Well, dear readers, before I go any further, may I just say that it’s the last day of August? How did that happen? So, tomorrow will be September, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that September will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful.
It was an incredible feeling walking into the legendary Capitol Records. I’d been there only twice before, but never really inside, just picking up some masters that I was licensing. But yesterday morning, I pulled into the Yucca gate and into the VIP parking lot, parked my car, and entered that amazing building. Walking down the hall, looking at the photos on the wall – Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Keely Smith and, of course, Mr. Sinatra – unbelievable. And then turning the corner and heading to Studio A, the very room that Sinatra and all those incredible people recorded in. I’ve recorded in many, many studios, here in LA and in NY, and I have never ever seen the efficiency with which Capitol is run. The room was perfectly set up, just as the engineer asked for, and the engineer had nothing to worry about other than engineering – we had a separate Pro Tools operator, who was also in charge of all the headphone mixes. Our downbeat was at ten and we had music playing on the dot. Sandy arrived right after me, Lanny was already there, and the musicians all began arriving around nine-thirty, all thirty-five of them. The minute I’d left my house I realized I’d forgotten my cell phone – really annoying. Ordinarily I would not have cared, but I had a few people coming and I was worried they might not know where to park or how to get in and they’d have know way of contacting me. Fortunately, I had a PA there for reasons like that, and as soon as we got the first song in the can we sent her to my house to get the phone. She was back twelve minutes later and didn’t even miss a song.
Ordinarily, I like to start with something really easy, a ballad, something the band can knock out easily – it sets the tone of the day and makes everyone feel good. But Lanny wanted to start with an up-tempo song and told me that he’d spend a bit longer on it, as it was not the easiest chart, but that he’d catch up with the next two songs. I told him that was fine, but I was a bit nervous about it. But the minute that mighty band started playing his great chart I knew we were fine and despite saying it would take a bit longer, we got it in the can in thirty minutes. And that’s how the day went. There was only one time when we really made a change that took about ten minutes to make happen and that was on Two Roads, the song Richard Sherman and I wrote. There was an instrumental section, basically a kind of Dixieland thing, with everyone just improvising – I liked it, but Richard asked if the trumpet could just hammer out the tune and we all agreed. It became unnecessarily convoluted in how we made that happen, but once we figured it out it was easy/breezy and it was fine that way.
So, there I sat, listening to Lanny’s brilliant orchestrations of my songs – I cannot tell you the feeling, ranging from utter delight and happiness, to being incredibly moved. In our sessions, I’m really hands on in terms of everything including the orchestrations, but I said less on this album than any other I’ve ever produced. In fact, I only asked for one change in what the drummer was playing – I wanted a very specific rhythm, and once I told our drummer what it was, it was perfect. And then on another song, which was one of my favorite orchestrations of the day, the ending seemed too cutesy for me given what the song was – it just took me away from the mood, so I made a suggestion to cut the final two bars and it worked perfectly. We had ten songs scheduled but we actually got eleven and even finished an hour ahead of schedule. I was just a big old grinning goon all day, and there was not one iota of tension in that room. The musicians all seemed to really enjoy the music, which is fun. Sandy’s vocals were what we call scratch vocals, but about halfway through the day, she just got on some kind of roll and several of the vocals had really great stuff in them. One of the songs that was the most fun to hear was I See Rainbows, the oldest song on the album, written when I was fifteen. I talk about it extensively in Kritzer Time and Lanny did a great job with it. Several songs in our first session had been orchestrated before, so it’s really fun to hear a completely different take on them – they include Here on Earth from The Brain from Planet X, What Do I Do Now from The Comedy of Errors and The Lights and The Smiles from The First Nudie Musical. But it was the songs that had never been orchestrated that provided me the most pleasure.
Sami, Sarah and their mom arrived at about one-thirty, and the Shermans arrived shortly thereafter – they heard us finishing up one of the ballads, then we had lunch – Astoburger, naturally. Then they came and listened to three or four more – Sami’s mom told me Sami just didn’t want to leave. So, that was day one. Also roaming the halls – Beyonce and Neil Young. Go know. Here are some actual photographs of our session. First, here’s Sandy and me in the booth.
Next, here’s Sandy, me, and Richard Sherman.
Next, here’s a little sign.
Here I am with engineer John Adams.
Finally, look who’s playing guitar – why our very own Mr. Grant Geissman.
After we wrapped, Lanny and I went to Jason Graae’s house. The wedding ceremony was done by the time we got there, but I was told it was great – funny and touching with not a dry eye in the crowd. And what a crowd it was – I hugged and chatted with Liz Callaway and her ever-lovin’ Dan Foster, with Jason and new hubby Glen, and then hob-nobbed with Karen Morrow, Vicki Lewis, John Boswell, Nancy Dussault, Carole Cook, JoAnne Worley, Brent Barrett, Heather Lee, Susanne Blakeslee, agent Martin Gage, Patrick Cassidy, Faith Prince and many others. Soon after we arrived, they began the entertainment, and I saw Susanne, Karen and Nancy perform. But I was exhausted, thanks to only getting less than four hours of sleep, and it was really hot, so I took my leave.
Once home, I decided to do a jog, then I sat on my couch like so much fish. I started to watch a documentary from last year about ballerina Tanaquil le Clercq – I dozed off immediately for the next forty minutes, then watched it in its entirety. Very good, and her tragedy was very sad, although she did live a long life.
Today, I shall be up around eight and to the studio by nine-fifteen. We actually have a very light day – we only have four songs to do, and then we do have several percussion overdubs to do, some guitar overdubs to do, and we really should be done by three or so. If we are done that early, then I’ll actually drive home and have the Staitmans pick me up from there and then we’ll be on our way to the Hollywood Bowl to see and hear the Hitchcock film music evening.
Tomorrow, which should be a holiday, is our first Kritzerland rehearsal, which will last about four hours. The rest of the week is meetings and meals, Sandy’s two vocal sessions, the second Kritzerland rehearsal, our stumble-through and then our matinee and evening show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do our second session and then attend a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. I will, of course, have a full report. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had such a wonderful session one.