I thought this fits here, it's from a Don Airey interview:
Deep Purple and Rainbow too worked extensively with Martin Birch over the years and he sadly died a few weeks ago. Did you ever work with Martin?
I worked with him on Cozy Powell’s Over The Top and on Bernie Marsden’s first solo album. You didn’t really notice him in the studio. He was very quiet and the opposite to Bob Ezrin. He was very firm and ready for the take and when it came, he’d get it. I remember when we did Over The Top, Cozy and I decided to get Jack Bruce from Cream to come and play bass and he’s such an incredible player. He’d been having a lot trouble with a couple of producers in the studio who said his bass playing wasn’t good and his sound was too old fashioned and he came to us a bit nervous. Jack came in and Martin asked him to play a few notes which he did and Martin just said “OK, thanks” and Jack went “Was that it?” and by doing that Martin was able to reassure Jack and in 10 seconds he gave him his confidence back. He did another wonderful thing as Cozy wanted to use an orchestra but it was going to cost ten grand. I offered to do it for the price of a pint on a synthesizer. So, me and Martin worked over night on the “1812 Overture” and we put the orchestration onto the album and it sounded fantastic.
It kinda confirms what I always say: Our heroes here - Jack, JAE, Chris Squire, you name them -, if you stripped them of their name, they would have a hard time not being admonished in the studio by a producer in the last, say, 40 years for simply not sounding and playing like a bassist is "supposed to".
