Susan Shelley
Susan Shelley | |
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 Susan Shelley, 1962 | |
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| Also known as | Ms. Shelley |
| Born | 3 January 1926 Etra, Alscia |
| Died | 16 December 2016 (aged 90) Mişeyáke, Mişeyáke, Gylias |
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| Years active | 1950–2016 |
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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".
Born into the prestigious Shelley family, 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. She achieved a distinctive public image and illustrious reputation, which was highlighted in her interviews and appearances in documentaries like The Beaties at Work, The Beaties Anthology, and 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. As a composer she wrote in many genres, including art music and popular music. 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, as well as the theme music for the Gylian National Broadcasting Service, compiled on Themes for Broadcasting.
Considered by music critics "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in Gylian history", Susan's career passed in a continuous series of critical acclaim and commercial success until her death. She was held in high regard by musicians, and the recipient of many honours. Her life and work were celebrated in Gylias, and to Gylians she represented a vision of success, both for her work and for her loving family life. Numerous obituaries and tributes after her death acknowledged her as one of the greatest Gylians of all time.
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 the prestigious and affluent Shelley 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 began taking piano lessons, and created her first piano composition, "The Spider's Dance", aged 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, oboe, 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.
She initially commuted between Mişeyáke and Kyman. In 1964, she helped the Beaties establish Beat Studios. The experience of setting up Beat Studios encouraged her to establish the Palace of Sound in Mişeyáke. Once the Beaties entered their "part-time years" in 1970, the Palace of Sound became her main recording studio due to its state-of-the-art facilities and proximity to her home.
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."
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.
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. As long as you were quiet and didn't interfere with work, you were always welcome to visit."
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.
Mary Willett said that Susan called the shots in the studio by "convincing them that Ms. Shelley was right, and that what Ms. Shelley wants, they also want. She never pushed it and was an amazing persuader, so for us, contradicting Ms. Shelley was unthinkable. No matter how far out things got, no matter how many risks they took, in the studio they dressed to Ms. Shelley's standards and obeyed her decisions. She was a rock of stability in the studio, and set a marvelous example of discipline and work ethic that spread to everyone she worked with."
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."
Even as the Beaties' working habits changed around 1968, from tightly rehearsing a backing track to recording all the rehearsals and jamming, then adding overdubs to the best take, Susan maintained discipline and decorum in the studio, insisting on regular hours and a focus on the respective songs.
In a humorous summary of their relationship, Tsukasa stated in The Beaties Anthology that "Ms. Shelley has never, ever, seen us wearing anything but our band outfits." Susan agreed in Susan Shelley: A Musical Life, making the similar quip, "To see the Beaties not dressed as the Beaties would be a crime against nature."
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."
She was described as "eternally diplomatic" in the studio. In order to maintain the façade of infability in her relationship with the Beaties, she never criticised their ideas directly. Instead, she couched them in euphemisms — typically, saying "I'm not entirely sure" about the respective element, or referring to her conventional musical training.
Similarly, the Beaties never criticised or challenged one of Susan's ideas directly, and took pains to express their doubts with similar diplomacy and euphemisms. Mary joked that Susan's presence turned the studio into "a wonderful temple of good manners", where both Susan and the Beaties would "engage in this pleasant dance of politeness, which mutually polished their wit, sharpened their judgement, and strengthened their creativity."
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!".
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 blurted out, "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.
The Beaties greatly valued Susan's soothing presence and ability to keep the peace, and frankly declared that they could never imagine working with another producer. One biographer wrote that no other producer could match the way the Beaties happily accepted Susan's authority without question, and loyally carried out her every request.
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". Misaki Morishima herself quipped, "I'm only Haruka and Tsukasa's mother. Ms. Shelley is the mother of the Beaties." 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."
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".
Haruka jokingly summarised the Beaties' artistic development in an interview with Mana Kirishima:
Haruka Morishima: "When we started out, we wrote songs to please our fans. Now, we write them to please Ms. Shelley."
Mana Kirishima: "What about pleasing yourselves?"
Haruka Morishima: "By pleasing Ms. Shelley, we please ourselves."
Susan's approach in the studio would be filmed and immortalised in several documentaries, including The Beaties at Work, The Beaties Anthology, and Susan Shelley: A Musical Life.
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."
Among the Making Records acts, Susan developed a close relationship with Marian Ellis, whom she was very fond of. Marian herself remarked that at Making Records, Susan determined her sound, and Deirdre Ní Gabhann her appearance. Marian also credited Susan with steering her away from unhealthy lifestyles: "Ms. Shelley was especially adamant that I not do anything that would affect my voice. She cautioned me quite firmly against drugs, smoking, and drinking. She was the right person to do so — anyone else might've made me roll my eyes, but one does not argue with Ms. Shelley."
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, playful senses of humour, and what she jokingly called "our mutual belief in dress codes as desirable in the studio".
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 the late 1980s, Susan began collaborating with Asuka and the Mighty Invincibles. She produced their most successful albums during the 1980s and 1990s. Asuka credited her production expertise and the cachet of her name with fueling the hype that they were the "next Beaties", an aspect that Susan found amusing.
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.
She described her work with Mondo Fine as a highlight of her late career. She discovered the group, produced their albums until her death, and brought them in as the jazz combo for the soundtrack of Castle Bang. She remarked in one of her last interviews: "I've tried to turn the lovely ladies of Mondo Fine into my idea of a perfect group. Complete songwriting discipline, complete instrumental chemistry, and complete elegance in look."
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.
Celebrities
Susan 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 standard approach to these projects was to first meet with the celebrity in question, to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses, and form a good idea of their personality and public image. She would then use this knowledge to collect and prepare songs best suited for them.
In the 1960s, she produced several singles for Sabina Amorosi and Carla Miló.
In the 1990s–2000s, she produced Marie-Agnès Delaunay's albums La Magnifique (1993), L'cadeau des déesses (1996), L'vie en riche (1999), and Reine (2004).
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.
Organisation in the studio
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.
One biographer wrote: "Ms. Shelley turned the recording studio into a shrine for camaraderie, warmth, and the successful search for balance between creativity and discipline. She cheerfully rejected the mythology of rock and roll, prevented debauchery with a winning smile, and made the studio wholesome and welcoming, especially for families. She deserves most credit for teaching Gylians that rock and roll is better when played by nice fellows."
Recording approaches
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 was one of Gylias' most prolific and eclectic composers, working in both the classical and popular idioms. Her numerous compositions include orchestral suites, song cycles, compositions for solo instruments, chamber music, symphonies, sonatas, and ballets.
Art music
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.
A 2008 report by the Gylian Music Board found that she was the most frequently performed composer by Gylian orchestras, a distinction she held for many years and retains posthumously. 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 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.
Popular music
Susan recorded many albums of popular music, both instrumental and vocal. Their material was mostly classified as light music, easy listening, space age pop, or Gylian Sound. These albums highlighted her orchestrations, which were praised by Liisa Salmela as "elegant, self-assured, and effortless, just like Ms. Shelley".
Some of her works bridged the gap between art and popular music. She recorded a few albums of instrumental arrangements of Beaties songs as "Susan Shelley and Her Orchestra".
Scores
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;
- Castle Bang (2009–2012);
- The Amazing Inflatable Girl (2014), whose Alscian-tinged fusion of art music and jazz was hailed as a late-career highlight.
She scored every film by her relative Judy Harper Shelley until her death.
She composed the theme music for Gylian Radio and Gylian Television, which became iconic in Gylian pop culture. Her themes were collected on the compilation Themes for Broadcasting.
Musicianship
Susan's primary instrument was the piano. Her instrumental skills impressed many of the musicians she worked with. Toshiko Akiyoshi described her as a "jack of all trades", who could skilfully execute any style with precision and panache. Liz Cox similarly attested that she "could play anything — classical, jazz, pop, rock, blues, boogie-woogie, country…you name it!".
Susan composed all her works on keyboards, using them to work out orchestrations. In the 1980s, she used the Fairlight CMI and Synclavier to help her arrange orchestra parts. In the 1990s, she switched to writing her scores entirely with MIDI keyboard and scorewriter software.
Keyboard instruments that Susan played with the Beaties, other musicians, or in solo albums included: piano, tack piano, electric piano, organ, pump organ, harpsichord, Mellotron, Chamberlin, Fairlight CMI, Synclavier, and various synthesizers.
She could also play oboe and clarinet, but used them less often in her projects, believing that the piano was her forte.
Susan was well-versed in experimental music and was adept with recording equipment thanks to her training as a music engineer, which enabled her to make tape loops. Beaties songs she contributed tape loops to included "Tomorrow Never Knows", "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!", "Magical Mystery Tour", "Only a Nezyál Song", "Please Don't Be Long", "What's the New Mary Jane", and "Revolution 9".
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."
Reflecting her extraordinary prolific streak, Sound Records had the largest catalogue of any Gylian label, surpassing 1.000 releases at her death.
The logo of Sound Records was modeled after the emblem of the Shelley family.
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 Ms. Shelley 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".
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: all of them distributed at least 1 million 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.
Throughout her life, Susan's solo albums cumulatively distributed over 500 million copies, making her the most commercially successful individual musician in Tyran, closely behind the Beaties' own total. Her popularity was notable abroad, where she reached a large audience of older listeners who were "scared off" by the Gylian Invasion, and who found Susan's albums of art and popular music more palatable. She was amused that in some countries during the 1960s, her instrumental arrangements of the Beaties outsold the band's original albums due to this aspect.
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."
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.
Annemarie Beaulieu, who was often invited to photograph Susan, said that she had a talent for playfully winking at her fame without seeming boastful. For example, on one album cover she appeared with a sly smile and a face covered in kiss marks (made by her husband and children putting on lipstick and kissing her), and on another, Annemarie photographed her holding numerous flower bouquets.
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"; "Never go above and beyond! That's what tomorrow is for"; "All you need is ears, but taste doesn't hurt"; "A cellarful of noise a day keeps the blues away".
One of her favourite types of joke was to put a great amount of effort into a song with an inappropriately flippant or bizarre title. She explained: "I think it's funny if someone at first thinks, 'Oh, a song called Salty Pastrami, I don't expect much', and then they say 'Salty Pastrami touched me deeply, I had a good cry to that song'. I think it makes people think about how ridiculous yet moving life can be."
This technique was also in evidence on her soundtrack work, where she was famed as an expert in scoring comedies "as if they were serious films", and thus enhancing their humour.
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.
In a 2011 interview, she said: "We're really very proud of our marriage. It's the first for both of us. And the last."
Amjasluwoh was also the financial adviser of the family, both handling household budgets and hiring financial planners. Susan quipped that "dear old Alan is the mastermind behind the business of Susan Shelley."
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.
Family
Susan was very close to her sister Irene, and said that in her life, Irene was second in importance only to her husband and children. Susan and Irene's families regularly socialised at each other's houses. Susan and her husband were an adored aunt and uncle to Irene's children, and Irene and her husband were likewise to Susan's children.
Personality and habits
Friends often described Susan as having a "regal" personality, one which she attributed to her Alscian youth and the prestige of the Shelley family name.
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." Gylias Review similarly wrote that "with her loving husband, happy children, spotless reputation, and aura of boundless warmth, Ms. Shelley represented the profoundly satisfying dream of every Gylian."
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.
Lucy described her mother's "magnetic" personality and its effect on others:
"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, they would try to speak more elegantly, 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."
Lifestyle
Susan was renowned for her self-discipline, and her husband attested that she ran her household like "a very tight ship". Among her favourite books were Valeria Valente's A Design for Better Living and her children's memoir Tali Genitori, Tali Bambini, which influenced her way of life.
She practiced timeblocking "religiously", and her average day was both meticulously organised and flexible. She acknowledged Valeria Valente's influence in her pursuit of "maximum efficiency, maximum resilience, maximum slack for the unexpected".
Typically, she woke up at dawn, did yoga exercises until sunrise, then got dressed and ate breakfast, usually reading The National Observer in the process. Then she would see to her tasks, which included going to the studio to produce or working on compositions from home.
After lunch, she would nap for 1–2 hours. The latter half of the day included playing with her children, exercising, and further musical work. After dinner, she would have sex with her husband, write in her diary, go over her schedule, and plan out the next days.
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."
Lucy similarly remarked in 2006: "Every single day, as long as mother is awake, music pours out of her. It's not a career or a job for her, it's her life. She always has a small tape recorder with her for when inspiration strikes, and she can write scores without an instrument around, just working it out in her head."
Health
Susan 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.
She continued to compose, produce, and arrange until the day of her death. "Music won't let me retire", she joked in an interview, "I am merely her humble servant. I have been given this gift, and I obey its commands."
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." The Beaties' spouses similarly observed that, in the studio, the Beaties "would all end up talking like Ms. Shelley, as if by magic".
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 was raised that you respect someone by using their last name and an honorific. 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 the richest Gylian during her life, with an estimated net worth of Ŧ100 billion as late as 2006, even as she paid the 100% marginal tax for her earnings above the maximum wage, as well as the wealth tax.
Susan's wealth drove her to an equally extreme largesse. She donated money generously to friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and family. She engaged in vast philanthropic activities. She funded the construction and upkeep of Beat Studios and the Palace of Sound personally. She funded the production of films, animation, television series, and concert tours out of her pocket, especially for collaborators like the Beaties and Stella Star, and her relative Judy Harper Shelley. She paid for studio sessions entirely out of pocket, and at one point stopped accepting payments entirely due to her wealth, using her money to instead pay the musicians, engineers, and studio personnel.
She established the Susan Shelley Foundation, a charitable trust, to give away all of her wealth. The foundation gave money in secret, and mainly focused on the arts, education, scientific and technological research, and historic preservation. She was an especially prolific donor to the Arts Council along with the rest of her family, leading to a lifelong friendship with its Chair Tomoko Tōsaka.
She attended the Decleyre Summit in 1990 together with the Beaties and was a participant in the Social Partnership Program. She quipped in an interview, "I've been doing the SPP before it existed!", in reference to her donations. Prime Minister Mathilde Vieira similarly evoked Susan's example in announcing the SPP, declaring: "If we are to have rich Gylians, let they be only Susan Shelleys and Mary Grants and Arlette Gauberts."
She felt pride in having become rich through "honest work", by making art that was popular and handsomely compensated by the public. Acquaintances observed that she rarely hinted at her wealth, and when she did, it was always in reference to her donations and gifts to others.
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. She felt that waste was the greatest curse of humanity. 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."
Susan's philosophy was: "Money exists to be spent, not hoarded. Once we've assured ourselves a comfortable life, we have a duty to give others the rest." Accordingly, in addition to her philanthropic donations and gifts, she spent extravagantly on herself and her family. She paid for the building of a large Art Deco mansion on the outskirts of Mişeyáke, nicknamed the Château Shelley, where she and her family lived until her death. The Château had 30 rooms, a swimming pool, a tennis court, and a pleasure garden, open for anyone to visit. It also hosted a home recording studio for Susan whose facilities were almost as advanced as the Palace of Sound.
Susan bought so many things that Chris O'Dell described her as "the woman who has everything", and remarked that her family adamantly refused to accept any gifts from anyone — if offered a gift, they would insist on paying money in exchange. Susan's returns with the National Tax Agency showed a vast list of possessions: she owned numerous musical instruments at home, 5 private jets, 10 yachts of 35 m each, 100 luxury cars (which she had converted into electric vehicles), many commissioned paintings and sculptures, and over 10.000 items of clothing and jewelry, including a large collection of watches.
As well, Susan hired a large number of domestic workers to help with maintenance of Château Shelley and relevant possessions, to whom she paid extravagant salaries and benefits and treated like members of the family — she taught her children by example to address domestic workers by their last name and honorific. Provided with lifetime employment, large salaries, and numerous benefits, these workers were strongly loyal to Susan; Rasa observed that their attitude towards her was "pure adoration".
Susan avoided taking part in Tax Day ceremonies and tried to minimise attention to the Susan Shelley Foundation out of an aversion to publicising her wealth or philanthropy. George said that "mother believed that if you do good to others, you must be silent and let your deeds speak for you. She hated to talk about her donations because she felt it was repulsive to want publicity for good deeds." The extent of her philanthropy and charity was publicised after her death, when it was revealed her anonymous donations to charities and individuals surpassed Ŧ300 billion during her life.
She joked about her wealth in Susan Shelley: A Musical Life:
"I paid for the building of the Château, the Palace of Sound, I've made my lovely assistants rich beyond their wildest dreams, I've given so much money to everything and everyone, I've bought so many things … and I keep getting richer and richer! [laughs] It must be the Shelley family curse."
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, and felt that she couldn't match his service.
Patriotism
Susan loved her country, and was described by those who knew her as a "quiet patriot". Amjasluwoh said that her patriotism was "a deeply personal, heartfelt thing" — a gratitude for the country she felt she owed everything to, and which embraced and celebrated her talents. She praised Gylian nationalism because it was inclusive and civic.
Susan's patriotism was an old-fashioned, Alscian kind. She largely kept the patriotism and banal nationalism she'd grown up with in Alscia and simply transferred it to Gylias. When she was at public events that called for the national anthem to be played, she and her family would stand up and sing "Arise, Gylians" instead.
Lucy said that Susan's attitude towards patriotism was the same as her attitude towards philanthropy: "she always said you must keep your mouth shut and let your deeds speak for you. She taught us that it's a love that can never be expressed in words."
Rasa Ḑeşéy admitted that during production of Susan Shelley: A Musical Life, she was sometimes surprised by the readiness with which Susan expressed national pride. She described Susan's patriotism as "infused by the same serenity and regal ease that marked her temperament and life".
Signature
Susan was one of the most prolific autograph signers in Gylias. Her trademark signature appeared on her albums, in her books, and was printed and framed in the studios she worked in.
She owned an autopen and a rubber stamp to quickly sign proffered documents. Starting in the 1990s, she uploaded transparent images of her signature on her website, so that anyone who wanted could print it and attach it to an object they wished to have "signed by Susan Shelley".
Her method meant that she was never barraged in public for autographs, since her signature was easily available and ubiquituous. She was gracious to those who approached her in public for autographs, and usually personalised her signatures with playful messages.
George witnessed one of Susan's more memorable autographs: "Someone asked mother for an autograph, but without any paper on hand, suggested she might use their body. Mother found this very amusing and decided to oblige. She applied her favourite kind of smear lipstick, kissed the person on the cheek, and then signed under the kiss. Some time later, I found her reading and laughing at a letter she'd received. The person in question had converted mother's autograph into a permanent tattoo, and told her it had greatly increased their popularity."
Death
Susan died in her sleep on the night of 16 December 2016 at the Château Shelley, aged 90.
Amjasluwoh speculated that Susan had "a premonition" of her death. That day, she broke her normally rigid schedule in order to finish the last composition she was working on. Before going to bed, she wished her children goodnight and added, "I just want to tell you how much I love you and how proud I am of you all. You are the greatest children a mother could hope for." She then put on her favourite brand of smear lipstick, kissed her husband leaving lipstick marks on his face, and told him, "Goodnight darling, and farewell."
When he discovered her unresponsive the following morning, Amjasluwoh called an ambulance. Susan was taken to the nearest hospital, and pronounced dead on arrival. The family issued a statement later in the day confirming her death. They declined an autopsy and stated solely that Susan died of natural causes.
Amjasluwoh said that when he found her in the morning, Susan looked as if she'd gone to sleep: "She was smiling, and her hands were crossed over her body — even in death, she was dignified and peaceful."
When the family prepared her diary for publication, they discovered that her last diary entry, on the date of her death, ended with "It has been wonderful."
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. The funeral procession through the streets of Mişeyáke and Etra attracted large crowds and brought the cities to a halt for the day. The Etra Echo reported that many people lined the streets, waving hats of the model Susan wore, and called out, "Farewell, Ms. Shelley".
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, Haruka Morishima, and Marian Ellis.
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.
A large statue of her was installed at the entrance to the Palace of Sound in 2019. The Mişeyáke Metro Mail praised it as "a wonderful sculpture that shows a radiant Ms. Shelley smiling down on visitors to the studio", and it became a tourist attraction.
Estate
Susan Shelley's estate was valued at Ŧ105 billion at her death. According to her testament, all her personal assets were given away. Her remaining money, after collection of inheritance tax and the amounts set aside to provide for her family and Château Shelley employees, was allocated to the Susan Shelley Foundation, to be given away.
Her family retained possession of Château Shelley and the musical instruments and home studio she had built there. In the process of administering her estate, Susan's computers were accessed, and it was discovered she had deleted all her unfinished works and works in progress. In accordance with her wishes, the family refused to allow any data recovery efforts.
The Susan Shelley Foundation began a spend-down process in 2017, and plans to fully close down after donating what remains of Susan's wealth, estimated to be in 2024.
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.
Legacy
Many of Susan's obituaries emphasised her illustrious reputation and tremendous contributions to Gylian popular culture. Gylias Review wrote that "it's impossible to imagine Gylian pop culture without the vital contributions of the Shelley family", emphasising both Susan's musical career, her sister Irene's illustration career, and her relative Judy's filmmaking career.
She was the most prolific musician active in the Gylian music industry: throughout her career, she released over 500 albums under her name, both art and popular music, and was credited as a producer, engineer, arranger, or session musician on over 1.000 releases.
Owing to her extraordinary productivity, consistent critical acclaim, and commercial success, she was a household name for most of her life. Surface wrote that her death was felt so deeply and mourned so widely by the public because "she was known to every Gylian household, whether it was her delighted face on album covers, her outfit reproductions worn by many to channel some of her elegance, her orchestral compositions listened to as a shortcut to sophistication, or her passionate marriage that represented a reassuring dream for many. There have been Gylians born and died who passed entire lives with Ms. Shelley's loving smile somewhere in the background, known to everyone and yet seemingly comforting them personally."
Musical Update wrote that Susan "succeeded in softening up and priming Gylian taste buds for art music in a way nobody else ever managed. Listeners who otherwise recoiled from art music like poorly cooked vegetables eagerly opened their mouths to Ms. Shelley's spoon, and savoured the taste of her concoctions." It also noted that some listeners initially listened to Susan's orchestral works with "ironic intent" that had evolved into "sincere embrace".
Susan's theme music for Gylian Radio and Gylian Television became cherished elements of the Gylian National Broadcasting Service's identity, familiar to generations of viewers, and continue to be used to this day.
Symbol of success
Susan was embraced by the Gylian public as a symbol of success. Her achievements were celebrated, as was her generous personality and loving family life. To Gylians, she represented an exciting ideal of success: one born of consistently acclaimed work and eclecticism, combined with admirable humility, diplomacy, and a spotless reputation.
Most of her obituaries highlighted Saorlaith Ní Curnín's remark that Susan never said an unkind word about anyone, nor did anyone who worked with her ever say an unkind word about her, to represent why she was held in great respect among the public and seen as an ideal to aspire to.
Radix praised Susan in its obituary for "taking the respectable middle-class dream of Alscians and raising it to an apotheosis of elegance, love, and compassion." It credited her with "showing Gylians a brilliant example for how to lead an organised yet vibrant life, without pressure or social repression."
The Mişeyáke Metro Mail wrote that to generations of Gylians, Susan was an exemplar because "she made adulthood, responsibility, moderation, and maturity seem irresistible." It praised her for "proving to Gylians that suffering isn't necessary for art, happiness is sexy, and responsibility can be borne gracefully and with the greatest of ease." As a result of Susan's work and her influence on those she worked with like the Beaties and Stella Star, Gylias obtained "the best of both worlds — rock and roll without the self-destructive lifestyle; jazz without the obsolescence; and art music without the lifelessness and didacticism".
Her name was adopted in Gylian slang as a symbol of success and reverence, in the form "myjeli" — derived from "Ms. Shelley", her preferred nomenclature. Several Gylian given names were popularised in her honour, including "Susan", "Myjeli" or similar pronunciation respellings of "Ms. Shelley", or "Şeli" itself as a given name.
In the egalitarian context of the Golden Revolution, even Susan's wealth came to be lionised. Since Susan never flaunted her wealth and was strongly identified with socialised luxury, Gylians saw her wealth as a simple reflection of how greatly her work was treasured by society. It was a point of pride for Gylians that the richest Gylian had achieved her status through "honest work", a consistently acclaimed career that contributed to society and with wealth accumulated gradually. The fact that Susan refused to draw attention to her vast philanthropic work or generosity to others further endeared her to the public.