Well, dear readers, I am back from a wonderful recording session at The Village, a legendary studio, mostly because it’s where we recorded Welcome to My World one year ago. And speaking of Welcome to My World, we closed a year ago this past Sunday – hard to believe it’s been a whole year – I miss the show and I miss seeing Sami in it. I’m told there may be another production on the other coast in 2017 but we shall see if it pans out. Anyway, aside from recording Welcome to My World, some other artists who’ve recorded albums at The Village are, oh, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, The Doors, Aerosmith, Mariah Carey and the soundtracks of Toy Story 2, Wall-E and The Shawshank Redemption.
I arrived at six-thirty with Richard and Elizabeth Sherman in tow, and I worked with Lisa Livesay and Robert Yacko a little bit before we began the actual session, while engineer John Adams got everything ready. Lisa lives in New York now, but the timing happened to work and from the first second I heard the two Roman Holiday duets it was her voice I heard – same with Robert Yacko.
Our six-person ensemble arrived, which included Kritzerland regulars Sami, Brittney Bertier, and Amy Gillette, along with three good male singers that Richard Allen brought in. Richard did a wonderful choral arrangement. We began recording right at seven. It took a bit to get the sound I wanted in terms of blends and dynamics – I was very specific with the group and they were great about implementing what I was asking for. Richard knows what he wants, but he let me do my thing and was really happy with the result. We did about four takes – on that fourth take the second half was perfect, so we doubled the voices on that, then went back and did the first half again, got that right, and then doubled the voices. I’m really good about hearing weird or off notes and I found two and we fixed those. It sounded amazing mixed with the track.
Then they left and we began the two duets. Again, it took a couple of takes for me to get the exact feeling I felt was right, but both Robert and Lisa are superb actors and knew exactly what I was looking for in terms of sound and by take three we had the first duet done, punching in just one phrase for each of them. Just lovely work. Then we did the second duet and that was the exact same story with the exact same excellent result. The session was easy and light, everyone had a great time, Richard and Elizabeth were thrilled with everything and I’m just so at home in the studio – it really is like I’ve lived there all my life. We were in and out in two-and-a-half hours and John stayed and mixed the vocals into the orchestra tracks and uploaded them to Dropbox. They were there by the time I got home and they sound just great – low level, of course, but now the mastering guy level matches to the rest of our tracks and then today that will get uploaded to the pressing plant. They should have booklets today or tomorrow, and should be able to press by Monday at the latest, which means we’ll have CDs next week. So, the rather amazing thing about this is that this entire project has happened in less than a month. We don’t fool around at Kritzerland.
I’m waiting for the rest of the videos, but in the meantime here’s Cathy Rigby, Hadley Miller, and some very talented young folks doing Oh, the Things You Can Think from Seussical at Sunday’s Kritzerland show.
Prior to the recording session, I’d gotten about six hours of sleep, answered e-mails, did a two-and-a-half mile jog, did a bit of writing, got ready, and then I moseyed on over to the Sherman residence and picked them up. We ended up going to Lenny’s Deli in Westwood, as we knew we could have a leisurely meal there, which we did. We all shared some kishka, which is really great there. I had a roast beef sandwich on rye – rather large, and I ended up leaving half the bread. There were three teeny-tiny potato pancake things that were great, but basically they were like one bite each. Then we moseyed on over to the studio and you know the rest. Here are a few photographs. Here’s the entire group, including our ensemble, Lisa and Robert, me, and the two Richards – Sherman and Allen.
Here’s a photograph of me, engineer John Adams, and in the background, Richard Sherman
Today, more writing, a jog, I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, but I’m hoping I can at least relax a little bit.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals, and the countdown to the end of the Indiegogo campaign.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write, jog, eat, hopefully pick up packages, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had such a great time doing the recording session at The Village singing the unsung.