After Elvis' tragic death, he worked his magic for Bruce Springsteen from 1978 to 1985.
These segments are taken from http://www.pertout.com/Jackson.htm ->
Nice job, eh?How did you end up living in the US?
I’d ... met up with Roy Clair of Clair Brothers, when he was in town doing Blood Sweat & Tears, in either ’69 or ’70. And this was the first time we’d seen one of the big overseas PAs in Australia. Everything before that was the stuff that we used to make, which was columns. Dynacord and all these other companies were just basically producing speaker columns. I knew a way through the back fence, and so I took a friend of mine, Russell Dallas. We climbed over, checked it out, and were just amazed.
So I went up and started talking to Roy Clair. They were a very small company, but Clair Brothers was now by far the most dominant sound company, and he said that he would like to leave the PA here and do a Johnny Cash tour coming up. It was going to be about six months later, and he asked if I would I mind looking after it and helping him out. I was glad to do that and learn about the new technology. I ended up doing that tour with him, and he said, "When you come across to London, stop off in the States if you like, and visit." And so I did, and ended up staying.
I was very young, but helped out with electronic ideas and designs, and also went out on the road as an engineer. It was at the same time when Elvis Presley had just started touring again, and was using different sound companies at different areas, like a regional situation. And, fortunately, everything went well when I did the (Presley) shows.
Mixing for Elvis must have been some experience. What memories do you have of this significant period of your career?
It was over a six year period, and it was hard work. I remember it was hard work, and you are not particularly aware that it’s a big deal at the time, other than it’s great fun traveling around on that level. You know, because the police loved him so much we’d have the police captains and sergeants, and everyone running us around. And no one toured on the same level, with four or five jet planes.
And we used to have like the Playboy plane. So I’d go out with him, and the limo would pull up, you’d walk the stairs up to this black plane with a bunny on the tail, and there’d be the bunnies in there serving us. It was just an amazing lifestyle. And over the years I got to know him real well, so that was a really good experience. And in hindsight I realize how lucky I was, but at the time it was like lots and lots of shows, hundreds of shows, and a lot of hard work.
It has been said that you have been purely responsible for pioneering the high quality stadium sound for the ... Springsteen tours. What is involved logistically at this large scale?
Well, Bruce Springsteen was an uptight performer, and so I would hold his hand a lot, explains things to him, and work with him. And then on the other side of things, he would then support me. But he was very uptight about going from theaters into arenas, and wanted to make sure that everything was as good as possible. And that’s what I love to do, I love a challenge.
So he’d come in and say, "Why doesn’t it sound so good when I get in back here? You know, why don’t I hear the hi-hats? Why isn’t it crisp and clean?" I said, "Well, the super highs get absorbed over distance more than the bass frequencies." He said, "What can we do about it?" And I said, "We can do a lot about it."
So we came up with this unique scheme of putting delayed super highs out in the house. And what happens is that the sound then goes out from the speakers, and just as it is starting to get rolled off in the high frequencies, it is boosted up by these high frequency drivers. And consequently the people in the back get this much higher quality sound than what they would normally get with just the big stacks up the front. And we kind of took that further and further, and then when he was so big, like on the Born In The U.S.A. tour, and we were going to do dozens of stadiums, he said, "I want to make sure that we have the best stadium sound." And I said, "Great!"
So I designed this very overblown set of delay systems, with eight delays up on poles. And we set a new standard for live PA in stadiums. And in fact, quite a few tours tried to do it after us, and the promoters were howling, saying "Look, Springsteen came around and did this, he had all his delays, and did it this way. And you’ve got to do the same thing, because people can’t hear as well." So since then a lot of people have copied it.