James Attlee talked to top producer ALAN SHACKLOCK about everything from studio battles with Meatloaf to the questionable ethics of chart hyping by zealous evangelicals.

During the making of the album Alan was asked to find another male vocalist to sing a duet with Meatloaf, and he rang up Roger Daltrey. He and Daltrey first met when Alan's group Babe Ruth supported The Who in 1974, and the two had remained in touch.

During the session Alan said to Daltrey "don't you make records yourself anymore?" That question led to a phone call from Daltrey a few days later, and eventually to an album, 'Under A Raging Moon', that was massively successful in the AOR charts in America.

"We took a small band out on tour in 1985. I played keyboards and we had Russ Ballard and Clem Clempson on guitar, Stuart Elliot on drums that was a good band. Roger was invited to do a Charity Show at Madison Square Gardens which was a lot of fun. We played all those old Who hits and our own album as well to promote it, and it got very big acclaim. To all intents and purposes that was a gold album, and I went on to do a second album with Roger. Now I'm working with Roger again on this film. He's starring in the film, he's not on the album - the artist on this record is called Chesney Hawkes, son of Chip Hawkes of the Tremeloes."

Other projects included the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical 'Starlight Express' - "Andrew's stuff was mostly Radio 2 so they called me up and said would you come in and hooliganise it a bit and get it onto Radio 1" - and a single with Jeff Beck.

"Jeff was a boyhood guitar hero, still is - he's a very special man on the guitar, he's pretty unbelievable. It's funny how he comes into the studio with grease on his hands all the time, all over his hands - he's a car fanatic, absolute car fanatic, and he'll come in and say 'sorry I've been working on the car.' He'll get grease all over the guitar - 'sounds better that way' he'll say."

Clients were not all from the dinosaur school of ancient rock heroes. In 1986 Alan's production made a hit out of the first release by a new group, It Bites, while 1990 has seen more chart success with another British pop outfit. And Why Not.

"Island called me about And Why Not, and I heard the music and I was very interested in the style. It didn't sound like a black group when I first heard it. They're three very creative guys - the lyrics are interesting. When we started the record it was their first time ever in the studio, they'd just done some little demos at home with their own manager, and they weren't quite up to playing a lot of it, so I helped them out with a lot of the playing - some of the guitar stuff, and I did all of the keyboards on the record, and I helped them with some of the solos."

Away from the spotlight there was another side to Shacklock the musician - as a member of a local church he was well aware of the new wave of worship songs being composed. He was also aware of the upsurge in contemporary Christian bands, and wondered if his production skills could benefit the Church in some way.

"I think it was Lynn Green and Lawrence Singlehurst from YWAM who put us in touch with Graham Kendrick, because we're friends of theirs - Lawrence said to me that Graham wanted to make a record for the March For Jesus, and I said 'well, who does he want to produce it', and he said 'how about yourself, and I said 'that would be great'. I was very flattered when Graham called, because being a musician in my church I was playing a medley of his hits every Sunday! Of course I'm a great admirer of the man. I think we should honour him really, an unbelievable songwriter for the Christian, the new Charles Wesley or whatever you want to call him.

"Of course, Abbey Road gave the studio time all free - about £4000 worth of studio time - and supplied all the engineers for us. Everybody did it for free as all the proceeds were going a children's' charity. I played all the instruments on it except the overhead cymbals - Graham had his drummer come in and do that. I did most of it at home with my friend Brian Smith the programmer, and we made the actual recording in a day - two days I should say, because the choir came in on the second day when I'd done the backing track."

The record certainly has a contemporary feel, with a big drum sound and a searing soul-gospel section that added a new dimension to the song.

"Carol was fabulous - she really added an air of cross-over to the record, which was the idea - I felt it would cross a few barriers with black and white. If Graham had sung the whole thing, bless him, fine, but I put a place in the record for this girl as I constructed the song - and then of course it developed into a big party at the end, which was wonderful, because obviously we're celebrating Jesus and that's hopefully how the record came across, how I wanted it to. It should have done better in the charts."

This was the second concerted attempt by the Christian community to assault the charts after Heartbeats' 'Tears From Heaven1 in 1987, and again the dreaded word "hype" was being heard with relation to the way certain church leaders and other high-profile Christians were encouraging the faithful to buy the record by the bucket-load.

"We all want to see Graham in the charts, don't we?" I remember one speaker urging the crowd waiting patiently in the drizzle to begin the London March For Jesus, as technicians struggled to achieve a satellite link-up with another crowd somewhere else in the country.