May 1, 2011,
By Blair Jackson
Philadelphia was certainly hoppin’ in the early ’70s, thanks in large part to the music scene that revolved around owner/engineer Joe Tarsia’s Sigma Sound Studios. Tarsia’s roots actually go back to the Philly teen-pop of late-’50s/early ’60s acts like Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker, but by the time he opened Sigma on North 12th Street in August 1968, there was an exciting new brand of Philadelphia soul music taking root: The songwriting/production team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, as well as producer/arranger Thom Bell, started churning out an incredible parade of hits, most of them recorded at Sigma by Tarsia. Acts associated with those producers—such as Jerry Butler, Wilson Pickett, The Delfonics, The Stylistics, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes and The O’Jays—made Sigma one of the top recording studios in the country and helped Philadelphia surpass Detroit (still reeling from the relocation of Motown to L.A. in the early ’70s) as the nation’s soul music headquarters.
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Apr 1, 2011,
By Blair Jackson
When I call engineer extraordinaire Ed Cherney about the recording of Bonnie Raitt’s commercial breakthrough, “Thing Called Love,” the first thing he says is, “Isn’t that a little recent for a ‘Classic Track’?” “Dude,” I said, “it was recorded 22 years ago!” He got a laugh out of that; it does seem like it was just yesterday in some ways. But it was cut in 1989 and was a keystone of her album Nick of Time, which won a Grammy for Album of the Year in 1990 and sold more than 6 million copies in the U.S. alone.
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Mar 29, 2011,
By Sarah Benzuly
I spoke with producer/performer Bill Denison (guitarist for prog-rock group Zen Carnival) a few days ago to talk about his upcoming project, the country-influenced Tenderfoot, and the recent installation of an SSL AWS 948 in his private Massachusetts home studio. ...
Mar 1, 2011,
By Blair Jackson
Pick an era, almost any era since the mid-’60s, and you can make a “Classic Tracks” argument for a Neil Young tune: Maybe “Mr. Soul” from Buffalo Springfield; “Down By the River” from his second solo album; “Helpless” by CSNY; “Heart of Gold” from Harvest; “Comes a Time”; “Hey Hey, My My”; “Like a Hurricane”; “Cortez the Killer”; “Harvest Moon”—stop me ’cause I can think of a lot more. This month’s classic is relatively recent—it comes from his 1989 album, Freedom, but just to show you how prolific this guy is, he’s made more than 20 albums since then!
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Mar 1, 2011,
By Barbara Schultz
Musician/composer/producer/engineer Buddy Miller is celebrating a couple of deserved Grammy noms for producing Robert Plant’s Band of Joy album and Patty Griffin’s gospel record Downtown Church. He’s also getting ready to release his latest project, The Majestic Silver Strings, which he produced in his home studio, and which brings together four eclectic guitarists...
Mar 1, 2011,
By Matt Gallagher
Composer Mark Isham kick-started his new record label, MIM, with an adrenaline-charged film score for the 2011 movie The Mechanic. Isham tapped veteran engineer Jason LaRocca to mix and master the composer’s hybrid creation comprising elements of rock, electronic and orchestral music. “The [original 1972] score was a jazzy, small orchestral ensemble score,” LaRocca explains, “and very different from the one we did. [Laughs] Mark went in a very particular direction with it: lots of metal, detuned guitars, big string sections and giant drums. The main challenge was trying to get it all to speak as one coherent piece, and to make those worlds sound like they made sense together and [have an] impact against car crashes and gunshots. We had our work cut out for us in terms of the competition that surrounded us in the final dub.”
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Mar 1, 2011,
By Blair Jackson
When Los Lonely Boys, a trio of very musical brothers, exploded out of the small city of San Angelo, Texas, in 2004 with the hit single “Heaven” from their eponymous debut album, many wondered, “What can they do for an encore?” After all, rare is the band that hits the jackpot first time out: “Heaven” rocketed to Number One on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, made the Top 20 on the pop charts and won a Grammy; the album sold more than 2 million copies. The appealing and versatile Garza brothers—guitarist Henry, bassist Jojo and drummer Ringo, all in their mid-20s when the album hit—turned up everywhere, it seems, for the next couple of years, including TV awards shows and on other people’s albums (such as Santana’s All That I Am and the Amnesty International John Lennon tribute album, Instant Karma).
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Feb 1, 2011,
By Ron Skinner
There are two lessons to be learned from this month’s “Classic Track”: First, persistence pays off; and second, sometimes the master is the demo and the demo is the master. n the winter of 1956/57, Buddy Holly was an artist in transition. After being discovered by talent scout Eddie Crandall in the fall of 1955 and signed to Decca Records in Nashville, by late 1956 Holly found himself without a hit and without a contract. Prior to this, Holly had had three separate recording sessions for Decca between January and November 1956 with legendary country music producer Owen Bradley at his Quonset Hut studio on 16th Avenue in Nashville.
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NAMM 2011: Fairlight CMI
State of NAMM 2011