“I have always enjoyed a mix of live and studio work,” Renwick said.
“When it comes to touring, many musicians shy away from live performances, as touring takes you away from family and friends, can be quite disrupting and involves a lot of time spent hanging around.
“I like the ‘smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd’.
“Playing with Pink Floyd, we performed well over 300 mostly outdoor stadium concerts, all over the world.”
According to Renwick, there have been many memorable studio sessions, but one that he recalls during our interview was contributing guitar to Dionne Warwick’s 1982 hit album Heartbreaker.
“I was booked to record an album for Dionne Warwick for Barry Gibb in the Bee Gees’ own studio in Miami,” he said.
“It was a star-studded line-up of musicians including Steve Gadd on drums and Richard Tee on piano, and the songs were recorded live, including guide vocals from Dionne herself.
“It was quite a novelty, as these days the majority of recordings are put together with much overdubbing of instruments and vocals.
“It was magic to hear her vocal performance coming through the headphones.”
One of the many concerts Renwick has performed was with Pink Floyd at Live 8 in 2005.
But rather than it being a memorable experience, it proved to be one of his less enjoyable live moments.
“That was rather a weird experience after all that touring we had done,” he said.
“There was a rather strained atmosphere between David (Gilmour) and Roger (Waters), so I can’t say that I personally enjoyed it.
“When the show was over, my wife and I walked across Hyde Park to our hotel by ourselves.
“There were no ‘thank yous’ or after-show celebrations whatsoever.
“Rather an anticlimax, to be honest.”
Looking back over six decades in the music industry, Renwick “feels blessed for just being able to make a living out of something I enjoy so much”.
So, what has 2026 got in store for Renwick?
“A couple of years ago I had the misfortune to slip down a flight of steps and rather badly broke my right ankle in a couple of places,” he said.
“This has brought my activities to a halt — I’m still getting over the accident.
“I live in Cornwall, England, by the sea and plan to continue with recording my own material at home.
“I have been urged to write a book about my life in music — I might just do that.”
For more on Renwick, check out timrenwick.com
Music news
Set for release on March 13 is the new album by The Black Crowes, titled A Pound of Feathers. The album sees the group venturing into a much harder-edged blend of blues, soul and rock.
Are R.E.M, who stated when they broke up in 2011, they would never reunite, about to change their minds? Rumour has it, that they’re considering a possible reformation for 2027.
Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi is working on a new solo album, which is scheduled for release sometime this year. The pioneering metal guitarist’s last solo record was 2005’s Fused.
In the wake of the concluding episode to the Netflix series Stranger Things, two Prince songs, When Doves Cry and Purple Rain, that were featured in the series have experienced a huge surge of interest, with a 200 per cent-plus increase in Spotify streams.
David Bowie, who passed away 10 years ago this week, will have his old childhood home in south-east London opened to the public as an “immersive cultural experience”. The home is where the young Bowie wrote one of his best-known songs, Space Oddity.
Vinyl record brief history
The invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison in 1877 led the way for the introduction of the first 78 rpm (rotations per minute) 10-inch discs in the late 1890s, which were made actually from shellac.
During the 1940s, polyvinyl chloride eventually replaced shellac and became the standard material for production which remains to this day.
In 1948, the first LP (long play) 33 1/3 rpm 12-inch record was produced by Columbia Records, followed by its smaller brother, the 7-inch 45 rpm disc on March 31, 1949, introduced by RCA Victor.
Soon after, as rock ’n’ roll became widely popular in the 1950s through artists such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Bill Haley, the vinyl record became the main format for listening to music, with the format becoming popular on a mass scale, especially the more affordable and smaller 7-inch format.
The vinyl record reached its peak of its popularity during the 1970s.
To underscore the scale of its popularity, a report from 1974 said the 7-inch disc had reportedly sold 200 million in that year alone.
With the introduction of the CD format in the early 1980s, the humble vinyl record’s popularity began to wane, and in the ’90s, the CD became the dominant format.
At the turn of the 21st century, MP3s and the digital format began its rise to mass popularity, overtaking sales of CDs, which were slowly going the way of the vinyl record.
The advent of Record Store Day in the late 2000s played a major role in the resurgence of the vinyl record, which in ensuing years, has seen vinyl records elevated back into being a popular alternative to streaming music.
This week’s Australian top 5 singles chart
1. Man I Need — Olivia Dean
2. The Fate Of Ophelia — Taylor Swift
3. Golden — HUNTR/X, Ejae, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami
4. End Of Beginning — Djo
5. Where Is My Husband! — Raye
Fun fact
The first purposely designed guitar distortion pedal — Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone — which was introduced in 1962 by Gibson, came about due to faulty wiring in the recording console in the studio during the recording of country singer Marty Robbins’ 1961 hit Don’t Worry, which caused the sound to distort.
The fuzz pedal later gained popularity due to The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards using it on Satisfaction.
