Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music (11 page)

But what happens if an artist insists on using one of their players, and that person isn’t the best choice for the job?

It’s not the end of the world—we’ll adjust to emphasize that player’s attributes. I’ve had situations where the musician in question has approached me and said, “I don’t think this is working for me. Maybe one of your experts—one of the better-known guys—would be better suited for this song.” If someone is a pro, they know their limitations.

While we’re on the topic of musicians, I’d be remiss if I didn’t explain the immeasurable contributions of the arranger. Arranging and orchestrating is fast becoming a lost art; very few arrangers put pencil to paper the way arrangers did forty and fifty years ago.

At that time, an arranger would listen to a melody, come up with inventive embellishments, and sketch out chord symbols indicating what they wanted each instrument to play. Then a musical assistant (copyist) would sit and write a detailed “chart” for each instrument. That chart would be on the music stand at the session, ready for the musicians to play.

But the proliferation of sophisticated electronic keyboards, MIDI systems, and home recording studios has changed the way pop records are arranged and recorded. It’s expensive to hire a rhythm section or a forty-piece orchestra for an album and have them sit idly while the vocalist works through their part.

Artists look for perfection in every part of their performance, and vocalists today prefer to lay down a scratch vocal and come back later to rerecord their part.

To reduce the risk of delay, I’ll ask an arranger such as Patrick Williams, Jorge Calandrelli, Rob Mounsey, Rob Mathes, or Philippe Saisse to write a chart and record some basic rhythm tracks electronically in his home studio. I still record most records with a live rhythm section, for feel. After the singer lays in their part, we can embellish the recording with strings, percussion, guitar, horns, or whatever else we desire.

Do tracks that are arranged and recorded with electronic keyboards sound the same as those recorded with a real orchestra? No, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t work well (or, at times, better) for some projects. I’ve found that marrying rhythm samples and real instruments is a nice combination.

No matter who does the arrangements or how they accomplish them, I’ll suggest the colors or textures that I think will work for the album. The goal is to bring a fresh perspective to the music, no matter how familiar the songs are.

For example, when George Michael made
Songs from the Last Century,
he chose to include Johnny Mercer’s “I Remember You”—a song recorded by dozens of the most celebrated singers in the world. As a harp-and-vocal duet, though, George’s version stands alone in its stark originality.

As the artist and I begin discussing songs, musicians, and arrangers, we often invite their manager to join us.

The manager often plays a key role in promoting the record. They can tie it into an upcoming tour, arrange for Internet and radio promotion, and book the artist on national television programs such as
The Tonight Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien
, and
Saturday Night Live
. With MTV and VH1’s shift away from straight music videos, the nightly talk and
comedy shows have become an invaluable forum for exposing new music, and exposure is what helps to sell records.

While working with a manager can be a blessing, there’s a flip side: some managers can be unreasonable and aggressive.

In the midst of making Ray Charles’s
Genius Loves Company,
I got a scathing letter from one guest artist’s manager complaining that I’d switched a line in their duet around, and that she—the manager—hadn’t given her approval.

The tone of the manager’s message was condescending and un-professional, and my response to her arrogance was straightforward. “It worked for Ray and for me when we recorded it, and it’s my privilege as the producer to deviate if I so desire.”

Part of being a producer is that you are occasionally confronted with overinflated egos. When dealing with them, it’s important to be candid—and to make decisions that preserve the integrity of the artist and their music.

Peter, Paul and Mary, mid-1960s
Courtesy of Michael Ochs Archive

There’s nothing like producing a rock-and-roll band.

So far, I’ve described the way I work with an individual artist. Producing an organized group of musicians (as opposed to a solo artist) necessitates a specialized approach.

Much as a family adapts to the preferences and behaviors of each member, musical groups that spend any appreciable amount of time together develop a policy for how the group will travel, live, write, rehearse, and record. The years I spent touring with and recording groups as diverse as Peter, Paul and Mary, Chicago, and The Band offered tremendous insight into the psychology of working with groups.

Peter, Paul and Mary personified 1960s folk music.

The trio’s spirited renderings of folk songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Puff (The Magic Dragon),” “I Dig Rock & Roll Music,” and “Leaving on a Jet Plane” have become landmarks in the modern folk canon; “If I Had a Hammer”—a single from their first
album recorded in 1962—became an unofficial anthem of the civil rights movement.

Engineering
Album 1700
and many other Peter, Paul and Mary records taught me the secrets of recording harmonies, and how to help a group maintain harmony in the recording studio.

I was charmed by the trio’s sound from the moment I heard them. Their fastidious attention to detail and the way they’d harp on a phrase until it was burnished and blended to their liking blew me away. While I’d heard about how meticulous Brian Wilson was when it came to recording vocal harmonies, working with Peter, Paul and Mary gave me a sense of why Brian was so relentless when it came to his own work arranging and producing for the Beach Boys.

Each member of the trio had an ample reserve of passion, and none were shy about sharing their convictions. As individuals and as a group Peter, Paul and Mary were social activists whose springboard for personal expression happened to be music.

Peter Yarrow emerged as the leader. He was the most forceful of the three and had an almost militaristic approach to editing.

Noel Paul Stookey was introspective—a perceptive songwriter who used humor to mediate and keep the peace.

Chicago recording session, late 1970s
Phil Ramone Collection

Mary Travers was honest, direct, and intense—a no-nonsense woman. She didn’t like doing multiple takes, and would typically be the one to present a rational, persuasive argument for—or against—the specific interpretation of a vocal line. They were always healthy arguments!

For technical purposes, I recorded Peter, Paul and Mary with three separate microphones. When we recorded, the three principals would often bicker over which mike was whose. To quell the unrest, I had three small name tags made up and hung them around the mikes so we could keep track.

Peter, Paul and Mary were all about editing; most of their records were heavily edited from the best lines of all the takes.

We’d start by doing at least ten full takes of a song. Then we’d play back every take and listen. Noel (Paul), Peter, Mary, producer Milt Okun, and I each had a lyric sheet, which became our blueprint for editing. As we listened to the multiple takes, each of us would mark our comments on our lyric sheet: “Use the third line from take two, the fifth line from take seven,” and so on.

If at the end of the playbacks we all agreed on which lines contained the best performance, great. If we disagreed, Milt Okun would cast the deciding vote. If Milt weighed in and we were still at an impasse, Albert Grossman—the trio’s legendary manager—served as arbitrator, smoothing out any uncomfortable moments. It was during the “Which line should we use?” debates that we really heard from Mary.

With this hot-and-heavy pace, I developed a technique for creating composite takes—a practice that served me well. While I recorded all of Peter, Paul and Mary’s master takes on an eight-track machine, I also ran a two-track recorder for reference.

I could make some pretty fancy edits with a razor blade, but since the group’s phrasing was so tight, I’d make sample edits on the two-track before committing myself on the multitracks. As spliced up as they are, I doubt the casual listener would notice that those
records aren’t the product of single takes. How could I go wrong when recording at 30 inches per second?

My experience with Peter, Paul and Mary proved invaluable when I began producing Chicago, another group with complex musical and personal dynamics.

I was asked to produce Chicago’s
Hot Streets
in 1978, after they ended their partnership with James “Jimmy” Guercio, who had produced their first eleven albums.

The invitation came because of my history with the group. Because I’d mixed several of their albums, I had worked at their home studio (Caribou Ranch) and I understood the inner workings of their “sound” and the politics of the band.

Hot Streets
came at a bittersweet time.

Guercio, who had managed and produced Chicago since 1968, was a terrific producer who was also responsible for the sound of
Blood, Sweat & Tears
, the second, self-titled album by a band that included Randy Brecker and Canadian vocalist David Clayton-Thomas. That album’s two major hits—“Spinning Wheel” and “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy”—won Blood, Sweat & Tears (and Guercio) a Grammy in 1969 for Album of the Year.

The magic that Guercio spun with Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears helped spawn a pop subgenre that artfully married traces of rock, rhythm and blues, soul, and big-band jazz. Jimmy’s creative vision and business acumen were beyond compare; I had (and still have) the utmost respect for him as a friend and producer.

In addition to his creative talent, Guercio had a good business sense. He took the concept of the full-service recording studio to the limit in 1973, when he and the members of Chicago opened the Caribou Ranch Studio in Colorado. I worked there many times and it was unlike anything I’d ever dreamed of: a resort where we ate, slept, played, and recorded.

At five thousand acres, Caribou had been one of the largest private Arabian stud farms in the country, nestled nine thousand feet in
the Rocky Mountains. The lodgings were plush, and the amenities par excellence.

The cabins included brass beds, leather furniture, fireplaces, hardwood floors, and high-end sound systems. Some suites had Steinway baby grand pianos, and there was a library with books, movies, and games. Then, there were horses and skimobiles. And food: A professional cooking staff was available to prepare and serve whatever snack or meal your entourage desired, twenty-four hours a day.

Caribou was the ideal place for a band to write and record, because it was all in one. You came, unpacked, and every need was tended to without leaving the property. The record companies were willing to foot the bill, and before long dozens of bands were seeking refuge at the ranch. Elton John even named one of his albums after the place.

I wasn’t privy to the conflict that caused the end of the Guercio-Chicago marriage, but I knew the details of another tragedy that was affecting the band: the death of guitarist Terry Kath, who had recently died in a senseless gun accident. I had known, worked with, and loved Terry too, and was equally devastated by his loss. As we began work on
Hot Streets,
everyone involved with Chicago was grieving.

Because of Terry’s death, Chicago was breaking in a new guitarist, a bright young player named Donnie Dacus. While no one could replace Terry, Donnie did a remarkable job of respecting the brotherly role that Terry had played in the band while learning to fill his musical place, too.

Upon talking about songs for
Hot Streets,
I discovered that the members of Chicago had come up with a fair plan: Each of the eight members would be given the opportunity to contribute a song for the album.

Fielding songs from eight individual members of a band—each
of whom expects to have a song on their album—wasn’t easy. It wasn’t just about the writing: each member also had the right to add their own twist to the mixes of the songs they’d written,
and
a share in consensus approval over the mixes for every song on the album.

With a well-known group that is as successful as Chicago, there isn’t room for a B-minus song, so when I learned of the plan the question I posed was, “What are we going to do if a song that one of the members writes is not an A, A-minus, or B quality song?” We agreed that if there was any question about a song’s suitability, I would be the judge.

That responsibility put me in an unenviable position. Was I thrilled about having to tell the conga player that the song he wrote wasn’t good enough? Not exactly. It wasn’t the percussionist’s fault; he was Brazilian, and didn’t have full command of our language. But it
was
my job to put the music first, so I sat down with Peter Cetera and said, “Peter, our friend needs us to help him write a better song.”

In the control room with Jim Boyer (center) during a Chicago session, late 1970s
Phil Ramone Collection

The interpersonal and intersectional dynamic between the members of Chicago was fascinating. They were like a family, and
because we spent four to six weeks (or more) together rehearsing and recording an album, I became their “uncle.”

Traveling to a distant locale and settling in for a month or two to record an album helped add to the familial atmosphere. And when you traveled with Chicago, you traveled in style! Since they stopped using the Caribou Ranch studio when they split with Guercio, we were free to go wherever we wanted to record.

For the
Hot Streets
sessions we went to Miami’s Criteria Recording Studios. We rented two mansions (Robert Lamm, Peter Cetera, and I stayed at the tennis club; the horn section—Jimmy Pankow, Walt Parazaider, and Lee Loughnane—stayed in what I called the Palmetto Palace because of the mammoth Florida cockroaches that seemed to be everywhere).

When we traveled, we tried to build as many comforts of home into the equation as possible. For instance, we always had a chef to prepare our meals. It wasn’t about being extravagant: I knew that we would be working hard, but the temptation to play harder was sure to be there. It was better to have the places we stayed in stocked with everyone’s favorite foods, snacks, and beverages so that when the band came to work there was no need to waste time sending out for food or going out to party.

As one would expect from a large family, there were often differences of opinion among the members of Chicago—and not just about songs.

I mentioned that when we were on the road, the horn section stayed in separate quarters; the brass players did, in fact, function as an individual unit. They weren’t being uppity; they came to writing sessions and rehearsals, but they didn’t like being around when the rhythm section was laying down the basic tracks.

When you’ve got so many components going into a sound and you start working through a track, getting the rhythm, guitar, and vocal parts down is intense. There were times when recording became tedious, and to thrust the horn section into long sessions and
laborious debates at a time in the process when they wouldn’t even be playing would have been counterproductive. It was better to have them arrive when everything was in place so that all they had to do was work their unique magic on the track.