Well, dear readers, we had a fun first final vocal session last night. Sometimes final vocal sessions are fun and sometimes they can be tedious and frustrating, but everything went well last night and we were all relaxed and had a good time. We’re getting wonderful vocals (I do several takes and assemble the final vocal version from those) and it’s going to be a lovely album. Even hearing the board mixes last night you could just tell how great everything is going to sound. When we did Sandy’s Christmas album, the vocals were done in a tiny room (same studio we’re at, but basically just a very small vocal booth) – I didn’t want that for this album, so we’re in a smaller studio but one where Sandy has space around her and a nice environment, which I feel is key to getting good performances. I normally do a take then begin getting specific about what’s working and what needs to be better and/or different. That’s the fun part for me – hearing the singer take a note and make it her own and deliver something fun or unique or interesting. Of course, Lanny was there, as was Mona, Sandy’s publicist. We began around seven-fifteen – it took Sandy a couple of go-throughs to get in the zone and warm up and then we kind of flew through the night. I never did less than three takes of anything, plus we have the scratch vocals, too. We got beautiful stuff on every song – the putting together the vocals part is always grand fun for me – a little time-consuming and tedious but I’m really good at it and love getting the perfect performance of a song. Around nine o’clock we took a short break and had Astroburger again – we all love it so. I’d only had bacon and eggs during the day, plus I’d jogged, so I needed to eat something around seven hundred calories and that’s about what their cheeseburger is (I didn’t do the bacon), and I only had a few zucchini fries. I must say, and it’s fascinating to me, that Sandy is always beautiful, but she’s especially beautiful in the studio – don’t know why that is, but she just gets in that singer zone and let’s the song become her. We had lots of laughs and even recorded a little humorous thing with Lanny and her that may or may not end up as a hidden track. We shall see.
I’ve done a lot of sessions over the years, and it never becomes tiresome to me. It’s so creative and so much fun to push until the magic happens. And when you have an engineer who’s calm and steady and who just makes everything go smoothly, as my engineer John Adams does, then it can’t really be anything BUT a pleasure. And the more I hear these great Lanny charts, the more I love them and am impressed by them, none more so that the gorgeous chart he did for my song. Sandy did a beautiful vocal on it, too – the song is called Simply and that’s what I wanted the vocal to be and with each successive take that’s what we boiled it down to. It’s funny, but I haven’t had that many songs truly orchestrated, and I’m just always bowled over when the orchestrator “gets” the intention of the song, then deepens it or brings out emotions in the colors of the instruments that are only hinted at in the piano part. Lanny did that with my song and it’s very moving to me. Our very own elmore did that for The Brain from Planet X – it was just a perfect job that made those songs live. That’s why I love orchestrators so much and why I feel they never get the attention they should (they certainly do from me, baby). It’s like they’re an afterthought or something. My close personal friend, Mr. Stephen Sondheim, always says when talking about the orchestrations to his shows, “It’s all in the piano part.” But it’s what Mr. Tunick does with that piano part (and it’s NOT all in the piano part anyway), what instruments he chooses, how he lays it all out, that makes those 70s Sondheim shows amongst the most brilliantly orchestrated shows ever. Lanny and I have a really great working relationship and I do love his work so.
Prior to that, I’d had my teeth cleaned by Dr. Chew, had my bacon and eggs, picked up a couple of packages, including a true first edition of The Cuckoo’s Calling, a book that continues to be causing a frenzy that is both horrifying and amusing to watch – it’s amazing to see the number of dealers who refused to honor auctions on eBay or sales on the ABE because they realized that the book was climbing every hour. Greed truly makes certain amateur dealers truly reprehensible. Note to amateur dealers: When you list a book and offer it for a certain price, sell the damn book. It is immoral to tell the buyer that the sale has been cancelled so you can relist it for triple the cost. As I’ve watched this happen I have reported each and every one of those amateur cretins to the ABE, who look down on that sort of thing.
I did some banking, I did a three-mile jog, and I even nodded off for about twenty minutes. We got everything prepared for shipping CDs this morning, and then it was time for the studio. Then I came home, answered e-mails and planked. I don’t know what it means but I plank every now and then. Sandy taught me how. It feels kind of idiotic, frankly, and I’m all about THAT. Plus, I like that a sixty-five year-old Jew planks. To which I say, planks for the memories. We don’t allow groaning here at haineshisway.com.
Here is the final Benjamin Kritzer original from Kritzer Time. All the others I’ve posted were obviously written by me when I was either fifteen or sixteen. But not this one – this one I wrote specifically for the book and for the character of Samantha Gilman, who is, of course, based on a real person. As I’ve mentioned before, writing the last forty pages of Kritzer Time was probably the most emotional thing I’ve ever done, even more emotional than the first Kritzer book. It was very difficult for me in terms of its emotionality, and I was in a foul mood for an entire week because I knew it was coming up, the writing of the final forty pages. Even writing this song was difficult in terms of it being so tied to the emotionality of the book’s final forty pages. But it was important for me to have it in my head when writing those pages and I wrote it the day before I began that sequence. Interestingly, as hard as those pages were to write, emotion-wise, I wrote them very quickly, in two days, and I never changed a word. It just came pouring out of me in a torrent and for those who’ve read the book, you probably know why. Anyway, here’s Samantha’s Song.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep, we’ll get all the CDs shipped, I’ll do a jog, I’ll eat something light, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll do some writing, and then we have our second final vocal session with seven songs to do. Perhaps we’ll have more Astroburger, or maybe we’ll try something new.
Tomorrow, Sandy and I will meet and discuss her upcoming Ira Gershwin show, then she goes back to DC. I then have to finish two sets of liner notes and get something ready to announce next week. We’re really kind of up against the wall, but if I get the liner notes on one project that’s mastered and already at the pressing plant, then that’s the one we’ll announce. The rest of the week is meetings and meals and seeing a few things.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, ship CDs, do a jog, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, write, and have our second final vocal session. Today’s topic of discussion: What is the greatest production of a Shakespeare play you’ve ever seen? Why was it the greatest and tell us all about it. Also, what is the greatest production of a classic farce you’ve ever seen? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall go and do and plank.