Well, dear readers, I’ve sometimes been asked what my favorite CD is of all that I’ve produced, and I always find it an impossible question to answer. Having produced over 150 of ’em, starting back in the Bay Cites days and continuing right through to now, each one has been an experience of one sort or another – some great, some good, none bad, and all of them an education of one sort or another. I’ve been blessed to work with some of the most incredibly talented people in front of the mic and behind, and each album has been a collaboration in the best sense of the word. I can’t actually remember what the first album I really produced, and I mean produced in the strictest sense – from scratch, starting with the idea, the conception, the planning, the recording, mixing, mastering, and everything else that’s entailed one someone really produces a CD (rather than just taking the credit). We didn’t do many personally produced CDs at Bay Cities – only a handful, but they were my first baby steps doing something I’d never done. Oh, I’d been in the studio quite a few times, to record demos, for Nudie Musical, for The Creature Wasn’t Nice and several other TV and film and stage things for which I’d done the music. But I’d never really PRODUCED an album, not in the sense that I would come to know. At Bay Cities we did the David Shire At The Movies, Joanie Sommers sings Jerome Kern, the Baja Marimbas, and The Anastasia Affaire. There were things like Classical Hollywood and Classical Broadway, but even though they were my ideas, I didn’t really PRODUCE them in the sense that I would come to know. Those CDs all came out okay, but they were all recorded “live” to two-track and there was no mixing involved. When we shut down Bay Cities and I went to Varese, that’s where my real producing days began. I told the owner that I did not want to dip my toe in the water, I wanted to dive in and my goal was that in one year’s time everyone would know my name as a producer of theater recordings and that my albums would have a style all their own. It took six months.
We jumped in the water with three back-to-back albums – Liz Callaway Sings Frank Loesser, Unsung Sondheim, and Michelle Nicastro’s Toonful, all of which I’d created while at Bay Cities, only Bay Cities would never have been able to afford them. The first stylistic decision I made was that I wanted full orchestras on them. However, we could not afford to hire that many players, and so we devised a way of recording them by doing two and sometimes three passes with the players we had. We would begin with a rhythm date – piano, bass, and drums, and the singer doing “scratch” vocals – if those came out well, we could use them, and if not there would be a couple of separate vocals-only days. On the Liz and Sondheim albums, we began with the song selections – Steve opened up his entire unknown songs to me and boy did we find treasures. Liz and her musical director, Alex Rybeck, would send me tapes of what they were working on – I only really asked specifically for them to do two or three things. But from the get-go I was involved in each step of the process. I’d fly to New York, we’d sit and she’d sing the arrangements Alex had done, and then I’d make comments and they were great about doing what I asked for. I don’t know where it came from, but I just had a sense for what worked and what didn’t work in an arrangement. They were doing a put-together of Somebody Somewhere and I’ll Know – they did it for me and it was basically just the two songs back to back and I just didn’t get it. So, I asked them to give it a musical point – to weave the accompaniment of one under the other and to tie them together. Alex did so immediately and the result was something that suddenly had a point and cohesion. My favorite story on that album was Joey, Joey, Joey. For whatever reason, they really wanted to do it, and I really hated every feel they came up with and really didn’t want to do it. Each week, just when I thought I’d never EVER have to hear “Like a perfumed woman” again, a new tape would arrive and there would be another try and I would hate it and say “Let’s not and say we did.” Finally, I was in New York about a week before we were going into the studio. We were at Liz’s mother’s apartment and we played through everything one last time. At the end of the session, Liz said, “We’ve just got one last attempt at Joey, Joey, Joey – we want you to hear it.” I just rolled my eyes heavenward and said, “Play it and be done with it.” Alex started playing “Like a perfumed woman” but in the style of Burt Bacharach. I sat up, instantly hooked. When they got to the song proper, I heard about twenty seconds and I said, “That’s it – we’re doing it, it’s brilliant. Just cut Like a perfumed woman, because Burt would not have an intro to the song and we should be true to the Burt style.” Well, if you’ve heard that track, it’s a four-star masterpiece – with Larry Moore’s faithful Bacharach orchestration. And that’s what collaboration is and how arrangements can take something and do something totally and completely fresh while remaining true to the song.
Unsung Sondheim was more difficult, because the musical director was frequently not prepared and always befuddled. He was a very good pianist, but I’d sit in rehearsals and I’d say things like, “I think we need to do something to the opening of this” and he’d just stare at the keys with no ability to even begin to think of an idea. So, I would just shove him aside and come up with something myself, which he’d then write down. It was a rather bold thing for me to do because these were first recordings of Sondheim songs most people had never heard. And for the most part we did them right off the page with Larry once again providing wonderful orchestrations. But in Love’s A Bond, I felt that the intro and the song proper were the same exact feel and the intro didn’t feel different enough – so, we slowed it down, and that worked really well. And in Multitudes Of Amys, that glorious cut song from Company, we were taken on an incredible long journey only to reach the end of the song and have the final note held for only four counts with a “bump” in the accompaniment at the end. I remember the first time the MD played it and I just looked at him and Larry and said “Bump?” After four minutes I get “bump.” The MD stared at the keys not knowing what to do. I told him I wanted a very long held note for the singer and I wanted a rhapsodic restatement of the tune underneath it. He figured that out, and it just made that ending goose-bumpy, especially when Mike Rupert hit that last note.
The fact that we managed to get through those first two recordings without any real horrid problems still amazes me to this day. We hired one trumpet player, two reed players, a french horn player and a trombone player – that was the horn section. We would do one pass of them playing one set of parts. Then we’d do a second pass, where Larry wrote entirely different parts – so suddenly you had two trumpets, four reeds, two french horns and two trombones and the result was great. For those first two albums we had, perhaps, the most pathetic string section ever – one violin, one viola, and one cello. Getting the first pass was okay, but doing the second and third passes was very difficult because the violinist’s intonation was wobbly against the first two passes. We eventually got it, but for me the lesson learned was that the next time, for Michelle’s album, being recorded in LA, we hired three violins, one viola, and one cello and did three passes, and that made all the difference in the world.
Working with the fantastic cast we’d come up with on the Sondheim album was a joy. I called some people I knew, like Debbie Gravitte and Mike Rupert, and Walter Willison, and Walter suggested other people, and Larry suggested a few people. And I forged incredible friendships with many people on that album that continue to this day – a host of them appeared on a huge number of my albums – Jason, Harry Groener, Lynnette Perry, Crista Moore, Debbie, Rebecca Luker and on and on.
We mixed the albums in LA, my first time mixing anything. Larry came out. We were working with Vinnie, who’d done a couple of my Bay Cities albums. That began an amazing collaboration. But mixing those first two albums was unbelievably difficult. I was horrible to be around because I was inarticulate – I sort of knew what kind of sound I wanted and what pleased my ear but I had no idea how to say it, so I’d just say, “Vinnie, turn a knob or something because I don’t like it.” And he’d get frustrated and we’d all be tense but in the end, over the course of these three albums, he came to learn what pleased my ears and what my sensibilities were. Larry would sit in the back of the room, his nose buried in his scores, and say things like, “Where’s the flute, I don’t hear the flute.” I finally said to him one day, listen with your ears not with your eyes.” It was really hard, but I listen to those three albums and they’re so much better than they have any right to be.
For Michelle’s album, I used an MD who also orchestrated his own stuff – Lanny Meyers, and that began a very long and fruitful relationship. Lanny is unique – he was the neighbor of a poster dealer in Mamaroneck and I was having dinner and Lanny came over and brought me a tape to listen to. I don’t even remember if I listened to it or not, I just hired him on the spot because I liked him. And we had the best time doing Toonful – it was just one of those albums that was sheer pleasure from start to finish. Everything just went right, all down the line – even the mix was easy. Michelle had just had her first child (she nursed her at the studio), and she was amazingly amazing – and quick. I loved working with her and all the singers – each of them were so different and I had to develop all sorts of different ways of directing them – and yes, they were directed because I ultimately considered that what I was doing was making little movies for the ear. I never look at singers when they’re singing in the studio. It freaked a few of them out, but I told them I don’t want to see their facial expressions and body movements, because it’s only the voice that I hear and the voice has to convey everything they’re doing with their body language and facial expressions. I would do as many takes as needed until I knew I could put together a perfect vocal by “comping” them together, something I learned how to do really well right off the bat.
The gravy on all these was that there hadn’t been many theater-related CDs back in 1993 and we suddenly brought them back with a bang – and people were so hungry for them. It wasn’t like it’s become over the last ten years – where every single singer singing anywhere on Earth has a CD, whether they should or not. Back then it was a desert. So, Liz’s album sold really well, and so did the Sondheim album – both made Varese a lot of money. But they were nothing compared to Toonful. Toonful, which I’d conceived for Michelle right after I’d met her, was just the right album at the right time – it went through the roof and sold something like 50,000 copies. Those were heady days. I ended up doing nineteen albums a year – albums from scratch, in the studio every two weeks, in New York every two to four weeks with no time off EVER. And I kept that pace for seven years. Tomorrow I’ll talk about a couple of albums that were really special to me.
My goodness, these last few days of the notes have been like a time capsule. In fact, this site is really like a time capsule of the last seven-plus years – of my life, of your lives, of the entertainment world, the world at large, all of it.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I have rambled on far too long.
Yesterday, I couldn’t do the long jog on account of heavy rain. Instead I had a wonderful forty-minute conversation with our very own Harvey Schmidt. He’s had a few health issues to deal with, but he’s dealing with him. He sounded a little down at the beginning of our conversation, but by the end we were just chatty as all get out and both he and I were just laughing up a storm. What a wonderful man he is. I also had a fun work session with Linda Purl and Kevin and then Linda and I went and had lunch at the French Market Café or whatever it’s called. The food was quite yummilicious and everyone around us was so happy and gay and enjoying themselves. I picked up quite a few packages, and then came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I finished watching When Time Ran Out, starring Mr. Paul Newman and lots of guest stars like Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Edward Albert, Barbara Carerra, along with Jacqueline Bisset, William Holden, and James Franciscus. Yes, it’s an Irwin Allen special, directed by James Goldstone. Mr. Allen’s formula for disaster films had run out, and it looks like the budget had run out, so time wasn’t the only thing that ran out. It’s about a volcano having an eruption, if you get my meaning. It seemed very long at 109 minutes. The transfer, however, is excellent, with perfect color, surprising since it’s Warner Brothers.
Today, I have to pick up DVDs for Kevin and Sean, so they can watch and make any comments – then we’ll do whatever fixes and that will be it, picture-wise and I’ll begin the sound mix. And that’s all I have planned for the entire day – hoo and ray. I shall eat something amusing and do some proofing and do some work on the computer and that will be that.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog (weather permitting), I must pick up DVDs, and I must do an errand or two and proof a little. Today’s topic of discussion: Just because I’m always interested in knowing this sort of thing – what was the very first album you bought that was produced by my very own self? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst this here site continues to be a time capsule.