The Record Producer

The Civil Wars #1 Digital Album - Charting #12 Billboard 200

THE CIVIL WARS: Barton Hollow

Produced by Charlie Peacock for Twenty Ten Music and Sensibility Music

After spending the first week of February at #1 on the iTunes album charts, The Civil Wars full length BARTON HOLLOW debuted at #12 on the Billboard 200 and captured the #1 position for digital albums over all.  Other chart positions are shown in the graphic above.  

I blogged last year about the making of the Poison & Wine EP - see posts to refer back to that article. From a production standpoint what continues to make this recording unusual is that it contains performances by the duo, that is, it is a recording of Joy Williams and John Paul singing together while playing the acoustic guitar and sometimes the piano.  So in that regard it is a return to an older production style and a departure from cutting a track and putting the vocals on somewhere near the end of the process.  

We are all thrilled that people are responding to a recording of people in a room making music together. Not music and lyrics that they're just getting to know, but music they've rehearsed, know, and love.  

This project has inspired me like few others.  I hope it does you too.

For the record, literally: Joy Williams and John Paul White (vocals) with JPW on acoustic, electric guitars and resonator guitar, Joy on the Hohner organ, piano, and celeste, Tim Lauer supported with more keys. Barry Bales on acoustic bass, Jerry McPherson on electric guitars, J.T. Corenflos with some pickin' on Barton Hollow, Ken Lewis - drums and percussion, David Davidson and John Catchings on violin and cello respectively, Andy Leftwich playing the fiddle and mandolin, and Dan Dugmore on pedal steel.  The quiet but ever stout Richie Biggs engineered anything that sounds really great -- anything that pales against Richie's work is something I likely recorded.  Richie mixed and then mastered with his old friend Richard Dodd.  Oh, and last and least I produced and tried to stay out of the way except when playing trumpet and twisting up the language in order to hear Joy laugh.  Press release for your enjoyment, photo of JPW playing my Harmony electric for something, don't know what, and pic of Florida tourist playing the trumpet in my studio, simply random, nothing more. 

Visit here for goodies: Official Website for The Civil Wars

 

 

For Immediate Release                       

February 9, 2011

THE CIVIL WARS’ BARTON HOLLOW DEBUTS
AT #12 ON BILLBOARD 200

ITUNES’ #1 ALBUM OF THE WEEK

BILLBOARD’S #1 DIGITAL ALBUM

 “The Civil Wars are a bonafide phenomenon.”—KCRW’s Chris Douridas

Barton Hollow, the highly anticipated full-length debut from The Civil Wars, is #12 on the Billboard 200 chart selling 24,676 units in its first week. Last week the Sensibility Music release was featured as iTunes “Single of the Week” helping make it iTunes’ top-selling album last week as well as the #1 album on Billboard’s Digital Album. In addition to this commercial success, the album continues to receive widespread critical praise—USA Today heralds, “together, John Paul White and Joy Williams are musical soul mates…with their playful banter and exquisite harmonies, they create music that is as haunting as a nocturne, soothing as a lullaby,” while the New York Post declares, “…a grand album with less. This indie-folk record is an acoustic study of love…”

In celebration of the record, the duo is currently in the midst of a nationwide headlining tour including sold-out shows in Nashville, Birmingham, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington D.C, New York, Boston and Dallas. Of their live shows, the Birmingham News declares, “….compelling….their voices blend with passion and precision,” while American Songwriter describes, “Williams and White engaged their captive audience and transcended that mystic barrier that so often exists between audience and performer.” See reverse for full tour details.  

On January 13, the acclaimed duo made their network television debut, performing “Barton Hollow” on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Consequently, the single reached #1 on iTunes’ singer-songwriter chart and their 2009 EP, Poison & Wine, reached #31 overall. Additionally, the album has received critical notice from tastemaker radio station KCRW, who will feature the title track as “Today’s Top Tune.” Moreover, the LA Weekly describes the music as, “…a keen balance between bold production and backwater soul,” while Paste Magazine featured the duo in a “Best of What’s Next” profile. iTunes also named the duo the “Best New Singer-Songwriters” in their “iTunes Rewind 2010.”  

Barton Hollow was recorded in Nashville and was produced by Grammy-award winning producer Charlie Peacock. The 12-track album comes on the heels of a breakout year for the duo, whose remarkably successful live album has been downloaded over 130,000 times. Additionally, their 2009 four song EP, Poison & Wine, debuted at #4 on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter Top Albums chart. The EP’s title track and first single was played in full on “Grey’s Anatomy” and its accompanying music video has been viewed over 570,000 times on YouTube. Of the song, Stereo Subversion declares, “…your ears are immediately gripped by a haunting sound both simple and pristine…breathtaking.” The music video for the first single and title track from the new record was released in November and has already been viewed over 160,000 times.

The Civil Wars consists of John Paul White, hailing from Florence, AL and Joy Williams, originally from Santa Cruz, CA, but now residing in East Nashville. The duo’s chance meeting a year and a half ago fueled an immediate songwriting chemistry and creative synergy. Their second show ever, performed at a sold out Eddie’s Attic, was recorded and released as a free digital album. Of the duo, Reg’s Coffee House host, Scott Register, praises, “In my 13 years on the radio, few of the artists I’ve championed had as immediate a reaction as The Civil Wars. This band has the ‘it’ factor that you look for. Don’t miss out.”

For more information, please contact 

Asha Goodman or Carla Sacks at Sacks & Co., 212.741.1000,
 asha.goodman at sacksco.com or carla at sacksco.com.

 

The Rhodes Electric Piano

 

  

  

 This past April I was in Los Angeles meeting with film producer Brian Wells and music producer/Idol icon Randy Jackson about production work on their soundtracks.  Later that evening I met up with Svend Lerche and Ran and Ricky Jackson of The Daylights for Indian and good conversation.  I'm working with the band as part of Twenty Ten Music's Film/TV partnership with Secret Road.  Our most recent placement is the song "Oh Oh" in Rabbit Hole starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, and Sandra Oh.  

After dinner we headed to the band's house in Studio City to listen to new songs.  Like every band house I've ever been to this one was stuffed with gear, including three upright pianos. I made an obvious alliteration about a plethora of pianos.  They gave me the Craigslist story on the instruments.  Then one of the fellas, pointing to a little dining alcove said, "We've got an old electric piano over there."   

Vintage electric pianos always get my attention.  I turned and moved toward it.  Not ten feet from the piano I spoke clearly and without hesitation, "That's my piano."  And it was.  I knew it was.  At the speed of blink I proved Malcolm Gladwell's thesis.  Of course I had to prove it to the guys, which was not that difficult.  It was the right era, a Fender Rhodes Mark I Stage (1969-75), specifically 1972 vintage -- manufactured by CBS (who purchased Fender).  I bought it used in 1976 and customized it by installing a MXR Phase 90 into the metal front panel between the volume and bass EQ knobs and the center logo.  The Phase 90 was still embedded in it.  I sold the piano in 1978 in northern California -- probably to make rent.  I couldn't believe I was seeing it again after 32 years.  I think I was in shock. Lots of celebration, high-fives, and "No way dude!" ensued. The band offered me the piano.  Maybe someday.  I was content with the unexpected reunion.

Later that night, driving to LAX airport, I reflected on the odds of me working with a band in Los Angeles that would somehow be in possession of my first Fender Rhodes piano from 32 years ago. Stunning. I got a little emotional -- shed some tears.  Strangely, I felt the love of God, as if no detail in the universe was overlooked, no stray molecule, no Fender Rhodes unaccounted for.

The Rhodes electric piano is a classic American invention with its genesis in the armed forces. There is no other instrument over the last 30 plus years that I've played on more recordings.  It continues to be a timeless, inspiring tool in my production toolbox.

There are lots of memories in that first Fender Rhodes piano.  I played my first recording sessions with it, as well as many gigs with lifelong friends like Aaron Smith, Gerry Pineda, Henry Robinett, Bongo Bob Smith, Alphonza Kee, Larry Casserly, and Lorraine Gervais. Harold Rhodes' son David used to maintenance this piano for me.  In addition to the MXR Phase 90 phase-shifter I used a Cry-Baby Wah pedal.  In the studio I had access to a Mu-Tron Bi-Phase, which sounded wonderful.  For a time, in a group with Al Kee, I played a Navy issue Deagan rosewood xylophone alongside the Fender Rhodes-- stepping away from the piano to solo on the xylophone -- which I referred to as a marimba.  I can't imagine my mallet performance being very impressive.  Plink, plink, plink.

The Fender Rhodes I rediscovered at The Daylight's house had been quite the tourist. Ace keyboardist Korel Tunador (Goo Goo Dolls and Katy Perry) was given the piano in Pittsburgh by his uncle Barry Gilmartin who picked it up in Eugene, Oregon in 1979.  Korel took the piano to Boston and Berklee and eventually out to Los Angeles where he just recently had given it to The Daylights.  I have no connection to the GGD but Katy did come to my house a few years ago for career counsel (assign me no credit for her success - this was a different matter altogether). 

  

In 1978 I bought a new Rhodes Mark I Suitcase (1975-79).  This instrument had it's own stereo amplification, bass and treble EQ, and the famous Rhodes stereo vibrato (which is really a tremolo).  Though still owned by CBS, the name Rhodes was solo on the nameplate again, sans the Fender logo.  I really wanted this particular version because a piano player I admired, Jimmy Cox from Oroville, California played one.  The stereo tremolo moved left and right between speakers directly under the keyboard.  This was the sound we were all going for.  Jim Cox played at our wedding reception in 1975.  Later he was a member of Dire Straits and has become one of the most recorded keyboardists in pop music and film scoring history.  He's quietly everywhere.  Which is no surprise.  I would put him in the category of extraordinary musical gifting.

At this time I started using the Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man and EH Electric Mistress.  The first is a echo/chorus/vibrato pedal; the second is a flanger.  The Cry-Baby stayed in the loop for any funk-oriented playing.  Ultimately I gravitated to the Memory Man exclusively for it's versatility and attitude.  You can listen to several downloads of the Rhodes - Memory Man combination below. 

The Mark I Suitcase model is the instrument I owned when I first started playing my original music at Maurice's American Bar in Sacramento, CA in 1979.  In addition to a few vocal songs like my favorite, "Springtime in Israel," we mostly devised "Sons of Miles" Bitches Brew improvisations.  Guitarist Robert Kuhlmann played in that first band along with the late Erik Kleven.  Blues harp legend Rick Estrin was often in the audience as was master jazz pianist Jessica Williams.  Tower Records founder Russ Solomon would stop by, as did our Zen-Governor of California, Jerry Brown.  My fellow Scorch Brothers, guitarist Patrick Minor and visual-media artist/songwriter Steve Holsapple were always there to hang and champion whatever experimentation was taking place.  Maurice's was the perfect creative environment to develop as a young artist.  Art was front and center and people came anticipating surprise.

Hauling the Suitcase model around in my Ford Maverick was no easy task.  It completely trashed the back seat.  I attribute all current back problems to dragging that beast around on gigs with 60's rock legend Sal Valentino (The Beau Brummels, Stoneground) and various NorCal jazzers of my era like Darius Babazadeh, Joe Espinoza, Jimmy Griego, Tom Peron, Steve Homan, and Henry Robinett.

My primary influences for Rhodes playing are in the R&B/soul, jazz, and funk categories.  This is where the sound of the instrument really found resonance with musicians. Rock artists and singer-songwriters made use of it too, but not with the genre-bending results that Stevie Wonder or Herbie Hancock brought to it. I first wanted a Fender Rhodes because of a keyboardist named Craig Doerge.  He played one with James Taylor.  There's a picture of Craig at the electric piano on the back of One Man Dog from 1972.  Joe Sample of The Crusaders and Les McCann figured into my education too.  Sacramento musician, Roger Smith was a ridiculous player and held all locals to a higher standard.  All influences considered, playing the Rhodes was about what Herbie, Joe Zawinul, and Chick Corea had pioneered with Miles Davis.  That's the electric piano vocabulary I was inspired by and still draw on today.  

In the future, if time allows I'd like to feature the Rhodes Mark II Stage Piano (1979-83), and look at my contemporary production uses for the Rhodes as well a sampling of how Switchfoot and Radiohead have used this classic instrument. Until then, here's a series of mp3s I recorded. They are meant to demonstrate the three main effects I used on the piano in the late 1970s and early '80s -- MXR phase shifter, Memory Man, Wah, and the Stereo Vibrato built into the suitcase model. I attempted to play these samples in the style of the day using a Rhodes Mark I Suitcase model. Listen for all the random sonic and harmonic artifacts that poke out around the core sound of the instrument. This is a function of the performance and the inconsistency and uniqueness of individual notes and ranges. You don't get that with samples, no matter how good. This is why you use the real thing on a recording when you can -- and an instrument from the specific manufacturing era to get the sound you want.  Each era sounds unique and reacts to touch and aggression differently.  In addition to the used stock models available locally and via Craig's List and E-Bay, there are versions out there with mods from a company called Dyno-My-Piano. These are the famous Chuck Monte mods, including the Tri-Stereo Chorus which became very popular among guitarists as well (see Michael Landau).  The Tri-Stereo Chorus on Rhodes and guitar is definitive to pop music in the 80s (see Jerry McPherson blog). This is the sound so many Yamaha DX-7 electric piano patches sought to emulate.  Eventually, the ubiquitous use of it came to represent cheesy and kitschy, and much that was wrong with popular music by '90s.

NOTE: Control-Click on mp3s and photos to open in a new window or download.

Rhodes.mono.phaseshift

Rhodes.mono.wah

 

Rhodes.mono.memman.short

 

Rhodes.mono.memman.chodelay

Rhodes.mono.memman.chodelay2

Rhodes.ST.vibrato

Rhodes.ST.memman.alabitchesbrew

Rhodes.ST.memman.alaChick

Rhodes.ST.memman.longdelay

Jim Cox playing a Fender Rhodes Mark I, 73 key, suitcase model. Silver speaker grille is a dead giveaway, that, and the year of our wedding, and Jim's sideburns, and the width of my tie.  To his credit, bassist Bill Langlois is playing the right bass for then and now.

 
Affirmative, that is a dashiki - de rigueur for jazzers in the 70s, especially anyone playing a Fender Rhodes.  Notice that Alphonza Kee had the good sense to not wear one. Instead, Al is channeling Maurice White of Earth, Wind and Fire.  Yes, Alphonza is both an extraordinary bassist and older brother to gospel music legend John P. Kee.    

 

 Yuba College, California - circa 1978. Hands on the Rhodes. Head in the clouds. Larry Casserly's Sunn bass head behind me.  Prescient sticker in view. 

Marysville, CA - circa 1978. This is a my new Rhodes Mark I - 73 key Suitcase Piano -- The Rhodes-only nameplate and the black speaker grille are your first clues to the era of instrument.  Notice FX device on top at right of photo?  That's the ever present Memory Man.  Lorraine Gervais (in shorts) kindly sent this pic after the blog published.  Thank you LG! 

San Francisco rock legend Sal Valentino and me in punk-jazz gear backstage at Freeborn Hall, U.C. Davis, December 1, 1979, before opening for Bob Marley and the Wailers. 

 

Jerry McPherson - The Flood, The Rig, and Sandra Bullock's Lesson

The view from our driveway

 

It's been awhile since my last blog. Good reason for it though. A lot has happened in Nashville, most notably the great flood of 2010.  The flood pushed pause on most of life for at least a month.  It inserted craziness, pain, uncertainty, and a whole lot of change.  The flood has even affected the way we record now and the instruments we use.  

Record producers rely on session musicians to be highly skilled, imaginative, good-natured, and well-equipped gear-wise with the best of what is old and new.  For a guitarist, this means guitars, pedals and rackmount devices, amplifiers, speaker cabs, switchers, and even a laptop.  It takes years and a bank-load of cash to collect and refine your various live and studio rigs.  Imagine losing it all in a flood.  That's exactly what happened to many of Nashville's elite session players when the rehearsal hall/cartage facility Soundcheck flooded.  One who nearly lost it all is my friend, and guitarist of choice for twenty years, Jerry McPherson.

Jerry kindly agreed to take a trip down memory lane with me and revisit some of the gear we've used together over the years.  Our joint discography begins with my own Secret of Time, and includes everything from Amy Grant twenty years ago to The Civil Wars today.  We've done hundreds of recordings together and I've yet to stump him.  When we started out recording together it was the end of the 1980s.  The shiny strat sound dominated the 80s and it hung around like a stray cat for the first part of the 90s.  I asked Jerry what recordings drove the trend, and how one goes about getting that shiny, happy 80s guitar sound.

JERRY MCPHERSON:  I remember Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" having a real impact on guitar tone. The signal chain was typically a strat with active EMG pickups, loads of compression and chorusing (usually the Tri-Stereo Chorus rack unit) and some eq to scoop 1k-2k, then run that all direct into the console. I had a rig where I could send a DI (direct injection) out of my rack, even if I was running through an amp head. You can simulate it now using a clean amp modeling plugin and bypass the speaker emulator.  What's funny is that in the early years of Motown, guitarists plugged their guitars straight into the console, and those sounds still hold up today. What we did, however, has not stood the test of time.

CP: I agree, but then again I keep hearing 80s references in a lot of new music from artists in their twenties.  You may be dialing up this sound again next week.  So was any of your rack gear lost in the flood?

JERRY MCPHERSON: Here's a pic of my politically incorrect rig before the flood.  There's another smaller pic showing how high the water got up on the pedal/device rack. Completely unusable now. The white tape was the waterline.

  

CP:  Ouch.  So that's why you had the new pedal board at The Civil Wars session the other day.  I think I asked you to bring the big rig because we were going to be doing mostly ambient stuff. You said no, not going to happen. Honestly I didn't miss it.  You did great with a handful of pedals and a Les Paul.  It is kind of weird though not having the Bradshaw switching system as command central for the hundreds of creative choices you have intersecting throughout your rig.  First give me the history of the Bradshaw rig and then please tell me it survived.

JERRY MCPHERSON: I had been touring with Amy Grant for about five years when I got to be a part of the "Lead Me On" album. I had three song co-writes on it and got to play on the tracking dates which lasted two weeks. I decided that in order to get the sounds right for the "Lead Me On" tour, I'd need to get a rig together that used all the amps and fx that had gone into making the record. I had been in contact with Bob Bradshaw about putting together a system for me and met with him when Toto came to Houston to do a show. Bob was teching for Steve Lukather and I was living in Texas with no one around that could do what Bradshaw could do. I sent my gear out to him in Hollywood and after a lot of time and money, Bob air freighted back this monstrous, but beautiful system using all my favorite amps and fx in one cohesive setup. It had an amazing sound! It was fast to get around on and quick to set up. I love Pro Tools and plugins, but there is something to be said for dedicated hardware! I had the rig rebuilt years ago. The fx rack did not survive the flood. I had 17 guitars underwater along with several amps, cases, and effects.

CP:  Oh please tell me the peace guitar wasn't one of them.  I love that guitar!  I remember us using it quite a bit.  It is one of those off-brand guitars that's actually a really, really good guitar.

JERRY MCPHERSON: The peace guitar was a seventies Electra Tree of Life electric. I found it on consignment at a little mom and pop music store. The seller was Jim Weatherly who wrote the Gladys Knight and the Pips hit, "Midnight Train To Georgia." I owned it for about 10 years and then sacrificed it to the Cumberland River.

The Electra

Another notable guitar that was ruined in the flood was my "John Kerry" Gibson 335. The Gibson Custom Shop built it for congressman John Kerry when he was running for president. Gibson thought he would win and they'd present it to him in the Oval Office. He even played it at a fundraiser on the campaign trail. Well, he lost so the guitar sat in the Custom Shop office. I was (and still am) playing with Faith Hill and was living in Mexico at the time so when I told some guys at Gibson I was flying into the country to do an awards show with Faith they offered to have a guitar there for me. I got to the hall and there was this killer 335. I played the show and told them, "Great! If you need it back it will be in Mexico! Come and get it!" Had that guitar for about five years until the Cumberland paid a visit.

The John Kerry 335 (parts removed to avoid cracking).

  

CP:  You have a really good attitude for a guy that has lost some amazing gear.  I think everyone has tried to keep things in perspective.  Not only can most gear be replaced, there's something right about limiting your options too.  So break it down for us.  With only a few choices for amps I suspect you might choose a Matchless HC30 or a Fender Bassman.  What about one Swiss-Army knife guitar?  And give me three "can't do without" pedals too.

JERRY MCPHERSON: Well, I've always been a major fan of the Les Paul. Makes a man sound like a man! As far as stomp boxes, for me it's the Nobles ODR-1 (original, no longer made), a volume pedal, and a good delay pedal like the Electro Harmonix Memory Man.

CP: I was hoping you'd say Memory Man.  I think that's my all-time fave.  Perhaps it's also the stomp-box that you and I have put on more records than any other!  We've had some extraordinary, imaginative sessions, some good ones, and some that were just okay.  As I wound down my tenure with major labels a few years back I was glad to regain the freedom that indie projects afforded me.  From the musician's standpoint, what happened?  What went wrong with the music business?  What's wrong with it today?

JERRY MCPHERSON: As far as where the music industry is going right now?  Used to, we were asked to create. Now we're asked to regurgitate. And who wants to pay for vomit?  But, in the category of "I didn't see this one coming" -- I did a benefit with Faith Hill and she asked me to teach "Smoke On The Water" to Sandra Bullock, who made a guest appearance at the show. Sandra thought it would be funny to come out and play "Smoke On The Water" to musically give back to the Nashville community. I got to hang awhile with her. She's beautiful, funny, incredibly intelligent -- everything you could hope for in a student! (BTW, she's my only guitar student!). Just a lovely person.

You know some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed, and other days it's so good you wished you had gotten up sooner!

Jerry and prized student, Sandra Bullock (with Jim Morrison looking on, of course).

Watch for Jerry on tour with Faith Hill.  For sessions, call the AFM 257 Office at 615-244-9514 and they'll kindly give you his number.  

The Legend Hank Cochran: Music and Film Production

I suppose the last rewarding thing about email is the possibility that you might, on any given day, receive a welcome surprise.  This past thursday Brian Owens, artistic director of the Nashville Film Festival emailed to say my short film The Legend Hank Cochran was picked to premiere at the festival in April 2010.  TLHC was my first solo flight as a filmmaker.  Last year I produced the Ten Out Of Tenn feature film Any Day Now with Kristen Dabbs, Marcus Whitney, and director Jeff Wyatt Wilson.  Though I was in charge of the music, most of the heavy lifting was handled by JWW and my co-producers.  The Hank short was a very different story.  With TLHC I wore producer, director and music producer hats along with writing copy and designing an opening title sequence.  Risk or rust is what I often tell others.  This little film was a dose of my own medicine.

The Legend Hank Cochran got its start in June of last year (2009). I was hired by BMI to make a short film of a surprise party for legendary songwriter, Hank Cochran honoring 50 years of hits (co-sponsored by Sony/ATV).  Hank's songs include such country classics as “Make the World Go Away”, “She’s Got You”, “I Fall to Pieces” and “Set ‘Em Up Joe.”  He's had songs cut by a hall of fame list of performers from Elvis Presley to Elvis Costello and hundreds of other marquee names like Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Johnny Cash.

Merle Haggard, Bobby Bare, Jamey Johnson, and Lee Ann Womack, were a few of the musical guests invited to sing acoustic versions of Hank Cochran classics.  Elvis Costello, Cowboy Jack Clement, Jeannie Seely, Jim Lauderdale and fifty more or so celebrities and music industry folks mingled and listened.  Willie Nelson didn't make his flight but graciously called in and spoke to Hank via speaker phone.  Merle acted as master of ceremonies.  It was sweet, surreal, and about as stressful a recording/filming scenario as you can imagine.

The Variables: live sound company, event coordinator and caterer, restriction on nearly all the lighting we brought, three distinct areas of the room that needed mics for the recording, no official soundcheck, a three camera shoot but subjects weren't supposed to be aware of the cameras, and the stars were positioned up against a window with the sun shining in.  This scenario was as far away from the comfort and control of my home studio as it could be.  When Willie Nelson decided to call in to congratulate Hank I was so thankful I had rented a Shure UR4D-H4 wireless mic system.  They put a speaker phone on a table in front of Hank so he could hear Willie clearly.  I wove a Shure PG185 condenser lav mic into the fabric of the tablecloth, applied a little white gaff tape and hoped I'd be able pick up Willie's distinctive voice.

There were many highlights to the day, most notably the presence of Elvis Costello and his gracious deference to the country legends in the room, Willie Nelson's phone call, and Jamey Johnson's pathos drenched version of Hank's “Is It Raining at Your House.”  But then there's the iconic Merle Haggard.  Smithsonian is all I can say.  Smithsonian.  For evidence check out the attached clip of Merle playing a fairly new Willie Nelson song, "Back To Earth."  It's hard for a producer to record anything of lasting value if an artist doesn't have a unique essence.  The Hag has essence in spades.  Put a mic in front of him and get out the way.  Listen and for a moment you can hear some of the history of America.  Not all of it, but some of it, and that's no small achievement.

Before the music tribute portion began I watched Merle walk up to the acoustic guitars provided and strum an open chord with his index fingernail.  He did this four times to four different guitars and walked away.  I took it as mild disinterest and asked him if he wanted to play an older Gibson.  He said nothing but looked at me with a cobalt eyed stare and lowered his head about 3/4 of an inch.  I handed him my son Sam's Gibson J-50.  He strummed a chord, kept the guitar, and walked out of the room.  That guitar has a way about it.  Bono played the same guitar when he came to our house several years ago (see picture at our fireplace and then Merle playing it in the video).  Artists tend to know when an instrument invites music and contains it.  Sam's J-50 does both well.  Rock trivia: The J-50 was Dylan's guitar of choice in the early 1960s.

I love the challenge of overseeing both music and images.  It's heightened my senses and hopefully made me a better record producer.  I'm currently finishing up a feature concert documentary And The World Opened Up on the iconoclastic Brooke Waggoner.  Watch for a blog on this winsome artist and project in the near future.  Until then there's a lot of music to make.  Currently in the oven: k.s. Rhoades, The Civil Wars full length, My Tyger co-produced with Joel McAnulty of De Novo Dahl, and Nathan Tasker (with Shane D. Wilson mixing as I write).  

There you have it. Bring good things into the world, love your neighbor, and be at peace with everyone as much as it is possible.

Gear and People:

All our audio recording mics were run directly into a Presonus M80, essentially an 8 channel mic-pre with a stereo summing amp.  This is a great sort of Swiss army knife box -- dependable and very portable.  From the M80 we went into my Pro Tools 002 with the Black Lion Audio mod.  A MacBook Pro drove the PT software.  No compression or limiting was used in the recording.  Engineer Richie Biggs kept a very close eye on levels, which was essential given the diversity of performers.  We mic'd acoustic guitars with Neumann KM84's and vocals were captured with Shure SM58's.  Earthworks TC-30K's provided us with a very clean ambient room picture.  Kip Kubin, Ryan Hamlin, and Sam Ashworth shot with Panasonic HVX-200A cameras, two of which had 35mm lens adapters for more of a film look.  Aspect ratio 16:9, 24pn, using P2 cards which I love (no more pesky tape!).  Interview footage was shot at Hank's home.  Richie and I recorded Bobby Bare's opening narration at the Sound Emporium.  Jeff Wyatt Wilson and Kip Kubin both edited with final edits by Sam Ashworth.  I wrote the music for the opening title sequence and Sara Groves' "This House" is featured at the end.

 Bono in the Art House living room with Sam's Gibson J-50

From Peter Gabriel to Paul Moak: A Defense for Artist-Friendly Studios

  

With a few exceptions, all the recording studios I've ever visited or worked at had one thing in common: they did not encourage creativity.  I know, hard to believe.  Strangely, a lot of great music gets recorded in unfriendly creative environments.  You know what though? Great music is a tribute to the grace of being human. Not necessarily an encouragement to studios for a job well done.  So how do they fail to encourage creativity?

First a little history.  The modern recording studio, at it's heart, is the product of the scientific mind.  The DNA of a recording studio is made up of the building blocks of electricity and sound as well as significant scientific and technological discoveries.  In the beginning it was likely that your recording engineer knew more about voltage and nanowebbers than how to spell a G9+5 chord.  Lab coats and pocket protectors were de rigueur in the earliest recording studios. 

Musicians didn't crossover into the engineer or producer sector.  Musicians read their charts, took a cigarette break, and moved on to the next studio and session.  The electrical engineers were in charge.

Not anymore. The whole process has been democratized. Now everyone is an engineer.  Everyone is a producer.  And though we spend a tremendous amount of time in home studios or spare bedrooms with some sort of DAW, we still use a variety of other kinds of studios for tracking and mixing.  The lab coats may be gone, but many of the old studio designs and practices still linger and continue to discourage creativity.

Studios should be about helping humans capture performances with the best and most diverse gear and instruments available.  Instead, many studios begin their day by setting up mics and plugging innumerable cables into a patchbay that needs a code book to be deciphered.  On top of that, the engineer is the only person in the room that understands the routing of the hundreds of mic, line, and patch cables.  Finally you start recording.  Once the session is over the console and gear are zeroed out and everything is torn down and tucked away very laboratory-like.  No one but the studio's trained engineer could get a CD to play once everything is torn down (and maybe that's a stretch). The next day you get it all out again and go through the same process for your new studio client.  Clean slate and all that.  I get it.

This is the studio tradition that began back in the lab coat days.  Of course there's merit in a clean, organized work environment.  But understand this, the only thing musicians and artists care about is closing the gap between what they can imagine and what they can create.  To the degree that engineers and studios frustrate this good goal, to that degree engineers and studios fail their mission and discourage creativity.

A few quick stories highlighting a different path -- one that encourages creativity and gets people into the action without a lot of technical tripping and slipping.  Twenty four years ago I was recording background vocals at producer-engineer Bill Schnee's studio in Los Angeles.  Jack Joseph Puig was the producer on the project, a rock album for an amazingly soulful gospel singer named Russ Taff.  We were recording a song of mine called "Down In The Lowlands."  The track featured some of LA and Nashville's best, including Paul Leim, Nathan East, Dann Huff, Robbie Buchanan, Mark Douthit and Lenny Castro. The track sounded stellar.  In fact, it sounded mixed.  Good reason for it too.  It was.  JJP explained to me that he was always mixing (in mix mode) even when doing overdubs.  I liked this idea.  It certainly made singing background vocals a more inspiring experience.  It also helped JJP know when enough was enough.  He didn't have to guess what it would sound like mixed.  

Hopefully you can see the positive implications of recording and monitoring where you're always mixing, shaping the track toward its final end.  Contrast this method with one that breaks the recording into project categories of tracking/overdubs/mixing with only the final one (mix) actually representing your true vision for the project.  JJP showed me that the true vision for a project could be front-loaded and needn't be something that had to wait to be heard until the proper mix day.  If you try this or ask for it, beware.  You may meet some resistance.  Any vocalist who has ever tried and failed at getting an engineer to add a compressor, reverb, and a delay line to their headphone mix knows what I'm talking about.  The lab coats are still lurking.

Back to my early days with producer David Kahne at The Automatt in San Francisco, I remember Herbie Hancock in one of the studios with all his gear setup (essentially every keyboard and synth available).  He could come in with his engineer/keyboard tech and record anytime.  It was plug and play.  I've never seen anyone create this kind of plug and play setup better than Peter Gabriel and more recently Paul Moak in Nashville.  Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios is a place that stirs the imagination and invites creativity.  Engineer Richard Chappell once gave our family a thorough tour of all the studios including Peter's personal one.  It had the requisite SSL console and Sony 48 Track digital machines popular at the time, but what set it apart was its focus -- the artist.  There was a central performance station in the middle of the room where Peter sat.  It included his various favorite keyboards, drum machines and other instruments.  His vocal mic was setup at the keyboard and always on to capture any melody or lyric idea.  They were always in record, always documenting the artist at work.  

In Nashville, engineer/producer/musician Paul Moak has a similar setup.  It's in the tradition of artist studios like Peter's or Jon Brion's, but the Smoakstack is also a commercial studio, one I recently rented for Nathan Tasker's new project.  I knew it would be interesting.  I'd heard that Paul had collected a warehouse of inspiring instruments.  What I didn't expect was how intuitive the setup would be.  Paul has anticipated every probable creative choice and set up microphones and DI's to accommodate those choices.  If you walked up to a vibraphone it was miked and ready to record.  Tack piano?  Ready to record.  Les Paul into a Matchless?  Ready to record.  Drum set?  Ready and waiting.  Paul has wisely assisted artists and musicians in closing the gap between what they can imagine and what they can create.  The studio is helping and not hindering the artistic process and that's actually pretty revolutionary for studios.  I suspect his new place in the Berry Hill community of Nashville will do very well.  Not only does this style of recording represent the best of the present and surely the future, it represents what artists and musicians are looking for and actually need in terms of a space that encourages performance and captures it quickly and well.  

Recording should be transparent unless you choose otherwise.  It's about the music first.  We are only taking a sonic picture of the music because its so good more people need to hear it.  A plug and play studio encourages the making of music the very moment you walk in, and as a result, the making of good recordings.  That's the workflow.  I'll be back at Paul's soon.  I'm setting up a day for my friend k.s. rhoads to work there.  I know he'll love the plug and play, artist-friendly hang.  Who wouldn't?  Besides, why should we have to work in artist-unfriendly studios?

• Jack Joseph Puig Bio and Discography
• Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios
• Paul Moak Contact Info 

Performance Production: The Civil Wars' "Poison & Wine"

Of all the ideas proffered for the decline of the record business I'd have to say it's people like me and some of the music we've produced that are most to blame.  If early commercial recordings were about capturing performances, and everything after The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper was about a combination of performance and production illusion, somewhere along the way we settled for illusion alone.  I understand the seduction of illusion and magic, the whole wizard of Oz thing, playing the role of the mastermind behind the curtain pulling music out of thin air.  It's god-like and very tempting to the soul.  But the Oz-like producer immersed in Pro Tools led to the thinly-worn joke of the producer saying to the singer/artist: "Let me swab your cheek for DNA and I'll have your record ready for you in two months."  Funny, but not funny.  As it turns out, what people really like is recordings of performances and not evidence of how industrious and intricately clever producers are.

Now that I've accepted some personal blame, let me assign a little to songs and artists.  There is some sort of universal production law at play: To the degree that songs and performances do not deliver a powerful emotional connection, record producers set about compensating for the absence, creating every sort of musical counterfeit for the essence of great artistry and songwriting.  It's what we do.  We seek wholeness, even if our 100% production isn't really 100% artistically nutritious.  Bottom line is that compelling performances of artful songs ought to do the majority of the heavy-lifting and not the production.  

In the last several years I've gone back to this idea as a "first thing."  My job is setting the stage for, encouraging, and capturing a great performance.  Seems to me this is at the heart of lasting record production.  Maybe the best, recent example of this performance production focus is The Civil Wars, Poison & Wine.  Joy Williams and John Paul White make up this enigmatic duo of sultry, southern-gothic heartache.  They are mostly two voices and an acoustic guitar -- sometimes a piano.  My idea was to take a combined direct/ambient sonic picture of them performing songs they already knew and loved.  If I could do this successfully, I knew we'd have something good and right.  

The first thing was to put them in a space where music can thrive.  We used the sanctuary of our 100 year old church-house -- some carpet but mostly heart-pine floors and a twenty foot ceiling.  Next, they sang and made music.  Engineer Richie Biggs and I recorded it -- maybe three passes of each song.  We stopped now and again for a noisy train in the distance, or to comment on what was good or what might be improved.  In two sessions we had nine keeper songs.  I listened through all the performances, made notes, and then comped the performances together just as I might a lead vocal.  There was no click track and all the mics bled into one another.  I went for mostly complete performances but didn't pass up a better performance of an out chorus or instrumental section when it presented itself. 

Thankfully I learned multitrack comping from producer Steven Soles back in the early eighties.  He told me it was the way he and T-Bone Burnett made records.  Soles was in Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue with T-Bone, and the two of them, along with David Mansfield made three records together as The Alpha Band.  We were cutting on 2" tape.  Soles made a map of the song's sections then listened to the three or four takes we had of each song (yes, that's 10 to 15 rolls of tape).  Once the best sections were selected Soles had the engineer cut the 2" multi-track master into intro/vs/chorus and every sub-division combination thereof.  These very long pieces of tape were then taped to the control room glass window, labeled, and then carefully reassembled on the reel into a song.  Now we had a new master. 

This is essentially what I did with the mult-track Pro Tools sessions with no click or grid.  On tape you always try to cut on a spike, like a snare drum.  In cutting together an acoustic performance with vocals like "Poison and Wine" you cut on guitar bass notes at the start of a phrase or backbeat strums that sit between the vocal melody.  Because there is no click, when inserting a new section from another take, you often have to move all tracks on the left or right of your edit very slightly to compensate for the natural, fluctuating time.  Essentially you use your ears to determine timing.  And no matter how difficult or antiquated cutting off the grid in Pro Tools may seem, it is nothing compared to cutting tape, an act which does not tolerate error or offer any mercy.  After this project I regained my fearlessness in cutting performances together.  Clicks are over-rated.  

Once The Civil Wars and uber-manager Nate Yetton approved the final performances we all gathered back at the studio with musical friends Jerry McPherson (guitar), Tim Lauer (keyboards), and Ken Lewis (percussion).  Our goal was to listen together until we heard any additional musical ideas.  If we did, we pursued them.  But just because we pursued ideas, did not mean we kept any of them.  If at any point the performance resisted adding a part or sound we quickly abandoned the idea.  In the case of the single "Poison & Wine" we ended up with anonymous, intersecting pads, bass drum, an ambient snare pattern, and low end bass notes.  The goal was to enhance the extraordinary performance arc that already existed.  Richie Biggs prepared the final mixes and we all weighed in for a timely finish.  Artists take note: This is the kind of performance that producers are looking for.  Give us something in this family and we won't screw around with your song as much.  Poison & Wine appeared on Grey's Anatomy last fall and the "making of" and "official" videos on You Tube now have over 100,000 views.  I've included the "making of" vid above created by Sam Ashworth so you can watch some of the actual performance of the song as we recorded it.  A link to iTunes for purchase of the single is in the iMix to the left of the page.  A full EP download is available at the Amazon link to the right. 

The Gear We Used:

Joy Williams sang through a Heil PR20 mic into a Neve 1079 mic pre with a Distressor compressor in the LA2A mode.  John Paul White sang through a Shure SM7 with the same vocal chain.  We used a Neumann KM84 and/or AT4040 on the acoustic guitar and a direct box -- both going into API 512 Mic preamps and Tube Tech CL1A compressors.  We also added a Fender Tweed amp on the guitar with a Shure SM57 into a Neve 1064.  Joy played my Yamaha C-7 piano into a matched pair of Earthworks TC-30K mics into Avalon M5 mic preamps and the SSL G384 Stereo Compressor.  Room mics were Manley Gold Refs into Universal Audio LA-610s.
 

Official Poison & Wine video

The Civil Wars on Myspace

Steven Soles Bio

T-Bone Burnett Bio

Todd Rundgren and the Punk Production Trajectory

 

Charlie Peacock circa 1979. Would-be producer gets his first production call.    

 

According to a recent FB message it's been thirty years since my first commercial production, a 7" 45rpm single on the art-punk band Labial Fricative, "Chumps" b/w "Auto-erotica" [1979].  Drummer Rick Daprato sent me a message saying: "Time has apparently rendered it worthwhile since copies of the 45 are selling for $30 and a record label wants to reissue it."  I checked into the label a bit, SS Records.  Their website implies they have offices in a number of places including: Sacramento, Seattle, Zurich, and San Quentin (which is an infamous west coast prison in case you're not up to speed with your Johnny Cash/Merle Haggard lore).

Aspiring producers often ask me: How did you get started?  The inspiration to start was a Todd Rundgren album cover and recording, Something/Anything.  The actual production beginning was just about friends making music together -- like the story above.

When I was 15 years old, Rick Gibson, a young deejay on my hometown Top 40 station (KOBO/Yuba City, CA) took me for a spin in his El Camino and played Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything for me. The Camino was fitted with JBL speakers which was a big deal at the time. Hearing Todd’s masterpiece at earth-shaking volume and seeing the cover photograph of him at work in his living room studio was life-changing.  Made me think I needed to get a living room full of flashing lights.  Rick, a drummer and novice recording engineer, offered to help me realize the dream. A few weeks later he invited me to an unkempt ranch-style home hidden within a peach orchard—the “band house” of a local rock group named Whitefire (a decade later, the band’s drummer, Mark Proctor, would become a founding member of the legendary Christian rock group the 77s - a band I would later produce). 

Rick was already setup to track Whitefire and kindly squeezed me in for an all-night recording session of the first two finished songs I'd ever written. This would also be my first studio experience.  Shortly after that I started buying my own gear - 1/4" reel-to-reel tape decks to do what was then called sound-on-sound, a kind of poor man's multi-track recording.  Everything had to be one take; there was no punching in.  Ironically, 18 years after the serendipitous ride in Rick’s El Camino, I met Todd Rundgren backstage at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville. My friend bassist Larry Tagg introduced me as the co-writer of a song Todd had produced for Larry’s band (Bourgeois Tagg).  “Oh yeah, a big hit,” said Todd, raising his eyebrows to emphasize the sarcasm. Coming from a one-time musical hero, this hurt a little, but not too much, considering Todd had just come offstage dressed as a giant condom. 

I was never really a bonafide punk and I'm not sure Labial Fricative was either, with the possible exception of the lead singer, Maria, a six footish female body-builder.  What did I do with the band?  I took an audio picture of them making music together.  Not a bad starting place for producing.   

Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something/Anything%3F

Labial Fricative: http://www.nokilli.com/inbred/bands/labial-fricative.htm

The 77s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Fall_Down_(77s_album)

Bourgeois-Tagg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeois_Tagg

Labial Fricative on stage circa 1980.  Musicians in photo: Henry Robinett, Jimmy Griego, and Maria. Robinett, cousin of Charles Mingus, is an accomplished jazz recording artist and Sacramento, CA studio owner.  

    

Going Back While Moving Forward

 

I've been putting together a third Pro Tools station for our studio.  The new publishing company means more writers on the property, which will inevitably mean more people needing studio time.  I've really thrown myself into it.  Wiring it up, bringing order to it.  Reminds me of years ago when we'd move into a new apartment or rental house.  I'd stake out a space and put together my studio -- even if it was a closet.  For years my gear was a cassette recorder, acoustic spinet piano, #2 pencils, manuscript paper, a wire bound notebook, and a pencil sharpener (and yes, I have put the spinet in a closet before).  

I created a lot of music that way.  At any time, any era, the music creation formula is still the same: imagination + vox/instrumentation = music, either gone forever, memorized in the mind and muscles, or stored in some sort of archival/retrieval system, like a cassette recorder or a piece of manuscript paper.  It's okay, you can ask what a cassette or manuscript paper is.  They were just tools and tools are only as good as the imagination and talent behind them.  As soon as I could I moved on to new ways of capturing ideas and performances.  But if there's ever an amazing musical idea being floated in the midst of a power failure, I'm your man, because I can write it down with a pencil and paper.  That's real analog there.

In the process of putting the new rig together I got the notion to add a little drum machine to the mix -- make it easy to get a beat going and put down a demo.  So much production happens in the DAW box in front of a computer screen now that music sometimes loses it's physicality.  I didn't want to just add Reason, Stylus, or EZdrummer to the computer.  I wanted to hit something -- with my forefinger.  Who would have ever thought that playing around with a drum machine could ever be described as visceral.  Well, I guess I did.  I used to be quite enamored of programming with sequencers, drum machines, analog synths, and so on.  From 1982 to 1992 nearly every record I played on or produced was of the programming variety.  A lot of that stuff is so marked by the decade it was created in that it sounds almost kitschy, disposable, and insincere.  Maybe that's the sound of the eighties, I'm not sure. But that was the time and the nature of so much pop music then -- especially radio driven music.  Thankfully, we've been back to live drums for a long time now -- though the use of sound replacement makes the nuance of playing live sort of a wasted effort for the drummer.  

I knew I wanted an Akai MPC machine and I settled on the little guy, the MPC 1000.  Bought it used on eBay of course.  Put an 80 gig hard drive in it -- one I had leftover from a MacBook Pro upgrade, and off I went, back to the future.  The first drum machine I ever used, besides one of those cheesy rhythm boxes, was a Linn LM-1 Drum Computer created by Roger Linn and introduced in early 1980 (pictured above). This machine was the first to use real drum samples and cost over $5,000.  Linn also created the MPC, but much later.  Legendary record producer/manager David Rubinson* got hold of one for his studio, The Automatt in San Francisco.  It might of been a prototype.  Producer David Kahne** learned to use it and we put it on several of my earliest recordings from 1980 featuring Vicki Randall (Tonight Show) and Mark Isham (film composer).  

I'm putting several drum kits together for the MPC 1000 made up mostly of Steven Slate samples and fave samples from years of production.  It will be simple and mostly something to write with and propel the demo process forward.  Still, I have to admit, programming the old way is pretty fun.  No wonder hip-hop has stayed so loyal to the MPC line of drum machines.  I get it.  Hitting that grey rubber pad is way better than auditioning one more loop in Pro Tools.

it remains to be seen whether this new little box will make its way onto any new recordings or not.  There's a part of me that wants another shot at programming -- a shot of redemption maybe.  It will have to be different this time though, but how can it not be?  It's a far more sophisticated world now. In the 80s we were all too young to understand that every tool has an ideology, one overriding goal more than any other -- like the hammer and its desire to drive the nail.  The heart and mind, the senses, must control the tool and moderate it's presence in the mix of choices.  In short, the drum machine works for you, you don't work for it.  Wish I would have known that in 1983.  You might still be listening to my debut album if I had.

 

* David Rubinson provided me with management and artist development in the very beginning of my recording career.  He is a San Francisio legend responsible for Moby Grape, Taj Mahal, Santana, Tower of Power, Herbie Hancock, and the Pointer Sisters. David worked as an Associate Producer at Capitol Records during 1963-4. He was with Columbia Records as a staff producer from 1964-69, after which he went into partnership with Bill Graham in The Fillmore Corporation in San Francisco. He formed David Rubinson and Friends Inc. in 1971 and five years later, built The Automatt, first automated studios in San Francisco.  He retired from record production in 1983. 

** David Kahne was the first record producer I worked with who modeled the record producer as philosopher/intellectual and student of popular music history.  In 1980 producer David Kershenbaum signed me to a development deal at A&M Records.  David Kahne produced the demos as well as subsequent demos during 1980-81.  David is a Grammy-award winning producer of such diverse artists as Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett, The Bangles, Sheryl Crow, Shawn Colvin, and Kelly Clarkson.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linn_LM-1

http://www.vintagesynth.com/linn/linn.php

Ladies and Gentlemen . . . The Record Producer!

The first record producer I ever laid eyes on was Skip Drinkwater. It was 1977. He had a minor hit with an artist named Norman Connors on Buddha Records -- a song called "You Are My Starship." I knew him for that record but also because he was trumpeter Eddie Henderson's producer. I never met Skip, just watched him work. Even more accurately, watched him watch Herbie Hancock rehearse the band in prep for what would become an album titled Mahal. Even today this stands as a righteously sublime memory. I quit a job at a hardware store to make that rehearsal at SIR in San Francisco. It was worth it.

Of course Herbie Hancock was in fact a great record producer too and a huge musical hero of mine. I talked to Herbie recently, backstage at the Rose Bowl for U2. He seemed slight in height. Smaller than I remember from the last time I talked to him at the Ryman with Wayne Shorter and Bela and Jeff. Maybe that's how it goes. When you're coming up everyone you admire is a giant. As you find your own way, tell your own story, the heroes get smaller.

I think the next record producer I fell in with was someone I'm still friends with today - David Houston. David founded a studio in south Sacramento called Moon Studios, which was just a garage outfitted with foam, egg crates, an ARP 2600, ARP Omni, Mini-Moog, Mu-Tron Bi-Phase, a Baldwin electric harpsichord, a 1/2" Tascam 8 Track and a whole load of street cred. David was in the late '60s proto-punk rock band Public Nuisance, a band that didn't really get their due until The White Stripes started covering one of David's songs from the era. David's still at it today, producing mostly indie artists, those left of center enough to understand his ethos and quirkiness. I did so many sessions as a musician where David engineered or produced. They've all blended together now.

What I will always remember about David though is his tempo. Not time as in drum time, but the pace at which he carried himself. A producer is in charge of the tempo everywhere and in everything. Tempo of the track. Tempo of the heart. Tempo of the discussion. Tempo of the lunch and dinner. It's all tempo and the producer is the conductor. A good producer knows how to bring the peace and stir the chaos.