As a session pro, Pierce has worked with a who’s who of the music industry, and lent his guitar chops to some of Jackson’s most notable recordings

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(Image credit: Harmony Gerber/Getty Images)

Tim Pierce is a certified legend of the guitar industry. The veteran session player has lent his guitar chops to more than a thousand records – including Roger Waters’ Amused to Death, Goo Goo Dolls’ Iris, Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over, Whitney Houston’s Queen of the Night… and the list goes on.

Among the A-listers who recruited him for their records is the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, with whom Pierce worked on a number of occasions – including on 1991’s Dangerous and 1995’s HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.

As for how this collaboration came about, Pierce divulges all in the latest issue of Guitar World. “The producer, Bill Bottrell, brought me into the studio. Michael was very normal; I was expecting weirdness, but it wasn’t that way at all.

Contrary to his on-stage persona, “Michael came in dressed in a sweater, jeans, and loafers and looked me straight in the eye. He was just a normal person, and he was very interested in my pedalboard,” he adds with a laugh.

As for whether Jackson was an easy collaborator, owing to his penchant for perfectionism, Pierce adds, “Michael felt secure. When you’re in the studio like that, it was me, Bill the assistant, and Michael, so he felt very safe in that situation.

“My job was to actually treat him like an equal, and that means you don’t act like a fan. You act like an equal in the workspace; don’t gush over them, don’t ask questions. I was doing my thing, and he was doing his. That’s how you play it.”

The session icon recently shared the somewhat puzzling story of when he opened for the Eagles at one of the biggest gigs in history, only to be banned from the concert halfway through.