“He asked to hear it, so I played it, and he said, ‘I have to play on this. Give me a track’”: How a 20-year-old Steve Lukather beat three seasoned session pros to feature on this ’70s soft rock classic

Love Is the Answer, by soft rock duo England Dan & John Ford Coley, took a page from the Steely Dan school of studio perfection.

The track, a cover of a Todd Rundgren-penned Utopia song, went through a series of guitarists – among which were first-call industry session players Lee Ritenour and Wah Wah Watson – before producer Kyle Lehning finally found his perfect match.

“After the session was over and everyone left, I felt the guitar parts by Ritenour and Watson weren’t quite right for what we wanted,” he tells Guitar World. “I ended up taking the tape back to Nashville and added our longtime guitarist Steve Gibson to the track.”

However, Lehning was still dissatisfied, when an off-handed comment by Steve Lukather finally turned things around.

“Steve Lukather – who was 20 at the time and already a well-known wunderkind – was doing overdubs on some of our other tracks for the album, and we finished early.

“He asked if I had anything else while he was there, and I said I had another tune that I really loved, but I didn’t hear anything for him to play,” he continues. “He asked to hear the track, so I played it, and he said, ‘I have to play on this. Give me a track.’”

The result? “Steve came up with the chimey guitar fill in the middle of every chorus. We ended up doubling it at half-speed.

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As Lehning recalls, the master take had been recorded at 30 inches per second, but Lukather's impromptu riff led the producer to envision the part doubled an octave higher... with a slight twist.

“Rather than have him try to play it in the upper octave, we decided to record his second part in the same register while playing the tape back at half speed, 15 inches per second. The effect was like a shimmery, electric 12-string. I can’t imagine the record without that part.”

Lukather's six-string contribution would help the track clinch the Number 10 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 – the perfect bookend to England Dan and John Ford Coley’s ten-year partnership.

For more from Lehning and Lukather, plus new interviews with Marcus King and Robert Fripp, pick up issue 600 of Guitar World from Magazines Direct.