten as far if my voice was thinner or squeaky."
Humour
She had a playful sense of humour that she used to make others comfortable and to maintain morale in the studio. Liisa Salmela noted in The Beaties Anthology that "Ms. Shelley spent as much time encouraging 'the girls' to be silly and unafraid of embarrassment as she did keeping them focused. She was as serious about fun and play as she was about work."
She had several signs that she would hang above the entrance to the studio when working. Their messages included: "Quiet please! Susan Shelley in progress"; "Rock and roll must be good for the soul, not bad for the health"; "Let's keep the IWS happy".
Private life
Marriage
Susan married Amjasluwoh Uktotor, a fellow Royal Northian Conservatory of Music student, in 1948. Together, they adopted four children — Alex, Paul, Lucy, and George —, all of whom followed her mother into careers in music.
Susan and Amjasluwoh's marriage was happy and enduring. The two loved each other deeply and were devoted to each other. Amjasluwoh so admired his wife that he took Susan's surname upon marriage, and was a "househusband", happy to introduce himself to others as "Susan Shelley's husband". He began using the English name "Alan" out of admiration for Susan's background, and thus was frequently called "Alan Shelley". Susan's own pet name for him was "dear old Alan".
When they were out together, Susan and Amjasluwoh caused amusement by their contrasting personalities: Amjasluwoh was "an enthusiastic and irrepressible chatterbox", while Susan was "peaceful and warm", sometimes mainly communicating non-verbally with her husband by embracing him, holding hands, or kissing him. They were openly affectionate, and were inseparable in public, almost always holding hands. Neither was shy about their mutual love and equal respect.
Both Susan and Amjasluwoh praised each other's talents as lovers, and they had sex as often as possible. Haruka remarked that they were "newlyweds from their wedding day until their death". As she grew older, Susan talked more frequently in interviews and documentaries about her sex life and frequency of sex, in order to combat ageism and provide a positive model for aging gracefully.
Parenthood
Mary Willett described Susan as "a wonderful mother — very warm and lovely with her kids. She was always great with children. And her kids turned out so nice and well-behaved, too."
Susan was a generous and loving mother to her children, but emphasised a sense of responsibility and tidiness. As a teenager, Paul once asked her for a tattoo with the kanji for "music" ("音楽"). Susan asked him to first read about the Miranian language and write an essay on the topic, which he described as "her way of asking me to think carefully about whether I really wanted this." He did as requested, and she surprised him by researching the best tattoo parlour in the city and taking him there to get the tattoo for his birthday.
Susan sought to encourage a love of the arts, intellectual curiosity, and a thirst for knowledge in her children, much like her own parents had for her. She regularly encouraged her children to write essays or reports on topics they were interested in, and had a bulletin board at home where she would proudly display her children's essays and drawings.
By the 2000s, Susan had become a great-grandmother, as her children had grandchildren, and those in turn had great-grandchildren.
Personality and habits
Friends often described Susan as having a "regal" personality, one which she attributed to her Alscian youth. Among her favourite books were Valeria Valente's A Design for Better Living and her children's memoir Tali Genitori, Tali Bambini. Her husband stated that she was very disciplined in private, and ran her household like "a very tight ship".
Rasa Ḑeşéy commented that in public, Susan and her family "were the perfect family, in a pleasantly old-fashioned sort of way. They were always dressed to the nines, they were always polite, and they were surrounded by this air of love and comfort. They seemed to have stepped out of a fabulous fairytale."
Susan kept a regular diary from 1946 until her death, and was known for meticulously logging her daily activities, no matter how mundane. Her diaries would see posthumous publication to critical acclaim, and contain valuable reminiscences and insights from her musical projects. Amjasluwoh acknowledged her as "the engine" of the family, and she took the initiative to schedule in advance family outings and leisure activities. Her son George said that "we all took after her example and learned that being well-organised reflects your inner peace."
She was a generous and enthusiastic host to those who visited her, and took personal responsibility for ensuring that "any guests would end the evening too stuffed to walk properly".
When having meals with her family, she would insist that everybody say itadakimasu before they began eating.
Susan was teetotal and never used profanity in her life. She was a vegetarian who led an active lifestyle, cycling to engagements and exercising at home.
She enjoyed robust health throughout her life. Rasa Ḑeşéy commented that during the production of Susan Shelley: A Musical Life, "She was physically active, suffered no ailments, her mind remained sharp as ever, and once she dyed her hair and put on makeup she looked so much younger you'd be amazed to think she was in her eighties."
Longevity ran in the family: both her parents Henry and Beatrice and her older sister Irene lived to be nonagenarians. Irene outlived her sister by a year.
Lucy remarked:
"Mother never judged people or tried to tell them how to behave. She was raised to live and let live, to accept others as they are. All the same, the people she knew, worked with, was friends with, they were in awe of her, respected her greatly. Without her saying anything, they would behave in certain ways that they thought would make her happy. They wouldn't eat meat in her presence, they wouldn't swear in her presence, they'd gently put away bottles where they couldn't be seen, things like that. And mother did notice, and it did please her very much. She was delighted to know people thought so highly of her that they'd change their behaviour to how they thought she'd like them to behave."
Languages
She was fluent in English, French, and Italian — all of whom she spoke with a refined accent —, and had passable knowledge of Zineran and Varan.
Amjasluwoh described Susan as speaking "a courtly sort of English, full of mannered phrases like 'most pleasing', that seemed to always rub off on whoever she was speaking with."
She deliberately chose the Gylic transcription of Suzyn for her first name as it was closer to how she pronounced it, as opposed to Suzan which was phonetically closer to the French "Susanne".
She discussed her defiance of the Gylian preference for first or full names in Susan Shelley: A Musical Life:
"My husband calls me 'darling', or 'honey', or 'beloved', or, the dear, he's even called me 'Ms. Shelley' a few times. [laughs] My children call me 'mother'. The girls call me 'Ms. Shelley'. In fact, everybody else does. After all, I do always tell the dears, 'Call me Ms. Shelley'. I think the last people who've called me by my first name were my parents, and my sister. Back in Alscia, we took honorifics seriously. I have surpassed my name, you could say. I've now earned the honour of being 'Ms. Shelley'.
I see that when my name appears in the media, after the initial mention, they use 'Ms. Shelley'. It's an honour they don't confer on anyone else — since no one else considers it an honour, of course. But it's why I love this country so. It respects one most dearly. I have said how I see it, and the whole of Gylias now agrees that anything but 'Ms. Shelley' is not proper. And that is ultimately the greatest honour. Not the names, but the esteem. The realisation that your compatriots think the world of you."
Religion
She was mainly a practitioner of Concordianism. She regularly practiced meditation and began her day with yoga exercises before getting dressed.
Wealth
Susan's commercially successful albums, prolific production work, and popular outfit reproductions made her wealthy. She was one of the richest Gylians during her life, with an estimated net worth of Ŧ10 billion as late as 2006.
She attended the Decleyre Summit together with the Beaties and was a participant in the Social Partnership Program.
Even with her wealth, Susan maintained a frugal lifestyle, noting that her biggest expenditures were stylish clothing to ensure her family was always well-dressed. She taught her children of the importance of financial literacy from a young age, telling Rasa that her "greatest nightmare" would've been for her children to turn out "spoiled, selfish, and insensitive".
Lucy recalled:
"Mother always made sure we had the basics — food, water, the finest clothing. She always practiced prudence, and instilled in us a sense that money is only a tool, it can't bring you everything. She felt that anything had to be used as long as it could be used. If we wanted a toy, she wanted us to make sure we'd keep it for a long time, not get bored with it and throw it away. If we wanted to see a movie, or a play, she wanted us to get the most of it. She would ask us to write an essay afterward about it, which we did."
Politics
Susan rarely talked about her political views. She only did so when asked directly, but otherwise remained quiet on the subject. During an interview, she described her philosophy as: "I'm not running for office or have any kind of special wisdom. I have nothing intelligent or valuable to say on the subject."
Susan was a Donatellist liberal, and according to her husband, loyally voted for the National Unity Party, the party of her father. At home, she usually read The National Observer over breakfast.
She condemned bigotry "of all kinds", and was a supporter of feminism, LGBT rights, and egalitarianism, signing several open letters and petitions on the subject.
She refused any nominations to the Senate made by presidents after 2000, explaining that while she felt honoured to be considered, she was too busy with her musical career to be able to serve effectively in the Senate. She also wanted to honour the memory of her father Henry, who had been "an accomplished and marvelous Senator" for the National Unity Party in the 1960s.
Death
Susan died in her sleep on the night of 16 December 2016 at her home in Mişeyáke, aged 90. It was stated to be of natural causes in the official announcement.
Funeral
She was granted an official funeral by Prime Minister Toni Vallas, in recognition of her services to Gylian culture. She was cremated and buried in Etra, on the grounds of her family home. Both Toni Vallas and President Carmen Dell'Orefice delivered eulogies at her state memorial service. Carmen's included the following:
"Ms. Shelley, as she politely preferred to be called, lived a life of greatness. She was our greatest producer, arranger, composer, beauty, wife, and mother. Yet these superlatives are inadequate for the kind of person she was, or the lives she has touched and enriched with her talents. Mere words do not suffice for the stature of her achivements, or the magnitude of our loss. One of our greatest Gylians has become immortal. How blessed we were to share our time with her."
Additional eulogies were delivered by her husband Amjasluwoh, her older sister Irene, her son Alex, and Haruka Morishima.
Tributes
Many of the musicians Susan had worked with paid tribute to her in the media after her death.
Jocelyn Tran wrote an original composition, Requiem for Susan Shelley, to commemorate her. It was the first song played at her first concert following Susan's death.
Susan Shelley Library
Susan donated all of her writings and works to the National Archives upon her death, specifying that they be made available "to everyone, for free, forever". Mişeyáke Mayor Lisa d'Arville took the initiative to build a new complex to house the collection, which was inaugurated in 2020. The Susan Shelley Library archives all of Susan's writings and works — including diaries, sheet music and scores, her published books and documentaries —, indexed and available for anyone to peruse for free.
Her diaries were published after her death in 7 volumes, each covering a decade.