Speaker 1: Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Bob Left Podcast. My
Speaker 1: chest today is truly legendary. The Dean of engineers Al Schmidt. Wow,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for having me. Okay, happy to
Speaker 1: be here. What work are you most proud of? WHOA, Well,
Speaker 1: I think all the records I did with Mancini, Uh,
Speaker 1: lots of the stuff I did with Um Diana Crawl great,
Speaker 1: some great albums with Streissan, Um Steely, Dan Total. I
Speaker 1: mean it goes on. There's so many of them, said
Speaker 1: I look up, Okay, some of the great jazz records
Speaker 1: you know, Bill Evans and and uh, Jerry Mulligan, Chet Baker,
Speaker 1: those kind of things. Yeah, those very Let's drill down
Speaker 1: to literally one of my, if not my favorite record
Speaker 1: of all time, which is Jackson Brown Lead for the Sky. Right.
Speaker 1: You started working with Jackson on his second album, right
Speaker 1: Try every Man. How did that come together? Well? What
Speaker 1: happened was he was working in another engineering and they
Speaker 1: were having problems getting a mix on it and he
Speaker 1: called me and uh, I had just finished I think
Speaker 1: the Dave Mason album alone together. Yeah, but he called
Speaker 1: me and and said, you know what, I give it
Speaker 1: a shot. And he knew you from alone together. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so h yeah, so we got along really well. I
Speaker 1: mixed the record. It came out very nice and came
Speaker 1: out so then when he was getting ready to do
Speaker 1: Late for the Sky, he called me and asked if
Speaker 1: I would co produce it with him, and I said sure.
Speaker 1: So that was it. Okay, So you're both a producer
Speaker 1: and an engineer. Explain the difference of your roles in
Speaker 1: the capacities. Well, a real producer is the guy that
Speaker 1: UM hires, the contractor who lives to musicians. UM looks
Speaker 1: for the material if the artist is not a songwriter,
Speaker 1: trying to find songs for him. Fortunately with Jackson, he
Speaker 1: wrote all his own stuff. UM. A producer overseas everything
Speaker 1: make sure that everybody's on time, and you know, budgets
Speaker 1: are being taken care of and and uh and kind
Speaker 1: of as a director on a film, similar to that,
Speaker 1: an engineer is the guy that captures all the sounds,
Speaker 1: the vocals, the guitars, the drums. He's the guy that's
Speaker 1: got to get it and make it sound good and
Speaker 1: make it sound very musical and and pleasant to the
Speaker 1: is hopefully okay. But on a record, because there are
Speaker 1: a number of records you were producer, especially in the seventies.
Speaker 1: What roles did you perform on those albums that were
Speaker 1: different from being an engineer? When when I was just
Speaker 1: a producer in the U, I guess it was the
Speaker 1: mid sixties. On. My job then was to I had
Speaker 1: eleven artists, um, and they went the Sam Cook, Hugo Montenegro, Um,
Speaker 1: the women Folk, Glen Yarborough, UM. I just went on
Speaker 1: and on. H So my job is to put put
Speaker 1: in budgets for each album. Back then most artists did
Speaker 1: two albums a year, not like today. So I had
Speaker 1: to put in budgets for the artists. For the albums
Speaker 1: I had the artist that didn't write material, I had
Speaker 1: a fine material for So every Monday was publishers State
Speaker 1: of all the publishers. Well, let's go back just a
Speaker 1: couple of steps. You said you had eleven acts. How
Speaker 1: did you end up with eleven x M? R c
Speaker 1: A said you think these guys okay? So at the
Speaker 1: time you were on staff at r CU, I was
Speaker 1: a stand producer. When what was your tenure at r
Speaker 1: c A from when to win as a stand producer? Well,
Speaker 1: I think I became a stand producer in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: one and I was there until I left I think
Speaker 1: sixties six seven. Okay, Now in that era seven, what
Speaker 1: I know, to touch the board you have to be
Speaker 1: a union guy, right, absolutely, And that's why I went
Speaker 1: on became a producer. I couldn't touch the board anymore.
Speaker 1: And when I did, I get called up on the
Speaker 1: carpet and they would say, don't do that anymore. And okay,
Speaker 1: So you were at r c A from like sixty
Speaker 1: one to the late sixties as a producer as a producer,
Speaker 1: but you were literally working for them, yes, okay. After
Speaker 1: that you went independent, right okay? And then before that
Speaker 1: are you independent? Um? Yes? Okay? So what made you
Speaker 1: decide to go to work for r c Actually, before
Speaker 1: that I was not independent. I had worked for Radio Recorders,
Speaker 1: which was a recording to them. That's how I got
Speaker 1: involved with henrw Mancini and UH and the Peter Gun
Speaker 1: record and UH and I wound up then doing all
Speaker 1: of Hanks things recordings and that's when r C A
Speaker 1: opened their studio. They hired me. I was the first
Speaker 1: higher to work in the news studios at r C A.
Speaker 1: And it was on the corner of the Sunset and
Speaker 1: Vine and he had a long time the seven NBC building, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it was when I was working at was they
Speaker 1: had the National News at night or the late news
Speaker 1: at night, and you bet your life and crowdcho I
Speaker 1: would crowd almost every day down in the hallways. And
Speaker 1: every time you go buy mumble something, have me laughing
Speaker 1: all the magic word of the day. Um so. But
Speaker 1: at the time, our CIA was headquartered in New York, right, yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: so that you were when you came on as a producer,
Speaker 1: you were in the West Coast, was there? You were
Speaker 1: the first producer on the West Coast? No, I was
Speaker 1: the first engineer I hide on the West Coast. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wasn't producing at that point. I was just engineering.
Speaker 1: So you worked for our CIA as an engineer or
Speaker 1: a salary right, and then once you became a producer
Speaker 1: you couldn't touch the board anyway, exactly. Okay. How long
Speaker 1: did you work for them before you became a producer? Uh?
Speaker 1: And a half years? And what caused the switch? Um?
Speaker 1: What cause the switch was people would ask for me
Speaker 1: on dates all the time as an engineer, and I'd
Speaker 1: be the engineer and they'd come in and produce a
Speaker 1: committee behind the phone for threality. And I was doing
Speaker 1: all the work, talking to legal musicians, and we knew everybody.
Speaker 1: And if you make a mistake, you know we're on
Speaker 1: the honest system. Raise your hand. You know this guy's
Speaker 1: talking to book or or a bookie or something. He's
Speaker 1: not paying attention to what's going on here. So and
Speaker 1: they were getting all the credit and everything, and I thought, uh,
Speaker 1: so I went to my boss, my boss at that time,
Speaker 1: with Steve Scholz. And Steve is the guy that signed
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley r C A. Yeah, he was major guy
Speaker 1: at at r C and I was he in New York, Rilla.
Speaker 1: He was part of the time New York, part of
Speaker 1: the time in l A. At this particular time, it
Speaker 1: was in l A. So I went and I talked
Speaker 1: to him. I had gotten an offer from Bill Putnam,
Speaker 1: who owned the studio. Um he was getting ready to
Speaker 1: kind of slowed down, I guess, and he was going
Speaker 1: to hire me from r C A over the United
Speaker 1: and uh and so it at lot more money than
Speaker 1: I was making. So I told Steve that I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a producer and and uh, if if I
Speaker 1: didn't get a promotion, I was going to leave. So
Speaker 1: we worked out a deal that okay, they who do that,
Speaker 1: but I have to bring in an engineer and break
Speaker 1: him in on all the Mancini dates, you know, because
Speaker 1: he was the top guy then and you know. And
Speaker 1: so I said, fine. So there was a guy at
Speaker 1: Ready Records that I knew, Jim Malloy, who later on
Speaker 1: became a big time producer in country music and one
Speaker 1: Grammys and did the Paint Panther record and quite a
Speaker 1: few other things. But but he had a lot of
Speaker 1: talent and nothing was going on with him there, and
Speaker 1: and I liked him, so I talked him into coming
Speaker 1: over and then on all the early charade and those
Speaker 1: things men say, anythings that he did, I sat next
Speaker 1: to him and showed him how I set up and
Speaker 1: what I did. And then then I was able to
Speaker 1: uh move into doing just producing and uh and I
Speaker 1: got away front it. Okay, okay, no one could be
Speaker 1: as good as you. But how long did it take
Speaker 1: to get Malloy up to uh the right level? I
Speaker 1: was with maybe three big sessions quickly. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: pretty quick. He was. He was really good. Okay, so
Speaker 1: now you're going to be a producer. Okay, you're not
Speaker 1: going to touch the board anymore. Tell us how you
Speaker 1: end up with eleven acts? Well, they give they wind
Speaker 1: up giving me acts, you know, And that's that's the
Speaker 1: first thing. Um. The first record I made that I
Speaker 1: produced was by H. H. B. Barnham Um and we
Speaker 1: did a thing called take Me Out of the Ballgame,
Speaker 1: and we did a funky version of that. It was
Speaker 1: just the start of the season we put that out. Then. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then I just wound up getting um artist given to me,
Speaker 1: you know, like, Um, I went to dinner one night
Speaker 1: with Steve Olds and and and and like the big
Speaker 1: Posts from New York Show The Imperial and Eddie Fisher.
Speaker 1: The next thing I know, I'm producing Eddie Fisher. So
Speaker 1: you know, I was. It's not my kind of thing
Speaker 1: that that I wouldn't go out and normally buy an
Speaker 1: Eddie Fisher record. Uh, but this is it. So I
Speaker 1: just went what about trying to make the best record
Speaker 1: I could with Eddie Fisher? Okay, So did they have
Speaker 1: you signing any acts? I could? And and uh I did.
Speaker 1: I turned one or two small acts for small percentages,
Speaker 1: but nothing ever happened. Okay, So you're working for our
Speaker 1: c A. You're totally on salary, totally okay. So the
Speaker 1: record hits, you're not getting any more money, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you do. You get you can make five thousand dollar
Speaker 1: bonus at the end of the year, and I made
Speaker 1: that every year. So I went from making as an
Speaker 1: engineer because you out it over time, seven thousand a
Speaker 1: year after was a lot of money, very very good,
Speaker 1: to seventeen thousand, five hundred salary and five thousand as
Speaker 1: a bonus. So five was it was the dream there.
Speaker 1: The dream was to be a producer because they were
Speaker 1: the guys that were getting all the glory stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: you think, oh, yeah, that's producers. They got all of uh,
Speaker 1: the authority they hired, you know, I don't know whatever
Speaker 1: it was. It was a and something I always wanted
Speaker 1: to do, and when I got into it, I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure that when I was doing it that this was
Speaker 1: really what I wanted to do and that that story
Speaker 1: evolves a little bit. Okay, So you're now the producer
Speaker 1: to what degree? You know, over the last fifty years,
Speaker 1: things have varied, been the error of the producer, in
Speaker 1: the error of the engineer producer. So when you were
Speaker 1: the producer other than making sure that your God was
Speaker 1: getting the sound right. And you're in the studio, what
Speaker 1: kind of input would you give? Well, I was the
Speaker 1: guy that hired the arranger. You know, Nels had Nelson
Speaker 1: Riddle for the first date. Um, I found a song Faddy.
Speaker 1: After going to maybe two thousand songs, I found one
Speaker 1: I thought that might be able to work for him,
Speaker 1: and we did. It came out and uh it uh.
Speaker 1: It made the top twenty uh and and uh singles
Speaker 1: uh and it kind of brought him back a little
Speaker 1: and helped that way. UM, what do you do you
Speaker 1: you you you have an artist. So if he writes songs,
Speaker 1: then you figure out, all right, let's hear the songs.
Speaker 1: You figure out which the best songs are and which
Speaker 1: ones you want to do. UM. If he doesn't right,
Speaker 1: then you have to look for material for him and
Speaker 1: find songs that that he could do. UM. For the
Speaker 1: reason I is being in the studio myself a fraction
Speaker 1: of the average engineer. Never mind yourself. I find most
Speaker 1: engineers are relatively passive. They'll do what the whatever the
Speaker 1: act says. And I find that the producer is the
Speaker 1: person who tends to say, whoa that doesn't work. Who Yeah,
Speaker 1: that has to change. Is that accurate? Yeah, that's very accurate. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm the engineer and there's an artist
Speaker 1: here and a producer next to me, David Foster or whatever,
Speaker 1: he's the boss. You know, it's like a director of film.
Speaker 1: The producer is the boss. So he wants me to
Speaker 1: do something. I can explain why. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a good idea, but if he insists, I do it,
Speaker 1: you know, but I want them in front. Okay, So
Speaker 1: you're producing in the early sixties. Uh, is everybody cutting
Speaker 1: an album or you had doing just singles or what?
Speaker 1: It's a little of both, mostly albums. Almost every artist
Speaker 1: had two albums a year, you know. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: was when you have a lot of artists. Hugo Montenegro
Speaker 1: I had at that time. Um, god, Wellegro did? That's right?
Speaker 1: Is that your record? Now? I did right right after that.
Speaker 1: I worked with him. Okay, to think, so you're working
Speaker 1: with those acts. How much pressure do you get from
Speaker 1: New York City to have a hit? Um? Yeah, you get.
Speaker 1: You get pressure from everybody to have a head, including yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, this is what you're striving for. You know,
Speaker 1: especially with like someone like Eddie Fisher who had not
Speaker 1: had a record in a while, hadn't had done anything
Speaker 1: or whatever. I went to a band. You you want
Speaker 1: to get something that will get played on the top
Speaker 1: forty radio stations and you so you're trying to find
Speaker 1: something that's commercial, maybe sing along kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: and then of course to hire somebody like Nelson Riddle
Speaker 1: to do the arrangement. And and he was quite a
Speaker 1: big help on it. Uh yeah, it's it's not not easy.
Speaker 1: So tell me about a Monday being publishing day. I
Speaker 1: be on Monday would be publishing day. I'd I'd come in. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'd see four or five publishers that day. They'd come over.
Speaker 1: I had a turntable there, and uh they would bring
Speaker 1: these songs and put them on and and listen and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe make a note on something that I
Speaker 1: put a hold on the song for an artist that
Speaker 1: I was thinking about. Uh so that would be it.
Speaker 1: And they'd be there a half hour forty medicine, next
Speaker 1: guy show up and I do that. And that's but
Speaker 1: you know, someone who's listening to material, that's usually a
Speaker 1: very tedious process. It is it is, and they hit
Speaker 1: the ship ratio is very low. It's that. Yes, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of crap, you know, And
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing, uh, trying to get through things. Now,
Speaker 1: today demos tend to be highly produced. What were the
Speaker 1: demos like back then? Demos were reveling rough. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: demo just be voice and piano or guitar and and voice,
Speaker 1: or sometimes uh just a small rhythm section done in
Speaker 1: a little fucking studio. That's that's pretty much how the
Speaker 1: demos aura. So they only started. Demos only started getting
Speaker 1: better when some of the demos was starting to become hits. Right,
Speaker 1: do you remember any demos it became hits a lot
Speaker 1: of things. You know. The other thing is sometimes today
Speaker 1: with very produced demos, then they redo and it's just
Speaker 1: not as good as the demo. Absolutely, Oh that and
Speaker 1: a lot of OCAs. Okay, so let's let's go back. Okay.
Speaker 1: How often would you listen on Monday and go, man,
Speaker 1: that's a hit? Yeah? Well, I bet I listened to
Speaker 1: uh songs for Eddie Fisher before I found the one
Speaker 1: song that I thought had a chance to be a hit.
Speaker 1: So I called Eddie up right away, drove up to
Speaker 1: his house played he yeah, okay, and uh I called
Speaker 1: Nelson Riddle find out when he was available book the studio.
Speaker 1: Uh let Nelson have his whatever he wanted on the date,
Speaker 1: and that was it. We went in. We cut two
Speaker 1: songs and uh, well, how did you know? What was
Speaker 1: this about? The song that you knew would be the
Speaker 1: right way? It was at a time when these sing
Speaker 1: along songs we were becoming popular, you know, um, and
Speaker 1: people that you know, you could sing along with it
Speaker 1: and that'd be the singer and then the choir would
Speaker 1: come in or the background voices. Um, and it had
Speaker 1: that feel to it. You know. It's just kind of
Speaker 1: it was called games that people play. And Okay, when
Speaker 1: you're in the studio and you're working, do you know
Speaker 1: when something's a hit? Um? Yeah, yeah, you know with yeah,
Speaker 1: you say, okay, this is a hit and then it is. Uh,
Speaker 1: then you write a per center a time on that.
Speaker 1: But there are other times when I mean I made
Speaker 1: a record with Dr John Tommy Lapoma produced it. Uh,
Speaker 1: keep the music simple. It was a single. We did
Speaker 1: the album and all that, but this was keep the
Speaker 1: music simple. And if we all I thought it was
Speaker 1: a smash when out there and died. That's when it
Speaker 1: was on Atlantic. No, no, no, it was one of others. Okay,
Speaker 1: because I find there's a very thin layer of stuff
Speaker 1: that's like an eleven we go this you and you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then below that you can be surprised. But there's
Speaker 1: a certain level. Okay. So you're working with Eddie Fisher,
Speaker 1: who else you're working with in the early sixties, you
Speaker 1: hear him and Monterey He'll go, I did an now
Speaker 1: want him called Russian Grandual where we did all the
Speaker 1: great Russian uh composers on an album. Uh, the Limelighters.
Speaker 1: I was working with the Limelighters. That was kind of fun. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was a manager Ken who later managed Benson. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So okay, you're cutting an album at that point in time.
Speaker 1: How long does it take to cut an album? Back then?
Speaker 1: Very short period of time because we didn't have all
Speaker 1: the things that we have today to tuning and all
Speaker 1: those other things. So you captured a performance. We would
Speaker 1: always get in the three hour session. We get to
Speaker 1: three songs done and uh, three ours. What was the
Speaker 1: equipment like then? The equipment was great. We were going
Speaker 1: to tape obviously, and it was becoming you know, multi
Speaker 1: layer tape right then we were up to track something
Speaker 1: U so we had plenty of that. Uh. He would
Speaker 1: do three songs or four in a three hour date
Speaker 1: and everything was done at the same time, so there
Speaker 1: was no overdubs back then. It was all done live
Speaker 1: and what you got, you know, it was it was Elvis,
Speaker 1: That's what you got. Uh. Did you work with Elvis?
Speaker 1: I did on his first record out of the Service
Speaker 1: g I Blues. That was amazing. He was really cool. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was great. It's the first time in the studio
Speaker 1: that I ever worked like on one artist twelve hours
Speaker 1: straight where we had foodsin in and we didn't go out.
Speaker 1: We didn't do that and it was nice. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, a lot of joking around. My
Speaker 1: assistant who collected the toquis uh jewelry. Elvis had a
Speaker 1: a bracelet turcoise and my assistance had got us a
Speaker 1: beautiful he said, he said, my sister, yeah, I collect that,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, that's really a nice one. Elvis
Speaker 1: took it off and gave it so I said, Elvis, yeah,
Speaker 1: I said about the car in the garage because he
Speaker 1: had a rose roice. He laughed. We all laughed. You know.
Speaker 1: But he gave him the brace and well that was
Speaker 1: he the type of guy some people like that it
Speaker 1: don't write the row material of the singers. They don't
Speaker 1: really show up until everything's arranged. Was he the guy
Speaker 1: who was in the studio. He was there all that
Speaker 1: all day. He loved hanging out with the guys. He
Speaker 1: loved hanging out with the singers, you know, the musicians.
Speaker 1: He was a fun guy to be around. And back
Speaker 1: then he was just out of his servance. He was
Speaker 1: in great shape and you know, great sense of human
Speaker 1: life was great for him. And how how much input
Speaker 1: did he have into the recordings? Quite a bit? Really, yea,
Speaker 1: quite a bit in a sense, well in a sense
Speaker 1: that the tempos made sure that the tempos who are
Speaker 1: right uh for him? M yeah, he would he'd have input,
Speaker 1: not him, but yeah, and he would. That was the
Speaker 1: other thing. They would all work together on things, and
Speaker 1: you know, hey, what if we did this or what
Speaker 1: do we you know? And as I said, we were
Speaker 1: doing usually four songs and three hours. Here I am
Speaker 1: in the studio twelve hours and we may get one
Speaker 1: or two things done, you know. But it was Elvis
Speaker 1: and he's using his band yeah, yeah, yeah, these guys. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so in the sixties prior to the Beatles hitting any
Speaker 1: other you work with Eddie Fisher, you had to hit
Speaker 1: with him. Any other memorable experiences, Oh god, as a
Speaker 1: producers and engineers producer, Yeah, I did. I did a
Speaker 1: great album with Paul Horn and Lala Scheffrin called The
Speaker 1: Chess Suite on the Mass Text, which one two Grammys. Uh.
Speaker 1: We did the Catholic Mass in chazz form and and
Speaker 1: that was we We got put down on that at first.
Speaker 1: And there's a priest in New York, father O'Connor, who
Speaker 1: was called the Chairs Priest, and we got him to
Speaker 1: write the line of notes. We got that done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did. He heard it in the road to Line
Speaker 1: of Notes and yeah, as I think Lolo, you know,
Speaker 1: Lolo won a Grammy and so did Paul and so
Speaker 1: was Jefferson Airplane. Your first rock act. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: my first real rock act. I produced a group called
Speaker 1: the Astronauts and had some modern hits with what was
Speaker 1: the hit of the Astronauts baja right? I did them,
Speaker 1: and then I did a group called the Liverpool Five,
Speaker 1: British group from Liverpool. R c A didn't have a
Speaker 1: British act at that time, so we signed the five
Speaker 1: guys and they were really good, but they just nothing
Speaker 1: ever happened. Okay, So Jefferson Airplane, you make the first
Speaker 1: Jefferson Airplane with Sidney Anderson as opposed to Yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't do that one, you did? No, No, who did
Speaker 1: that one? That? I think Dave Hassan when I they
Speaker 1: sent me up to see the group when I was
Speaker 1: staff producer at our ce A n So all this
Speaker 1: was going on in San Francisco, and I get a
Speaker 1: call to go up to San Francisco to see screwup
Speaker 1: that plane at the club. They've already made the first album.
Speaker 1: No nothing, I haven't been signed. So I go up
Speaker 1: and I see them at this club and line around
Speaker 1: the block and listen and stuff sounded great. So so really,
Speaker 1: before you thought it was not rough, it was good.
Speaker 1: I thought it was good, and I thought that, yeah,
Speaker 1: this says, hey, we need a group from San Francisco,
Speaker 1: because you know, Moby Grape was going to Columbia. And
Speaker 1: just just to be clear, you started off had a
Speaker 1: lot of success in the jazz world. What was your
Speaker 1: viewpoint of rock music? Did you like getting you said
Speaker 1: this is business. No, I did like it. I liked
Speaker 1: it and and certain certain aspects of it I loved,
Speaker 1: you know. And somebody oh great R and B things,
Speaker 1: uh that you know race records, which is what I
Speaker 1: grew up. Uh yeah, so I was into that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So you were a Beatles fan. The first
Speaker 1: time I heard the Beatles, I was I thought, I
Speaker 1: want to hold your hands right, Okay, you know when
Speaker 1: I heard saw Jim Pepper killed me on Great Ones
Speaker 1: and all my albums. You know, Chaff Emeric was the engineer,
Speaker 1: right and didn't amazing? Is he a friend of yours?
Speaker 1: Yes he was? And and uh you know I missing
Speaker 1: the wonderful nice man. Yeah. And uh so you go
Speaker 1: up to San Francisco and you hear the band and
Speaker 1: you your thumbs right. Then what happens? So r c
Speaker 1: A signs them, So they work out a deal and
Speaker 1: they come in and someone produces the first so I
Speaker 1: know at that particular time, they had to record in
Speaker 1: the Union studio, right right, yeah, right, so they someone
Speaker 1: else starting producer record. Yeah, I think that manager or somebody,
Speaker 1: and at that time producer record. It was called Jeff
Speaker 1: Sanplane Takes Off and it was with Sydney in it,
Speaker 1: and then something I don't know what happened, but she
Speaker 1: left the band. I have no idea why. And and
Speaker 1: Grace came in and Spencer I think that talking too,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure. Um and that was it and
Speaker 1: it didn't do much. Then sourrealistic pillow, Okay, well you're
Speaker 1: you did that? No, I didn't do that. Did that?
Speaker 1: That was Rich Gerrard was the producer. Um and uh.
Speaker 1: And they hated that record because is the echo. They
Speaker 1: hated the way it was recorded with the echo and everything,
Speaker 1: and it's just you know, they said they didn't want
Speaker 1: anything to do with right with at that foot because
Speaker 1: of that. So they at the time, do they have
Speaker 1: to use someone who works for our c Not necessarily,
Speaker 1: they would have to use an our Cia engineer. So anyway,
Speaker 1: so I I'm assigned to it, and now I am.
Speaker 1: I'm doing Eddie Fisher overdubs in the afternoon from two
Speaker 1: to five. At five o'clock, I quit with Eddie. I
Speaker 1: go up to my office, I meditate for an hour.
Speaker 1: I wind up by day to go back down. Eight o'clock.
Speaker 1: Jefferson airplane come in and they just trail in, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's it's and it goes on. We worked from
Speaker 1: eight till maybe an and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: we visited Stought showing up and we got Channis Joplin's
Speaker 1: Come hangs out. Ah, so everybody, Jean Luc Goddard, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean it was some heavy duty people and his wife,
Speaker 1: you know, his wife was she would sit knitting and
Speaker 1: I swear, you know, and we're doing acid rock music.
Speaker 1: Um so I got to be eleven o'clock, you know,
Speaker 1: David Crosby would show up, and then it was all
Speaker 1: the drugs and until three in the morning. So this
Speaker 1: went on for a while, and it was very very slow,
Speaker 1: imagine and burning up the money. But because it's r
Speaker 1: c A Studios, it's not like we're using outside, you know,
Speaker 1: so so that cuts it back a lot. And and yeah,
Speaker 1: we were so anyway, so we're into this a few
Speaker 1: months and and I'm I'm starting to uh kill myself
Speaker 1: in a sense that I get home, get a couple
Speaker 1: of hours sleep, get up, come to the office. I
Speaker 1: had other acts that I've rec with and trying to
Speaker 1: do budgets. So I called my boss, Ernie all Shila
Speaker 1: on the phone in New York and uh. And I said, Ernie,
Speaker 1: I can't do this anymore. I said, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: killing myself. I said, you know, I'm working with Eddie
Speaker 1: Fisher in the afternoon and Jefferson never playing at night.
Speaker 1: Don't get out of here three four in the morning.
Speaker 1: By time I get home, I'm back and looking for songs,
Speaker 1: you know. And I said, I just can't do anymore.
Speaker 1: He said, gee, how truck drivers do it? Wow? And
Speaker 1: I said, really, Earlie. So yeah, I said, we'll get
Speaker 1: yourself a couple of trucks. Because because I quit and
Speaker 1: I turned out, I went down, put in my notice,
Speaker 1: two weeks notice, and quit. So I went home after
Speaker 1: two weeks and I didn't know what I was gonna do.
Speaker 1: Where where was it? But you're in the middle of uh,
Speaker 1: you know, after we get back and now they're on
Speaker 1: their own in the studio. All right, Okay. So I
Speaker 1: get a call from the manager of the Jeff Scenaria plane. Al,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of trouble. They're trying to stick us.
Speaker 1: We don't want these people. They said, we could hire
Speaker 1: an outside producer and give him points. Would you be interested?
Speaker 1: I said, absolutely, just a little bit. You quit, and
Speaker 1: obviously it takes like a little while to decompress. What
Speaker 1: was the plan? There wasn't a plan when I quit. None,
Speaker 1: that was it. What did I do? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm home. Now I'm home. I have a family and
Speaker 1: I'm home. I'm not working on there's no check. What
Speaker 1: the what? What are you crazy? But it worked out,
Speaker 1: you know, And now I was then I was trying
Speaker 1: to figure out Okay, now this is I gotta have
Speaker 1: a plan on how I get some work. And I
Speaker 1: was getting that going when I got the call from
Speaker 1: Bill Thompson was the manager of the airplane at the time,
Speaker 1: so I would remember I was making twenty five right
Speaker 1: with the bonus, So I do uh. After bathing and baxes,
Speaker 1: we finally get it on there. Okay, So who makes
Speaker 1: the deal? You make the dealer, my attorney, great guy.
Speaker 1: So how many points do they give you? Well, they
Speaker 1: started out low, but then it went up. We agate
Speaker 1: and when I was getting around five, not bad at all. Well,
Speaker 1: so my first loyalty check, it's almost fifty dollars as
Speaker 1: compared for working a whole game for twenty three five. Okay,
Speaker 1: how long as it take it to finish? After bathing
Speaker 1: it Baxter. That album took five and a half months,
Speaker 1: and was there any pressure to speed it up? Um?
Speaker 1: No not At that point. They wanted that they would
Speaker 1: call all the time and ask how it's going, and
Speaker 1: what's going on? What does it look like? And and
Speaker 1: we I said, she did a single while we were
Speaker 1: doing that called two Heads, I think, and uh so
Speaker 1: they released a single, so there was something out there,
Speaker 1: but that was it Saturday Afternoon, won't you try? Was
Speaker 1: that always one song together? Okay? So that album comes out, okay,
Speaker 1: and that's the album you start to get royalties on it.
Speaker 1: Is the band happy with the record? Absolutely? Okay? And
Speaker 1: then and then is it uh crown of Creation? Then
Speaker 1: we do chronic creation um and then bless its point
Speaker 1: of So what was it like making a live album
Speaker 1: back then? It was cool. We did half of it
Speaker 1: in um San Francisco and half of it in New York.
Speaker 1: Um live it wasn live? Yeah, yeah, because sometimes people
Speaker 1: you know, and in New York before they went on,
Speaker 1: they would King Kong was on the screen. So at
Speaker 1: the end when the guy said it wasn't wasn't the
Speaker 1: airplane that killed the beast? It was beauty? You know
Speaker 1: kind of thing. So I love that and we really
Speaker 1: get permission to put that on the record. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that opens the record. So, um, how many
Speaker 1: shows did you have to record to get it? Oh?
Speaker 1: I know when we were in New York it was Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: so we had Thanksgiving together, dinner together, all of us
Speaker 1: while they were playing at the clubs. We would do um,
Speaker 1: we would called, uh, maybe three or four shows in
Speaker 1: each place and and usually have enough. And did you
Speaker 1: how many mikes would it take? Well, yeah, quite quite
Speaker 1: a few, just a guestimate maybe. And at the time,
Speaker 1: did the record plane have a truck or what did
Speaker 1: you use to record? Yeah, yeah, there was a truck.
Speaker 1: And while he had had a truck in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and uh, we had a truck in New York. I
Speaker 1: can't remember who r c A had one? I think
Speaker 1: so something like that a live album. How long did
Speaker 1: it take you to mix it? The most time takes picking.
Speaker 1: You know, you got like you do five shows, right,
Speaker 1: so now you've got five versions of that song, so
Speaker 1: you gotta listen to each version, figure about the best
Speaker 1: one and and take that. So it's time consumings. Did
Speaker 1: you ever cut like half of one song with half
Speaker 1: of the other. No, I know, not on live. So
Speaker 1: I've done it in the studio. Uh yeah many times,
Speaker 1: but not on anything alive. Okay, so that album comes out,
Speaker 1: tell me about Volunteers, which was a mega production. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's my favorite. It is my favorite too. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know a quick story. I sent the tapes back
Speaker 1: to New York just to be clear because this is predigital. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how would you literally get the tapes to New York?
Speaker 1: They sent him with a guy. Yeah that they they
Speaker 1: mail him. Okay, you know, like ups or whatever something.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, that they had a special mailing department.
Speaker 1: So we sent the tapes back and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: my phone rings. Ow, you can't do this. What do
Speaker 1: you mean? Up against the wall? Mother is not gonna work?
Speaker 1: I said, well, what do you want? They got to
Speaker 1: take it out, So I said, well what if they don't.
Speaker 1: He said, we're not going to release it like that.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, let me talk to him. So I
Speaker 1: go back and I talked to uh, get the group together,
Speaker 1: but the and they're not gonna You've got to change this.
Speaker 1: They're not going to release it like this. They're not
Speaker 1: what you either change it or the records are coming out.
Speaker 1: They said, fine, fuck them, don't put it out So
Speaker 1: I called back until New York. They said, fine, don't
Speaker 1: put it out there, and they're not changing it. This
Speaker 1: is when I learned a big lesson about record companies.
Speaker 1: You know, it's all about the money. Of course, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden came out untouched, just the way we
Speaker 1: did it, you know, because they wanted the building and
Speaker 1: that was a big album. Right. Also, I remember Escible
Speaker 1: Blue Day Had doesn't mean shipped to a tree. I
Speaker 1: know some of the greatest stuff compared to a stream.
Speaker 1: The American Dream doesn't mean shipped to a tree. We
Speaker 1: need more of that today, Yes, absolutely, okay, so let's
Speaker 1: go back. You do you're now independent by accident, almost
Speaker 1: you do after bathing it back. So that takes five months.
Speaker 1: Then what well, then I'm into the more with the
Speaker 1: Jefferson Aeroplane. And then they started a label called Grunt,
Speaker 1: and uh, they like me, so I started doing some
Speaker 1: of the Grunt acts and then I wound up doing
Speaker 1: the the original haw Tuna record, the acoustic right which
Speaker 1: and that that's another story. Well, the story, this story
Speaker 1: was we we were up in um San Francisco, and
Speaker 1: uh at at a club and um and Ousley is
Speaker 1: doing in front of the house The King of Acid.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm drinking apple juice talking Al and I
Speaker 1: have Wally had his truck and my engineer was a
Speaker 1: guy by named Alan Since and uh, so I finished
Speaker 1: everything and now they're going to go on first show
Speaker 1: and writing. So I get into truck and I got
Speaker 1: a pad and a pencil, and I'm sitting back and
Speaker 1: Alan's right there, and we had gotten our sounds at
Speaker 1: the beginning. Everything was good, and uh, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I my feet when two hundred yards and the whole
Speaker 1: truck expanded and then back, and it was like, what
Speaker 1: the hell was that? And then it happened again, and
Speaker 1: then I knew what happened, and I turned to Allen.
Speaker 1: I said, Alan, you're on your own. I had a
Speaker 1: part I was gonna write now that there's not one
Speaker 1: note down on that show. How many shows did record then?
Speaker 1: If we recorded I think four four shows. Okay, you
Speaker 1: were living in l A. Okay, were you using any drugs?
Speaker 1: Was high? Oh? Yeah, okay, yeah plenty. I'm sober now
Speaker 1: over thirty two years, right, But yeah, I was obviously
Speaker 1: what drugs were you using everything? Okay, cocaine? We of course,
Speaker 1: how everybody smoked marijuana, a lot of cocaine. Uh, acid
Speaker 1: once in a while. Okay, so had you take an
Speaker 1: acid prior to that? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, so anyway, you
Speaker 1: know what was going on? What was okay? Did you
Speaker 1: because in the lates at least, was we hit the
Speaker 1: seventies people using cocaine so they could stay up and work, right?
Speaker 1: Did you use it for that? Yeah? We yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: where would you get it from anybody? I mean you'd
Speaker 1: walk into a session and everybody had their own bottle,
Speaker 1: like everybody was doing it well. And those were the
Speaker 1: days when it was told we were told it wasn't
Speaker 1: you know. Uh so yeah, hey, just it's great if
Speaker 1: we can keep going and yeah okay. So for this
Speaker 1: period from uh like sixty eight to seventy two, are
Speaker 1: you working outside of grunt outside of Jefferson Airplane? Um? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So how you getting that work? Um? I get called,
Speaker 1: you know, I have uh my uh my attorney house
Speaker 1: messenger help. He would send people to me and so forth.
Speaker 1: That's how I wind up doing altro um because of him.
Speaker 1: Uh So I was getting worked small work. Uh, I
Speaker 1: did uh goop called Ivory, you know Martin a band
Speaker 1: like that. How long would it take you to do it? Uh?
Speaker 1: Two weeks? Couple of weeks? Okay, So how do you
Speaker 1: end up doing a loan together? Do you already know
Speaker 1: Tommy Lapuma? Yeah, Tommy, Tommy, Um, I'm at Tommy. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty he was a song plug up for Metro
Speaker 1: Music and he would commend one of the guys that
Speaker 1: commend and bring me songs, and we hit it off
Speaker 1: right away. Tommy and I we just became friends. And
Speaker 1: he would bring me songs Fanny Fisher for this one
Speaker 1: and whatever. And I know he was a saxophone player,
Speaker 1: and I know he wanted to produce and and do that.
Speaker 1: So um, So we became fast friends. And we would
Speaker 1: hang out and go out together at dinner and get
Speaker 1: a high together, and I'd go to his sections, he'd
Speaker 1: come to mind um, and we just became close friends.
Speaker 1: So he was doing an album with Dave Mason and
Speaker 1: Bruce Bodnick was the engineer, the Doors engineer, and he
Speaker 1: had a start time with the Doors on a new
Speaker 1: album that he had to leave and start on that day.
Speaker 1: So Tommy said, I need somebody to mix this album.
Speaker 1: He said, you used to engineer l what do you
Speaker 1: mix it? I said, I don't think I could do
Speaker 1: it anymore. Tommy years, oh, yeah, it's like riding a bike.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So we're back and forth. So finally we
Speaker 1: make a little pact. Okay, I'll go in with you.
Speaker 1: We'll give it a shot. If I feel I'm not
Speaker 1: doing it, you let me back off. And if you
Speaker 1: feel I'm not doing it, you gotta let me know
Speaker 1: know how feeling. So we make the deal. I go
Speaker 1: in and start mixing this record, that beautiful sounding record
Speaker 1: that Bruce did, and I'm in heaven. You know, it's
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, It's back to where I started.
Speaker 1: The reason I'm in this business in the first place
Speaker 1: is to be able to move things around. And bale
Speaker 1: Let's thing and that was it. And and when I
Speaker 1: finished that record, I think we took us a week
Speaker 1: to mix it. Uh. It just it was great. That's
Speaker 1: great sounding record. I was one of the great records
Speaker 1: of all time. One of the things you can play
Speaker 1: from beginning to yeah, exactly, great songs, you know. And
Speaker 1: they're doing a documentary on coming up soon. So we
Speaker 1: did a podcast with you know he can still really
Speaker 1: play the guitar. Oh yeah, no, no, yeah, but only
Speaker 1: you know, and I know it took more than your
Speaker 1: gay look at you, look at me unbelievable stuff. That
Speaker 1: was it. That was the best of the best. So
Speaker 1: then that comes out, and then I get a call
Speaker 1: from Neil Larcher who wants to do a record. So, okay,
Speaker 1: it's halfway done with the record. He wants to the
Speaker 1: half with me at Sunset Sound. So we set up
Speaker 1: the whole studio, which actors is again uh yeah. We
Speaker 1: set up the studio like a living room and and
Speaker 1: then we were doing on the Beach and so we
Speaker 1: did three songs there. And there's another story with that.
Speaker 1: People would come in from the record company and we
Speaker 1: have one multi track tape machine that we're recording on,
Speaker 1: and people would come in and want to hear what
Speaker 1: we were doing. So we'd be in one song and
Speaker 1: so we don't have to take the tape off, put
Speaker 1: another tape on and playing what we did and everything else.
Speaker 1: So we finally decided to make to a little two
Speaker 1: track a couple of rough so we didn't have to
Speaker 1: keep doing it. Well, that's all well and good. We
Speaker 1: finished the record. Everything's great. Yeah, when are we going
Speaker 1: to mix? Neil? Oh no, no, I like the rough mixes.
Speaker 1: I said, oh no, Neil, He said, yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: think that's exactly what I want. I said, look, let
Speaker 1: me go in and do it, let me do it.
Speaker 1: I'll pay for it myself at all. But I know, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is it. I that was it. So there was
Speaker 1: no more arguing or or anything else. And and kneel
Speaker 1: to this day. Every time he sees me, or he'll
Speaker 1: see somebody else, say something about it. Oh yeah, ask
Speaker 1: God if he still wants to remix. He still does that. Well.
Speaker 1: It's funny because his first album came out and he
Speaker 1: was pissed about the mix and he redid it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So uh and you do you ever work with Neil again? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I work with Neil quite a bit. I just did
Speaker 1: a hundred piece of orchastra with him at m CHAM
Speaker 1: just recently. Yeah. Yeah, that his two albums ago. You
Speaker 1: know it. We had choir and orchestra and everything done live.
Speaker 1: He sang live right out in the middle of the orchestra.
Speaker 1: This is amazing. Okay, So how did you end up
Speaker 1: working on Asia Steely Dan. Oh I got a call.
Speaker 1: Uh Gary Kats, did you know? H oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I get a call and hey, we have
Speaker 1: a we have a song or two. Uh we want
Speaker 1: you to mix. So I said so that. No, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't track anything on that album, just mixed two songs.
Speaker 1: So yeah. I was working at sound Labs almend Steiner
Speaker 1: on the studio and um, so I'm sitting there waiting.
Speaker 1: They bring the tapes in a bunch of limiteds that
Speaker 1: they were thinking about using, and so it's the song
Speaker 1: is PEG. So they take off and I'm messing around
Speaker 1: with with PEG and so I get a fairly good
Speaker 1: balance on it, you know, And I turned the monitor
Speaker 1: down and I'm going at the meats, like checking out
Speaker 1: everything great. Uh, little did I know they walked in
Speaker 1: while I was doing that. And then I turned the
Speaker 1: monitor up and I had this pretty good mix that
Speaker 1: I had done before they came in, and they freaked
Speaker 1: out and Gary has it, al can mix a record?
Speaker 1: What I have been hearing it? It was that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and I mean it would blown away, But
Speaker 1: the long run, it was PEG was the song, and
Speaker 1: we wound up mixing it and there were in those days.
Speaker 1: There was no automation on a car, so everybody had
Speaker 1: a part. So you know, one guy right, one guy added,
Speaker 1: echoed to a guitar part, another guy did this, and
Speaker 1: so it was all They were like four of us
Speaker 1: over the board, and it was all about a performance.
Speaker 1: And we spent almost twelve hours on PEG to get
Speaker 1: that the way it was because every time if I
Speaker 1: get it right, someone else school up right. Everybody had
Speaker 1: to be perfect. And what was the other song you
Speaker 1: did on Asia? On Asia? Deacon Blues? That's my favorite
Speaker 1: song on Asia they call out Alabama the Crimson type.
Speaker 1: Oh god, that's a great song. Okay, So um, let's
Speaker 1: go back to the beginning. You're from New York, Okay.
Speaker 1: Your parents born where? Okay? How many generations have they
Speaker 1: already been here? Your family? Um? God, on my mother's side,
Speaker 1: back during the mayflower time. Really yeah yeah, Connecticut Yankee. Um.
Speaker 1: On my father's side, his mother came over from Germany
Speaker 1: when she was three. His father was here before and
Speaker 1: he was born here I think his father and he
Speaker 1: was a blacksmith. Yeah yeah, he did horn shoes and
Speaker 1: he were and then he worked for the Mack Trucking company.
Speaker 1: What do you do for them? Right? Wow? Okay, So
Speaker 1: you grow up where I grew up in Brooklyn, So
Speaker 1: what was it like? Back then? It was like mean
Speaker 1: streets if you ever seen that movie, Yeah, it's pretty Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a tough area, tough neighborhood, a lot of gangs,
Speaker 1: out of fights, a lot of that kind. And how
Speaker 1: did you fit in there? It's probably just like having
Speaker 1: a little Turkey kid, you know, getting in trouble and
Speaker 1: all um. I was. I was really blessed in the
Speaker 1: sense that my father's brother, Harry Smith is reallyam with Schmidt,
Speaker 1: but he changed it because of the German sentiment. And
Speaker 1: back then he um. He was a recording engineer for
Speaker 1: um brun s Wicks. Yeah, he did the sing sing sing,
Speaker 1: you know, Benny Goodman all use. So he had a
Speaker 1: recording studio and when I was little, my my recording studio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Harry Smith Recording where in New York City on to
Speaker 1: West and it was the first independent recording study in
Speaker 1: New York. Sanata did his first vocal ever in the
Speaker 1: studio there. Yeah, It's just amazing time. So we would
Speaker 1: go over and visit him when I was a little
Speaker 1: like he he didn't have any children, and so, but
Speaker 1: he was besides my uncle, he was also my godfather.
Speaker 1: So he treated me like I was his son. And
Speaker 1: and I was always amazed by everything, and you know,
Speaker 1: and so he showed me and watching big bands record
Speaker 1: and uh so when I got to be about eight,
Speaker 1: I was able to get on the subway by myself,
Speaker 1: walk a few blocks, get on the sub boy, get over,
Speaker 1: get off at walk back one block to his studio.
Speaker 1: And I'd spend the weekend with my uncle. And you
Speaker 1: literally sleep at his house or you'd stay at his house.
Speaker 1: He had a beautiful apartment on Riverside Drive. Back then,
Speaker 1: my father was making like seventeen bucks of And at
Speaker 1: the end of the day on Sunday, when I was
Speaker 1: time for me to go back, my uncle would give
Speaker 1: me a dollar bill. Wow, and I would give it
Speaker 1: to my mom and and he knew my dad wouldn't
Speaker 1: take it right if it too proud for that, But
Speaker 1: that's given it to me to a gift to my mom.
Speaker 1: She make sure it went to good use. Okay, just
Speaker 1: at the time. How many kids in the family at
Speaker 1: that time there were three? And where are you in
Speaker 1: the hierarchy? First, you're the oldest. All the hopes and
Speaker 1: dreams are in you. And at school you're good or
Speaker 1: bad at school. I was good at school. I didn't
Speaker 1: like school, but I was good at school. And um,
Speaker 1: I was good at math, which you need to be
Speaker 1: good math to be an engineer. Yeah, yeah it, Um,
Speaker 1: I just I didn't like school, you know. So when
Speaker 1: I was like thirteen and I stopped going to my
Speaker 1: uncle's studio, I started playing hooky from school and I
Speaker 1: would go over to see Sinatra at the Paramount Theater
Speaker 1: with Tommy Dossie and for a quarter. For a quarter
Speaker 1: you could um get in right, and then we would
Speaker 1: hide so we could stay and see a couple of shows.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, it was really okay. So why
Speaker 1: did you stop working with your uncle? I stopped. I
Speaker 1: started hanging out with a gang, and I started getting
Speaker 1: in some trouble. And series, what was the most trouble
Speaker 1: you got it? Well, I got other times. I got arrested,
Speaker 1: never booked on anything, but arrested for being where I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been, and so forth. So it taught me
Speaker 1: a less and and it kept getting worse. And um,
Speaker 1: so from the time I was like thirteen and a half.
Speaker 1: On my seventeenth birthday, my parents signed for me to
Speaker 1: enlisted the navy. Okay, had you finished high school? I
Speaker 1: just finished high school. Okay, just to go back for
Speaker 1: a second. Are you popular in school or just one
Speaker 1: of the people there or whatever. Yeah, I was pretty popular.
Speaker 1: I mean I was had a lot of friends. You know,
Speaker 1: he's to hang out. I played softball all the time.
Speaker 1: I played a lot of sports. Um and yeah, I
Speaker 1: know I had a lot of Okay, so your parents
Speaker 1: enlisted you because they wanted to get you out of trouble. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I said yes because I knew that I was going
Speaker 1: to wind up in jail or something. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we were just running, uh but you know, money for
Speaker 1: the bookies, that kind of stuff they were. They were
Speaker 1: going out to the hirpool and stealing out there. And
Speaker 1: also I knew it was like somebody taught me on
Speaker 1: the show and get out of here. You're gonna be
Speaker 1: in trouble. And so I'm good and I went to
Speaker 1: I went to Great Legs. Look at Wait, Wait Wait,
Speaker 1: which brims of the services Navy. I was in the
Speaker 1: Navy and went to Great Legs. My i Q is
Speaker 1: very high. So when we get out of boot camp. Uh,
Speaker 1: the guy said, what do you want to do in
Speaker 1: the navy? Okay, I said, I just want to be
Speaker 1: a Poston's maid, you know, somebody on the deck. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I Q was too high for that. So they sent
Speaker 1: me to school in Washington, d C. Communications School, and
Speaker 1: it's decoding and how to break down COLDE and Russian
Speaker 1: code and this kind of stuff. So I do that
Speaker 1: for a year. Just to be clear, you're listened the navy.
Speaker 1: And he thought, in the back of your mind, this
Speaker 1: is right after World War Two, that maybe there's a
Speaker 1: ward you're gonna get you off. You know, there was
Speaker 1: no at seventeen. You don't think and you you don't
Speaker 1: think you ever going to be the one that's going
Speaker 1: to get hurt anyway. So yeah, so that that was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. But I M, you're taking the communication of
Speaker 1: course you were. Yeah, yeah, it was that. And then
Speaker 1: so you know, in Washington at that time, it was great.
Speaker 1: UM people like uh, Lady Day she couldn't work in
Speaker 1: New York because of the UM cabaret. She couldn't get
Speaker 1: a cabaret license because of the drug use. And that
Speaker 1: was a big problem back then. So all of those
Speaker 1: artists would come down to Washington, d C. Which was
Speaker 1: where I was going to school. And so, I mean
Speaker 1: every weekend there was a place called Captain Tom's. There
Speaker 1: was some other clubs, but we had the best of
Speaker 1: the best jazz artists coming down there all the time.
Speaker 1: So so every weekend it was you know, it was
Speaker 1: just great. And I get to see all these people
Speaker 1: and and enjoy enjoy that. So, um, I got out
Speaker 1: of the service. Over two years and I got out.
Speaker 1: I was thinking of going to City College. Um. I
Speaker 1: was only home for like ten eleven days and my
Speaker 1: uncle called me and he said, a friend of mine
Speaker 1: has a studio and then looking for an assistant. Would
Speaker 1: you be interested? I said absolutely. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: I was gonna do, so he said, great, okay, uh
Speaker 1: go over and talk to him. I'll set everything up.
Speaker 1: And did. I went. I talked to the guy and
Speaker 1: he was my uncle's best friend. Right. Yeah, I knew
Speaker 1: I was going to get the job, you know. So okay,
Speaker 1: reported Monday, nine o'clock. Where was this this was on?
Speaker 1: This was in the Steinway Building on fifty seven, right
Speaker 1: across from Carnegie Hall. And you're living where I'm living.
Speaker 1: In Brooklyn with your parents. No no, no, no, yes,
Speaker 1: yes with my parents. Right. Um, So you get the job.
Speaker 1: I get the job. I show up. I knew I
Speaker 1: was going to get anybody show up Monday nine am.
Speaker 1: I get their divorce. Takes me uh, and he introduces me.
Speaker 1: There's the two engineers who worked there. One was a
Speaker 1: German engineer who wore a monocle I swear and and
Speaker 1: even a white coat and with click as heels kind
Speaker 1: of thing. And the other was this young guy about
Speaker 1: seven years old, Tommy Dowd. Wow. So I look at
Speaker 1: tom he time he looks at me, and it was
Speaker 1: like instant friendship or something. So that was it. So
Speaker 1: he bought me a notebook and then I was under
Speaker 1: his wing and we worked together at that studio for
Speaker 1: two years, and then the studio folded. He went to
Speaker 1: another studio, and I went to a place called Nola Recording,
Speaker 1: which is recording studio and a and a rehearsal hall.
Speaker 1: So I was there a year and Tommy called me
Speaker 1: and said, the studio that I'm at looking for another guy,
Speaker 1: and I recommended you come on over, and I went
Speaker 1: over an interview and I got that job. The name
Speaker 1: of that studio that was called Fulton Recording, which later
Speaker 1: was brought by Oh god, I can't think the company now,
Speaker 1: I think of it. Um anyway, So Fulton and it
Speaker 1: was Tommy and me and uh an engineer by name
Speaker 1: of Bob Doherty, and and we were doing all the
Speaker 1: Lette commercials, look chop all those things, cigarette commercials. Okay,
Speaker 1: lot when you were at the first studio, UH, were
Speaker 1: you cutting music or we're cutting commercials. We're doing a
Speaker 1: little of everything. We we did Voice of the America
Speaker 1: stuff on six transcription disc shows and in different languages.
Speaker 1: Tell Us of Alice, his whole family would come and
Speaker 1: they would in Greek. They would do these shows that
Speaker 1: would get broadcast over to Greece. UM. So it was
Speaker 1: that was interesting. But we also were doing all the
Speaker 1: Atlantic work and Prestige records, uh, national records. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of little labels sitting in UH. So he's
Speaker 1: doing all this work, um and and getting to do
Speaker 1: uh some of the great Atlantic acts. You know, Tom
Speaker 1: worked ultimately with them. So you're working in this studio
Speaker 1: with Tom and the other guy. What are the hours
Speaker 1: in that eround? Uh could be any time and you
Speaker 1: know if even if you worked late till eleven, you
Speaker 1: still have to be in in the morning around nine
Speaker 1: in the morning. So um um, yeah we did. There
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of late late stuff, but yeah, you
Speaker 1: know it goes seven to ten sometimes. Okay. So how
Speaker 1: so when did you get married in this picture? So
Speaker 1: I got married? Uh, right in the middle. Okay. So
Speaker 1: how hard was it? How understanding that your wife had
Speaker 1: to be about these hours? Uh? Yeah, she she was
Speaker 1: pretty good about it. I think she was happy we
Speaker 1: got married just to get out of the environment she
Speaker 1: was in, which was not very good. You know, her
Speaker 1: parents were uh splitting up and having so to meet her.
Speaker 1: I never read a dance then. Back then, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a danceing. Oh we have Charlie Vntoura and Bob
Speaker 1: for the people, and everybody be out there jute bugging
Speaker 1: and dancing, and you know there'll be a lot of
Speaker 1: single guys, single girls. You go and ask some of
Speaker 1: the Hanson. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Okay.
Speaker 1: So you're working at the studio with Tom and then
Speaker 1: what happens next, Well, I'm there three months and they
Speaker 1: my boss says, okay, Saturday, you're in on all by yourself.
Speaker 1: There's just a three little demo records, one of ten
Speaker 1: one or twelve one or two, and you do that.
Speaker 1: So the guy comes in. First guy, he plays guitar
Speaker 1: and sings the song he wrote for his daughter, We
Speaker 1: caught an Ascetate at seventy eight done. We give it
Speaker 1: to him. He gives me fifteen dollars and he leaves.
Speaker 1: The other guy comes in. He sits down at the
Speaker 1: piano and he plays a song, h happy birthday for somebody.
Speaker 1: So I cut the asketa, I give it to him
Speaker 1: and fifteen bucks and knee ladies. So now I'm waiting
Speaker 1: for a guy by name of Merca to show up.
Speaker 1: So the elevated toway was opened up and all these
Speaker 1: musicians start coming out, and I said, WHOA, what's going on.
Speaker 1: We're on the second floor. We're here for the record
Speaker 1: date No Mercy, Mercy Records, Mercer Allington, do Gellington's son.
Speaker 1: I said, oh no, no, there's a mistake. And here's
Speaker 1: Johnny Hodges standing in front of me and Billy straight
Speaker 1: on and on. You know, he's it's like Babe Ruth
Speaker 1: and Joe the main exactly like I mean, my heart's
Speaker 1: going like this, and so I get on the phone
Speaker 1: and called Tommy. No answer. Back then there were no
Speaker 1: cells and call no answer. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: hell to do. So we only had an eight input console,
Speaker 1: and I had that book that Tommy bought me, and
Speaker 1: I all the diagrams how they set up and what mikes.
Speaker 1: So I got the book. When I set up, put
Speaker 1: the mics away. They were and and the guys kept
Speaker 1: showing up and they were sitting down and laughing and
Speaker 1: doing whatever, and I'm in the control and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what the how I'm going to do this
Speaker 1: and do Gellington walks and he's got this gorgeous brown
Speaker 1: suit on. I mean, it's just you know, the way
Speaker 1: he had his head done and all. And I said,
Speaker 1: Mr Ellington, there's a huge mistake here. He said, why
Speaker 1: is that. I said, well, they thought this was just
Speaker 1: a little demo and and I'm not qualified to do
Speaker 1: anything like this. He said, what do you mean. I said, well,
Speaker 1: I've never done anything like sending. He looked out and
Speaker 1: he said, everybody looks comfortable out. I said, yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know that's in here that I'm worried about. He said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't We'll get through it. Don't worry, just relaxed. And
Speaker 1: he really did everything to calm me down. I think
Speaker 1: he thought that if I don't calm him down, we're
Speaker 1: not going to get anything. So we did. He called
Speaker 1: me down, kept patting my thigh right next to me.
Speaker 1: Don't worry something, we're going he said. Then you know,
Speaker 1: I hit the sack. Oh, saxophone sound wonderful, you know,
Speaker 1: hit and stuff like that. He's nice comments, and so
Speaker 1: we got through it. I did four songs and three
Speaker 1: or four songs in three hours, and that was it.
Speaker 1: And that was my first section, the first thing, and
Speaker 1: you know, Duke Ellington, Oh my god, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: So then three weeks later, I'm doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: So now I finished it too. Just to be clear,
Speaker 1: this is the very first studio you work out of
Speaker 1: the third first, So so I finish up. I'm doing
Speaker 1: the same think demos and the last ones at two
Speaker 1: and I'm finished. I'm getting ready, you know, gonna go
Speaker 1: home and phone rings. I pick it up. It's herb
Speaker 1: Abramson Anderson let me said, hey, how was anybody in
Speaker 1: the studio this afternoon? I said, no, no, no, nobody
Speaker 1: here he said, I'm going to bring a group over here.
Speaker 1: Cool with that? I said, yeah, sure, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to say no. So he brought over this
Speaker 1: group and uh, and we caught two songs. One song
Speaker 1: was Skylark, which is the B side, and the other
Speaker 1: was a song called Don't You Know I Love You,
Speaker 1: which became a huge race record hit, I mean a
Speaker 1: big head. It was on a chart for like twelve
Speaker 1: weeks in a row, and I had recorded it, So
Speaker 1: now I had to Kellington and I hit a race
Speaker 1: record hit, R and B hit back then. So then
Speaker 1: Atlantic started using me on more things when Tommy was
Speaker 1: busy doing something. I started doing Clyde mix at a
Speaker 1: uh Martin jazz quartet, Chris Conna, you know that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. So I was really starting to hone up
Speaker 1: on on things and how to do things and learning
Speaker 1: more all the time from Tommy. So that case you're there,
Speaker 1: then you go to the other place. Now you're back
Speaker 1: with Tommy, mac with Tommy, and you're cutting what cutting everything?
Speaker 1: A lot of Tico records, Tito Pointe, Tito Rodriguez, Machito, Uh,
Speaker 1: Cam Callaway, Uh, you know a lot of that. I'm
Speaker 1: doing a lot of World Pacific Jazz records, Jerry Mulligan,
Speaker 1: the songbook, chet Chet Baker, uh, Bobby Brooke, maholl you know,
Speaker 1: all those great jazz things, and and the studio was
Speaker 1: pretty famous for the jazz. A lot of jazz artists
Speaker 1: like to work there. The studio was built once again,
Speaker 1: the name of the studio was Full and Record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was the later bought by Coastal Recording Recording,
Speaker 1: and then the name changed the Coastal But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was Tommy Dowd me trying to think the other two
Speaker 1: guys Heinz Kuberko was there and engineers, and so how
Speaker 1: did that play out? How long were you there? I
Speaker 1: was there four years? Yeah, I was there about four years.
Speaker 1: What kind of money? Uh, good money because yeah, top
Speaker 1: union money. So I was doing really well. I was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm very happy. And still after four years. What happens. Well,
Speaker 1: Dick Bark, who owned World Pacific Jazz, he would use
Speaker 1: me all the time on his great jazz albums and uh,
Speaker 1: so we were there doing street swingers or something and
Speaker 1: uh he Jimmy Duffrey, you know some of the great
Speaker 1: old and he said, now you want to move to California.
Speaker 1: They don't have to fly all the way to New
Speaker 1: York to use you. And I, you know, we joke
Speaker 1: and he laugh and I said, all right, we'll give
Speaker 1: me a job and I'll come out. That was it.
Speaker 1: Three weeks later, I got a call on the phone,
Speaker 1: tick Pocket, How I got your job out here? The
Speaker 1: best studio in in l A. They know you work.
Speaker 1: They want you good money, shers. If you want it,
Speaker 1: you're gonna let me know. In two weeks, I talked
Speaker 1: it over with my wife. We had two kids at
Speaker 1: that time. Um, I was still a baby myself. Um,
Speaker 1: and we did. We we moved out to Burbank. That
Speaker 1: was what year. That was the same year the Dodgers moved.
Speaker 1: You moved with the dogs, moved with the Dodgers. I
Speaker 1: was an Ardent Dodger fan all my life, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I moved with the dogs. So you moved to Burbank?
Speaker 1: What was burd Bank like that? It was already nice.
Speaker 1: It was nice. Say, you know, it's small. We we
Speaker 1: have a nice little Uh. We had a two bedroom
Speaker 1: condo and and it was nice and uh we had
Speaker 1: some friends that lived down the street. It was kind
Speaker 1: of it was it was nice I was working most
Speaker 1: of the time, so it wasn't a matter of justin.
Speaker 1: You were in the darkness the whole time. Yeah right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So that you go to work for this studio. The
Speaker 1: name of that is um that is radio recorders. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're radio recorders and that ultimately ties up with
Speaker 1: moving to our c A okay eventually, yeah, okay. So
Speaker 1: when you're recording at that era, okay, when you start
Speaker 1: with Duke Ellington, what does equipment like? Well, the equipment
Speaker 1: there are a lot of good microphones back then. You
Speaker 1: know the great um Um Neiman microphone that have that
Speaker 1: forty seven everybody you know that came out in se
Speaker 1: and thank yeah, I think so, and they you could
Speaker 1: buy one back then for three d bucks. I tried
Speaker 1: to try that today. So the equipment we were starting
Speaker 1: to get um good uh two microphones and things. And
Speaker 1: one of the things we were Tommy and I and
Speaker 1: the engineers back in New York, we were using those
Speaker 1: two mics a lot. When I came to California, they
Speaker 1: weren't using them as much, and I started like putting
Speaker 1: it on the bass instrument. Bass players were coming in
Speaker 1: and saying, oh man, I love that sound on my bass.
Speaker 1: Other engineers would come were using ribbon mics. They were
Speaker 1: using different things, different ribbon or whatever, you know, same
Speaker 1: with the drums. So you know, we had we were
Speaker 1: using different microphone techniques back East and they were out
Speaker 1: here with different mics on different instructs. And that's how
Speaker 1: I started doing what I knew I could do, and
Speaker 1: I started getting a lot of work. Then they were
Speaker 1: starting to record this record with Hank Mancini, Henry Mancini,
Speaker 1: who was an arranger and I worked with him as
Speaker 1: as an arranger on different things, and the nicest guy.
Speaker 1: But uh Bones how who is an incredible engineering producer. Um,
Speaker 1: he was doing the record and evidently cy Rady who
Speaker 1: was the producer and Bones, something happened. But he the
Speaker 1: Bones said look I'm not going I can't do this
Speaker 1: anymore and left or whatever. But all I know is
Speaker 1: I got grabbed by the shirt collar and said, okay,
Speaker 1: all you're doing this. I wanted up finishing the Peter
Speaker 1: Gun album. And then because of that, I started doing
Speaker 1: all the Mancini stuff. And then because of that, I
Speaker 1: started doing a lot of the r c A stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, right, Peterson and some of the acts that
Speaker 1: they had back then. Okay, But going more about the equipment,
Speaker 1: you've lived through a lot of evolution. First, talk about
Speaker 1: the boards. What did you feel you know, it was there.
Speaker 1: The big thing in the seventies was the Knives boards
Speaker 1: that all was of a suddenly went to SSL and digital.
Speaker 1: What's your view point on all that stuff? Well, I
Speaker 1: don't use digital boards. I don't like them tonight my question? Okay, why,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just don't like the way they sound.
Speaker 1: I like analog boards. My favorite board is a Nive
Speaker 1: analog board. I love the preamps, I love the way
Speaker 1: they sound. But but there are a lot of great
Speaker 1: boards out there, uh that I couldn't work on. Quad
Speaker 1: was a really good one. That's you know, many many
Speaker 1: nice good consoles. I'm not a big SSL fan. Um
Speaker 1: it seems the titles turned to ends them anyway. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I just everything just it didn't sound musical enough
Speaker 1: for me. And how about when we went to digital?
Speaker 1: What do you think about that? Well? I hated at first,
Speaker 1: and I was not going to go I mean I
Speaker 1: did like, um, I did a digital album with with
Speaker 1: a group on Warner Brothers. I can't think of the
Speaker 1: name of the group, now it'll come to me. But
Speaker 1: what would happen? Would you know? We were this is
Speaker 1: with the Mitsubishi recorder. Yeah, two tracks. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: we used on Barbara a lot. She had her own
Speaker 1: or Columbia gave her a machine. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so she had a machine. What else did she have?
Speaker 1: She had that, that's for sure, and that was on
Speaker 1: every session, so she would truck it in or for
Speaker 1: wherever it was. Yeah, I'm working with this act on
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers and What Happens um, which I had to
Speaker 1: do the digital album, Ah right right, Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: didn't sound real musical to me, you know, so I
Speaker 1: just stayed away from it, and everybody was starting to
Speaker 1: go to k you know. And so when it went
Speaker 1: to n and they were able to, you know, elevate
Speaker 1: the quality, then it started sounding really good and you
Speaker 1: couldn't tell the difference. So my assistant when we were
Speaker 1: doing we were doing something with Tommy Lapuma and Diana
Speaker 1: and um, so we recorded it on analog tape and
Speaker 1: pro tools at at. So when they came in to
Speaker 1: listen and they they didn't want to convert and wanted
Speaker 1: we just switched back and forth from the analog to
Speaker 1: the digital because we had them locked up and they
Speaker 1: couldn't hell the difference. They didn't even notice we were
Speaker 1: so that was great, Okay, all right, we'll do that.
Speaker 1: But she liked the piano solo and take two. Let it,
Speaker 1: didn't want to take three. So in protels, he just
Speaker 1: my assistant dropped it in, took the other and it
Speaker 1: was done. It took thirty seconds. If we had to
Speaker 1: cut tape and do all that, it would take in
Speaker 1: a half an hour. And now you have musicians hanging around,
Speaker 1: you know, waiting, uh, while we're cutting tape and and
Speaker 1: doing this way. We didn't have any of that. So
Speaker 1: that was it. That was the conversion. And from then on,
Speaker 1: I've just talked to everybody and I go, I do
Speaker 1: everything at one now, and uh, I love the quality
Speaker 1: and it's just a reproduction we have to worry about
Speaker 1: exactly right. Okay, So when you moved into pro tools,
Speaker 1: your assistant ran the pro tools rig and still at
Speaker 1: this point he's the guy who's running it or we
Speaker 1: are you familiar with I can they sent me up
Speaker 1: so I can start and stop and go back and fourth.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't want to get into all that
Speaker 1: other stuff of editing and pro tools, not my thing.
Speaker 1: How important is the room? The recording room? Wow? Probably
Speaker 1: the most important. Uh yeah, if you have a good
Speaker 1: room to start with. If you have a bad room,
Speaker 1: it's almost impossible to get a good sound. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: you've really got to have to use your imagination on
Speaker 1: on on how you want to do things. But a
Speaker 1: good room is you know, you can put Mike's almost anywhere.
Speaker 1: You're going to get good reflection, you know. And and
Speaker 1: the fact that you get leakage makes things gives more dimension,
Speaker 1: It makes things sound bigger and more open. But leakage
Speaker 1: would make it harder to mix right, Well, it depends
Speaker 1: on on the leak at. You know, the condom leaks.
Speaker 1: That's why I always tell everybody you want to use
Speaker 1: great microphones, because when you get leaka, you on a
Speaker 1: good microphone, you're getting good leak at and that is
Speaker 1: a good thing. When you got a cheap mic and
Speaker 1: you're getting that, say, Lenka, you don't want that. That's
Speaker 1: just cluttering up stuff. So now is a good room
Speaker 1: magic or there are certain things that you can do
Speaker 1: to make it a good room and someone's constructing. Well
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think that you can help make
Speaker 1: a room into a good room. Um, but it would
Speaker 1: have to start out to be reasonably good in the beginning. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, in good rooms sometimes that just accidentally happen.
Speaker 1: Some guy puts a couple of things up and it's magic. Now,
Speaker 1: of the studios you've worked in, which ones have good rooms? Well,
Speaker 1: look the original Larca studios at Sunset and Mind they
Speaker 1: had two rooms there, A and B, and those are
Speaker 1: two of the best rooms I've ever worked in. Then
Speaker 1: does that because accident or they have engine years come
Speaker 1: in and the engineers come in and do everything and
Speaker 1: and um and tested with a lot of testing was done. Um.
Speaker 1: Another great room is a room like uh MJM scoring stage. Right,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's Sony scoring stage. It's it's a
Speaker 1: gorgeous room and you know, you look at it and
Speaker 1: it looks like, you know, it's not even done yet,
Speaker 1: right right, But but the sound in the room, it's
Speaker 1: just amazing. Staying with that because they mixed movies and
Speaker 1: there's an engineer mixes the music in. Have you ever
Speaker 1: done that? No? No, I I did a lot of
Speaker 1: TV stuff early you know. Um, when I worked at
Speaker 1: R c A as a staff engineer, we would do
Speaker 1: a lot of documentaries and that stuff, but not a
Speaker 1: lot of movies, although I got to work with all
Speaker 1: the great scorers you know. Okay, So today everything is flipped.
Speaker 1: A lot of people make these records digitally at home
Speaker 1: because they don't want to pay that money. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: side there, tell me your take. I hated. I I
Speaker 1: just hated when you know, I I hear people you know,
Speaker 1: just it's it's a quality of the stuff. What's happening
Speaker 1: is the people set up studios at home, and then
Speaker 1: they don't have money to really buy the best equipments
Speaker 1: to they buy cheaper mixtup the stuff too, and the
Speaker 1: recording in their bedroom, and and the quality is just
Speaker 1: it's not good. And and I don't use plugins, so
Speaker 1: it's I and I don't use much eque or compression
Speaker 1: on on anything I do. Um, And so I find
Speaker 1: when I get something that I have to mix that
Speaker 1: was recorded in somebody's bedroom or something, I am using
Speaker 1: every thing that I don't use to try to make
Speaker 1: it put it in a place where it's acceptable at least. Okay,
Speaker 1: But a lot of companies can't pay for those big
Speaker 1: rooms anymore. True, So how does that affect your sessions?
Speaker 1: And it affects quite a bit because I don't get
Speaker 1: we don't get as much work, you know. And if
Speaker 1: you can get somebody to to do fixes and ovadubs
Speaker 1: in their bedroom, um, especially if it's just a guitar part,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, Yeah, you save a lot of
Speaker 1: money because we're not selling records. You know, the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties, My god, forget it. You know that this
Speaker 1: was a will that ever happen again? I doubt it? No, Okay,
Speaker 1: But staying in that era and the changes, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the reproduction. Obviously cassettes were inferior for no other reason.
Speaker 1: There was a high speed reproduction. But what is your
Speaker 1: view vinyl versus c d S versus streaming in terms
Speaker 1: of the reproduction end on the reprint. I only listened
Speaker 1: to Vinyl at home, and that's really yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: I have a great audio technical turntable pick up, great speak.
Speaker 1: I have a really nice system and and I like,
Speaker 1: let's stop there. What what is your system? You have
Speaker 1: the audio technical it's an audio technical pick up. My
Speaker 1: speakers are the tannoy uh self powered speakers. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure the model number. I've had him about ten years yet,
Speaker 1: for like five eight thousand bucks or something ten years ago.
Speaker 1: And then I have um sony uh power. I am okay,
Speaker 1: So what do you use to mix when I mix
Speaker 1: it in the studio? Tannois have a specific sound, so
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you use in the studio. I
Speaker 1: used Tannoise. Yeah, and I what I use uh dog sacks,
Speaker 1: Roma ducks right. He He came up with the speakers
Speaker 1: and it's a Tannoy ten inch driver. And then with
Speaker 1: Mastering Lab cabinets and crossovers, and I've been using those
Speaker 1: for the last fifteen years. Wait, wait to the crossovers.
Speaker 1: What's the tweeter. It's it's all Mastering Lab. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: So and you bring them yourself when you're mixing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: any other gear you bring it back. Bring a lot
Speaker 1: of gear. I bring all my preamps. I have about
Speaker 1: twenty of those, um um A couple of compressors that
Speaker 1: I have. Uh well, I use it the two tech
Speaker 1: three band and I just used it on the output
Speaker 1: of the bus, but I just tap it. I use
Speaker 1: it mainly to get that tube sound from the eck.
Speaker 1: And what about digital reverb? Yeah, well, um, I'm lucky
Speaker 1: that I work at Capital all the time. We have
Speaker 1: the great live chambers. But I have a percasty. I
Speaker 1: have a six thousand digital reverb. I have a two eighty. Um,
Speaker 1: so when I set up reverbs, we set up eight
Speaker 1: to ten different reverbs. I try. I don't try to
Speaker 1: put more than one thing in any reverb. Once in
Speaker 1: a while it might be two in one, but usually
Speaker 1: you know, if I if I have the vocal on something,
Speaker 1: a reverb on the vocal, nothing else will go in
Speaker 1: that reverb. Now, over time, sounds have changed in terms
Speaker 1: of what's in wet dry? Whatever is your sound stayed
Speaker 1: consistent or to what to grieve? You've been influenced by
Speaker 1: the marketplace? No, no, I think my sounds say pretty consistent.
Speaker 1: I've no mean one of those that worry about Um,
Speaker 1: it's certainly now. And you know, when I make a record,
Speaker 1: I want to make it. Hopefully it's going to be
Speaker 1: ahead and uh, and somebody's gonna enjoy the benefits of that.
Speaker 1: But I don't. I don't go on my way to
Speaker 1: to try to make something it's something it's not. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if I said that, you know you did?
Speaker 1: You did. Let's go back to the vinyl. Okay. Vinyl
Speaker 1: is an inherently limited medium. Okay, Now, I understand completely
Speaker 1: if the it was recorded on tape and the whole
Speaker 1: chain is the analog, But what if it's recorded digitally.
Speaker 1: Does it make any sense to listen on vinyl? I
Speaker 1: don't know if that would enhance it in any way. Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, And that's something I should
Speaker 1: check out when I get home. I'll check that out
Speaker 1: if I can see what difference there is. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean of the records you're listening to at home or
Speaker 1: most of them recorded on tape, or you have something
Speaker 1: recorded digitally, oh, something that we recorded because you know,
Speaker 1: I've heard different things because they say, well, if you
Speaker 1: take one ninety two, which you don't get in you
Speaker 1: know on most other services, and you know, I know
Speaker 1: it's it's an I've always felt that. Yes, in the
Speaker 1: early days, with the records that are cut analyze, they're
Speaker 1: much better on vinyl. But the digital ones, I'm not sure. Okay. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's go back to um acts. You worked with Toto,
Speaker 1: Steve Lucas. There's a good friend of mine, and he
Speaker 1: said he was the hot session guy. Okay, and then
Speaker 1: someone I don't remember said it said, listen, you have
Speaker 1: a window and then you're done. No matter how good
Speaker 1: you are, you better find something else. Have you found
Speaker 1: that to be true? Um? Yeah, I think there are times,
Speaker 1: you know, and with me, since I've been doing this
Speaker 1: for so long, I've been up and down that stage
Speaker 1: a couple of times. Well I've been hot and you
Speaker 1: know I can't you know, the phone is bringing off
Speaker 1: the hook. And then other times when I'm scuffling around
Speaker 1: looking for something to do, and then something comes along
Speaker 1: and I'm all of a sudden, I'm a flavor of
Speaker 1: the month again. Um, and I'm jammed. You know. So
Speaker 1: when it's when it's low, is there enough work or
Speaker 1: what do you do? What do you think there isn't
Speaker 1: enough work? When it's slow, and I go, I hang
Speaker 1: out with other engineers, so it's slow at the same time,
Speaker 1: we'll go have lunch and do that kind of stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I I have my wife and I collect
Speaker 1: the art so well heavily into that. Um. So when
Speaker 1: I'm off and we have time, we go We'll go
Speaker 1: to New York. Uh go to the museums, go to
Speaker 1: uh galleries, look at different art and so forth, and
Speaker 1: uh so we buy and sell things. And because you
Speaker 1: have that as a hobby now people professionals it. You know,
Speaker 1: at large, a lot of the prices going way down
Speaker 1: if you had to adjust your prices because of the
Speaker 1: change of the marketplace. Absolutely, what I get now is
Speaker 1: somebody will call me and and look how I got
Speaker 1: this amount of money? It's all I got. I'd love
Speaker 1: to have you and mix my record, and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to him about it and what's going on and what
Speaker 1: do you think you want me to do it? And
Speaker 1: then okay, I'll say, all right, you know you we
Speaker 1: got to work out to deal with the studio and
Speaker 1: then and then I'll get to rest and I work
Speaker 1: it out that way because there are acts that I
Speaker 1: really like to work with. I mean, at times I
Speaker 1: do stuff for nothing and because I like the artist,
Speaker 1: I've got nothing to do if I can help somebody.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a new saying out now that kindness
Speaker 1: is the new hip. Wow, I haven't heard that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it is the kind of it changes everything that
Speaker 1: around you when you're kind two people, and and I
Speaker 1: see it all the time in the studio. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: just assume are most of your gigs now both recording
Speaker 1: and mixing, or you have some separate mixing gigs or what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a few separate mixing gigs. I just mixed
Speaker 1: the record uh a little while ago for New York
Speaker 1: artists at UH, I started recording a two years ago
Speaker 1: at Cherney and I, Yeah, I'm the best, and we
Speaker 1: brought her in the studio in New York and started
Speaker 1: uh recording a few things. But this group I belong
Speaker 1: to the Meta Alliance anyway, a little bit slower, you
Speaker 1: and Ed would have worked at the same time. We
Speaker 1: we we were, Yeah, because we teach the Metal Alliance
Speaker 1: teaches um we're do it a couple of times a
Speaker 1: year at a different studio. And so whenever we do
Speaker 1: Ed and I worked together and we bring in an act,
Speaker 1: whether it's uh Tuny Sutton to you know whoever, uh,
Speaker 1: and we we uh, we we could do it together.
Speaker 1: So okay, just little bit, what's the Metal Alliance? The
Speaker 1: Metal Alliance is Uh. It was Phaeromone Me, Ed Cherney,
Speaker 1: Elliott China, Um, George Massenburg, Chuck Ainley, Frank Philippetti, and uh,
Speaker 1: unfortunately two of them are gone now, so we're getting
Speaker 1: going to have to get some replacements. Okay, how did
Speaker 1: it end up happening? It ended up happening Like we
Speaker 1: got together and talked about, you know, we're getting there's
Speaker 1: so much new equipment coming out all the time, and
Speaker 1: we wanted to do something like the good Housekeeping Seal
Speaker 1: of approval. So we made it fact that we would
Speaker 1: go over a gear and we would all listen, and
Speaker 1: if we unanimously liked it, we would recommend it. If
Speaker 1: one person didn't like it, it it didn't get recommended. Okay,
Speaker 1: And that's what we were trying to do. How much
Speaker 1: gear would you we value? Microphones, preamps, all contact things? Okay,
Speaker 1: So you were telling the story, you were working with
Speaker 1: an act and recording it with ed two years ago,
Speaker 1: and now what's happening now? Oh? Well, she two years
Speaker 1: ago and and she started going around the country doing
Speaker 1: gigs and all, and she would record in different places,
Speaker 1: go back to New York and record, and so she
Speaker 1: finally got the whole thing finished and I just finished
Speaker 1: mixing it for her and it just came out two
Speaker 1: weeks ago. Okay, if you're if you're tracking a capital.
Speaker 1: Where do you tend to mix? I like to mix
Speaker 1: it capital, Yeah, I like to mix. I like I
Speaker 1: like to mix in studio a believe it or not,
Speaker 1: which is to pick room. But see it's a room
Speaker 1: that I do most of my mixing and it's a
Speaker 1: little cheaper. And if they have people in the studio
Speaker 1: and a, I can't mix it right. So and is
Speaker 1: the okay? How hard is it to get time these days? Uh?
Speaker 1: It varies. Sometimes you trying to squeeze things in other
Speaker 1: times there's plenty of time. I was leaving up to
Speaker 1: Paula Salvador. She you know, she knows my schedule. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're figured it out. So, Um, what is your special sauce?
Speaker 1: What makes what is it that you do to the
Speaker 1: you want to reveal that makes your makes you head
Speaker 1: in shoulders above the average person? Well, I don't know how.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a tough question for me to answer.
Speaker 1: Somebody else who should answer that. Um, But the fact
Speaker 1: that I love what I do so much. My father worked,
Speaker 1: He never took a day off in his life, and
Speaker 1: he worked hard all his life, and and and he
Speaker 1: did the best he could. And that's what I want
Speaker 1: to do. Every day I go and I want to
Speaker 1: do the best I can possibly do for the artist,
Speaker 1: make that artist happy. Hopefully you make a hit with him,
Speaker 1: but if not, a great record and that's equally as
Speaker 1: important sometimes. And there are a lot of albums out
Speaker 1: there that people have never heard of. You know, Willis
Speaker 1: Allen Alan, I can't believe you cut that well? So
Speaker 1: many like that, you know that. I just and that
Speaker 1: that are great records that people don't know about. So
Speaker 1: we're your parents proud of your work? I yeah, my
Speaker 1: mom was, for sure. My father was tough when it
Speaker 1: comes to that. And I often say, now I wish
Speaker 1: my dad could see me now, you know, it would
Speaker 1: be maybe a whole different thing. Um. I think my
Speaker 1: dad felt that because his brother helped me so much, uh,
Speaker 1: that it made it easier for me to yeah, something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, you know, dads are tough. And how
Speaker 1: long when did he pass away? He passed away? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, he was seventy eight years so about five
Speaker 1: years ago. Okay, So he saw a lot of your success. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I when I was a producer at r c A, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would take him to more Tony's. He and my
Speaker 1: mom and uh, you know, they have dinner with the
Speaker 1: artists and stuff. Yeah that and he never he never
Speaker 1: really know, And I would always and I know, you know,
Speaker 1: they were living on retirement, so I always slip my
Speaker 1: mother a hundred dollar bill, you know. And when when
Speaker 1: my father passed away and and my uh my sister
Speaker 1: went over to help out, she opened the refrigerator door,
Speaker 1: the draw on the bottom and it was food A
Speaker 1: hundred dollar bills that I had given my mother. She
Speaker 1: just took him into home. Wow. So you know, this
Speaker 1: is a business where a lot of people can't work anymore.
Speaker 1: In the last twenty years, you were I mean trying
Speaker 1: just trying to schedule, say you're tracking and then you're mixing.
Speaker 1: You know, what is the secret to your ability to
Speaker 1: continue to work? I think the fact that I love
Speaker 1: it so much and I enjoy it so much. And
Speaker 1: you know, when I'm going I never think I'm making
Speaker 1: a living doing this. I think I'm I'm doing something
Speaker 1: people are going to enjoy this. It brings a lot
Speaker 1: of happiness music to people. Um, yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: I don't know I did. Certain artists are tough, and
Speaker 1: you know, when you're going in and it's not going
Speaker 1: to be a walk in the park, but other artists are,
Speaker 1: you know, just so much fun to be in a
Speaker 1: studio with um Dylan was. It was a ball. That's
Speaker 1: not his reputation. He was great because he was doing
Speaker 1: stuff that he was doing, all these old chestnuts. Well
Speaker 1: this is all recent stuff. Yes, yes, fifty two songs.
Speaker 1: Well that's the last one I too before that? Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: when was the first time you worked with Dylan? First
Speaker 1: time I worked with him with Strangers in the Night
Speaker 1: or Shadows in the Night, it's called Yeah. They called
Speaker 1: me the manager and they had this time and I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. I said, oh, well that's too Bob
Speaker 1: under work with that. I said, I'm sorry, I'm I'm booked,
Speaker 1: so I don't have the phone. I said to my wife, Damn,
Speaker 1: I really would have liked to have done that with
Speaker 1: Next morning, they called me, Bob wants you. When are
Speaker 1: you available? So they worked around me, which I thought
Speaker 1: was great. And now I've done fifty two songs with him,
Speaker 1: actually fifty three. And how old long does it take
Speaker 1: to cut a Dylan drack? We we were doing one
Speaker 1: song every three hours, and what would happen? Would the
Speaker 1: first couple of hours, it would be Dylan going over
Speaker 1: the song, get the meaning of the song and and
Speaker 1: listen to the way Frank did it or whatever, and
Speaker 1: and try to get you know, his special interpretation. And
Speaker 1: then we would go in and cut the track and
Speaker 1: two or three takes and we'd had it. So we
Speaker 1: would go from three to six, and then we take
Speaker 1: a two hour break for dinner, and then we go
Speaker 1: to eight to maybe eleven and get another song. So
Speaker 1: we were getting to a day. Where were you coming
Speaker 1: this at the capitol and studio? And then uh, any
Speaker 1: special tricks he used on his vocals to enhance those, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did. We We used a great mike on his vocals. Um. Uh,
Speaker 1: the Frank Sinatra mike that it's just amazing mike. And
Speaker 1: then I put another mike um in an omni position,
Speaker 1: uh two ft maybe away from the first mike and
Speaker 1: to capture some of the ambiance in the room and
Speaker 1: so forth. And he when he heard the first playback,
Speaker 1: he said, al my voice hasn't sounded this good in
Speaker 1: forty years. Yeah. And does he talk to you? Yes?
Speaker 1: He does not talking to be No, No, he does.
Speaker 1: I tuned one thing and uh and as I went by,
Speaker 1: he heard it and he looked at me and said,
Speaker 1: what's that? I said, well, you were a little under
Speaker 1: we know. He made me put it back. Okay, And
Speaker 1: what about you know, staying on that, you know, starting
Speaker 1: in the seventies whatever, the era of comped vocals. What
Speaker 1: do you think of that? Well? Yeah, the reason I
Speaker 1: I mean, it works obviously, it works, you know with
Speaker 1: with with Barbara, there's a lot of comping of vocals,
Speaker 1: even comping of breath really yeah, right, yeah, she'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, I love that breath two verses back? Can
Speaker 1: we put that here? So? Yeah, And but do you
Speaker 1: do you think you mean, forget not making it specifically
Speaker 1: about Barbara, does it eliminate a little bit of the
Speaker 1: soul and the field when you comp all that stuff? Well?
Speaker 1: I think so, yeah, I do. I do think a
Speaker 1: little bit when you hear you know, change is gonna come.
Speaker 1: Sam Cooke's sitting on the dock of debate, those kinds
Speaker 1: of things, those are not compvocal, those are you know.
Speaker 1: And even with Barbara there's I mean there's some she
Speaker 1: came in one day we were working U David Forssibly
Speaker 1: doing back the Broadway and and she was not failing.
Speaker 1: Well she first time down, second time down, she just
Speaker 1: killed it. Really. It was like, you know, but they
Speaker 1: people like Barbara just they varized to the occasion. I mean,
Speaker 1: she is so meticulous about things, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: never going to get out if she doesn't like it.
Speaker 1: So anybody you haven't worked with who's still alive that
Speaker 1: you would like to work with, Yeah, you know, that
Speaker 1: comes up a lot. Uh, Yeah, I'd love to do
Speaker 1: a record with Sally came up. I was talking to
Speaker 1: Desmond Child the other day and he was talking about
Speaker 1: what a perfect career she has because she's unique. But
Speaker 1: she only makes a record like every eight years. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, and I got I put it out there
Speaker 1: a few times. You know, if she's available and wants
Speaker 1: wants me, I'm available, And who does she use? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. Okay, anybody else that's the
Speaker 1: top of the list. You know, I've hit everybody. I
Speaker 1: don't know who's out there that I that you know? Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: this has been fantastic. I think we covered Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for coming on the podcast. You're kidding? Is that
Speaker 1: hit with time? Yes? Well, unless there's something specific that
Speaker 1: we have no no, no, Okay, you've been wonderful till
Speaker 1: next time. This is Bob left,