Meanwhile, back in the jungle of the Dolls session, everything fizzled as the sun began to glow over the East River. Some groupie shook Killer, who had crashed out on the couch in front of the console, and he and everyone else stumbled out, leaving me with the killer mess. That was my job: cleaning up the crazy artists’ shitshow.
There was no point in going home. Once I broke down, maybe I could crash for an hour or two on that couch where Killer had passed out earlier, before I’d have to start setting up for the next morning’s session. Another twenty-hour day. No REM sleep, slightly more psychotic. The coke had left me grinding my teeth, unable to remember what sleep even was. As I lay on the couch, staring at the big monitors on the wall, everything getting dark, I thought, we’re all on that M-60 to nowhere, exploding like glitter in the night sky, too much, too soon, big bang, quick fizzle, star at twenty-one, washed up at twenty-two. Nothing a little more blow wouldn’t get me through.
TRACK EIGHT
Oddballs and Angels: Phoebe Snow
In April of 2011, I learned that, at the age of 60, singer/songwriter Phoebe Snow had died. When I heard the news, I walked into my hallway and stared at the gold record of her album Second Childhood hanging on my wall.
I remembered the time I first saw her name. It was on the day I became Ramone’s apprentice. As an eighteen year-old, I fantasized about what a woman named Phoebe Snow would look — and be — like. I visualized an evanescent sprite, a fairy like Tinkerbell, with translucent skin and white hair. She and I would connect in some cosmic-love way. I was a teenage boy — what would you expect?
The night we started her album, my fantasy plummeted back to Earth when the real Phoebe Snow walked into the studio. She shuffled into the room, clutching her black acoustic-guitar case. Her chin jutted out over an ill-defined body. She had a dour look on her face. Her first words, in a nasal, Teaneck, New Jersey accent were “Where’s the food?” Her real name was Phoebe Laub.
In contrast to my fantasy, Phoebe was my particular adolescent nightmare. Five years older than me, she was the annoying older sister I never wanted. Nothing was right for Phoebe, and as the assistant, it was my job to try to fix it.
At 22, Phoebe was attempting to make her first record. The project had, up until then, been a disaster. Her producer was a pleasant, bearish guy named Dino Airali. He was clearly in over his head with this difficult young woman. He had followed her around the country for more than a year, blowing the recording budget on Phoebe’s whims, none of which ever panned out.
Dino handed me two multi-track tapes with just a few bare recordings of Phoebe’s guitar and vocals. This was not much to show for the six-figure budget he had already blown.
In a wise move born of desperation, Dino had hooked up with my mentor Phil. It was a timely fit. By that time, Ramone had been a world-class recording engineer for more than a decade and had ambitions of breaking into producing. Engineering was technical. The job was to get someone else’s ideas down on tape. With producing, you get to participate in the creation of those ideas. And you get to earn royalties. With a hit record, you could potentially make big bucks.
Phil had agreed to engineer the project if he could co-produce. Dino needed help bad. His record company, Shelter Records, was on the verge of bankruptcy. If he couldn’t come up with a finished product in a few weeks, cheap, there would be no record and no company. Dino saw Ramone as his last big chance. Ramone, who had uncanny ears for a hit, must have heard something in Phoebe that he thought he could shape into success.
Before we started recording, Phil and I went down to a gig of Phoebe’s at The Bitter End, the most revered of the early folk clubs in the heart of Greenwich Village. There were three people in the house that night: Phil, Phoebe, and myself. This was not an auspicious beginning.
Phoebe had a one-of-a-kind voice. Instead of gliding seamlessly between notes, each change in pitch was accentuated with a sharp edge. Her singing was geometric, angular, precise. Her vibrato, too, was unique; more a staccato warble than a gentle undulation of sound.
She had major chops — that is, she had great technical ability — and while she may have been out of control as a person, she was musically tight. She had an infinite range, from an earthy baritone growl to dog-whistle high notes.
Her songs were as quirky as her singing style, personal, with a flowing, off-kilter structure. As a female vocalist, she didn’t play the sexual card or act out conventional feminine personas. She neither played the soft innocence of a Karen Carpenter nor the over-the top raunch of a Madonna. She was insightful about human nature, and there was a depth of feeling and pain in her music that went beyond her years.
At first, I didn’t get Phoebe’s music. I’d come home from her sessions and make fun of her songs. “I wish I was a willow –ow –ow- ow –ow,” I’d mock, imitating her vibrato, and my roommate would crack up. I thought that this was a loser headed right for the $1.99 bin, the place where flop records would be relegated to in that obsolete place called a “record store.” My guess did not require any particular prescience. She was an unknown, unsexy artist on a failing label.
It wouldn’t be the last time that my musical prediction would be totally misguided. The record was a smash. How did that happen?
In any life activity, we can operate in a trance and do things half-assedly, or we can act with awareness, intention, and integrity. This is true for the production and arrangements of recordings that could be done either in a thoughtless, derivative way or in an aware, deliberate process in which the artist is mindful of every choice. The result, in art, as in all things, depends on which of these approaches you choose. In order for art to succeed such clarity of vision is crucial.
Many of the great artists with whom I worked in the ‘70s made albums that were more than just a collection of songs. The recordings were works of art in themselves. The path for this was laid out by the Beatles. Before Lennon and McCartney, records were more or less representations of live performances. Acts went into the studio and took a day to cut an album. Bands or orchestras would play, and singers sing, all at once, and the producer was there to render as faithful a reproduction of the performance as possible.
But with the advent of multi-track recording, where different musical parts could be painted one at a time onto the canvas of tape, the studio itself became an instrument. For the Beatles, and many artists whom they inspired, every instrument selection, every note, every electronic effect, every sound, every piece of an interweaving production and arrangement were vital and intrinsic parts of the artwork that lifted a song beyond its harmony and melody to its ultimate creative manifestation. To grasp this revolution, listen to the difference between “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” one of the Beatles’ earliest singles, recorded in the live style, and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” from their middle, psychedelic period that was recorded and overdubbed in a studio over many takes.
Now, any artist will also tell you that having limitations sometimes contributes to great art, or to quote an old phrase, necessity is the mother of invention. We certainly had enough of those on Phoebe’s album. We started with a few basic tracks, a tight budget, and a couple of weeks to make an entire album. With the style of recording popular at that time, an artist could easily take months, if not a year, to finish a project.
This time-and-money stricture, along with the ‘70s pop art sensibility, forced Phoebe and Phil to choose each part with the care and precision that makes for the most impressionable art.
Now all that theory is well and good, but art is, in the end, one of the great mysteries, which is one reason I love it. I’m a big fan of the ultimate unanswerables. That’s why I’m a psychotherapist now. Music, like human nature, can never be fully comprehended. I’ve studied music all my life, and with increasing age, I get a little closer to understanding what makes a song great. There is melodic variety, a cool hook, a moment of surprise, the contrast between symmetry and imbalance, a beat you can move to, an individual sound, and mo
st important, undeniable emotion in the performance. I get it, but I can’t write one. There is something indefinable that occurs when all of these elements come together in a unique way. Though a song that works has all its predictably simple elements, it emerges from the background noise with blinding clarity. It can bust through the tiniest speaker, reach out, and grab you by the belly. It can shake you to your soul, make your eyes spring with tears, wake you out of a life-long slumber, put the hope back in pop. And Phoebe had written at least one song in her life that entered the heart of this world. That’s a lot for anyone’s lifetime.
Phil’s production approach was to put Phoebe’s magical songs and exquisite vocals at the center of the record, and then surround it with just the right, and only the right, musical colors. He did this by asking Phoebe: if you could have anyone in the world play on this song, who would it be? Phoebe had a fertile imagination, and she came up with tasty answers.
If Phoebe could dream it, Phil made it happen. The smart and cool saxophone-player Zoot Sims, blew his axe and wrapped the songs in ever-changing wisps of gray smoke. Margaret Ross, a session harp player who was usually relegated to playing cliché glissandos, turned out to be a jazz cat at heart and played deep and hard, layering on a shiny gold filigree to the tracks. The great pianist Teddy Wilson added his sophisticated blue voicings, bringing a touch of class to the proceedings.
Then came the silver ribbon on the box. Ramone booked Ralph Mac-Donald to add percussion.
Ralph was a cosmic musician. He had a shiny skull and big, brown, laughing eyes. The ultimate in cool, he was from Harlem with a West Indian heritage. He had been taught the congas by his father. He once told me that his dad taught him not to hit the drum but to caress it like a lover. He’d learned his father’s lesson well. His hands were soft. His touch was incomparable. The sound of his skin against the skin of the drum was deep and sensual.
Like most studio cats, he was humble and generous of spirit. Though I was a kid barely out of high school, he treated me as both friend and worthy student. I went out into the studio to plug in and place the microphones. As he prepared his instruments for the overdub, which meant that he would add his parts to the music already recorded, he listened to the songs for inspiration.
He put together a small wooden table, about two feet across, with a wooden bar hanging across the top. Next he laid a few small percussion instruments on the table: two woodblocks, a string of bells, and two film cans with beads in them. On the bar he hung some chimes and a finger cymbal. That was all. He told me to place two microphones, one aiming at each end, to get a stereo effect.
While listening, Ralph rolled a fat joint. Now let’s be honest. There were a lot of drugs at the studio at that time. A&R was a play-pen for grown-ups, and in the ‘70s, drugs were part of the fun. I usually didn’t get high during sessions, especially in those early days with Ramone because I didn’t want to screw up. Besides, Ramone wasn’t a big pot head. I worried that he might not approve of my smoking, and I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything to piss him off if I could help it, even though I inevitably did.
But Phil was in a good mood that day. As producer, he was getting to do his thing his way. He was excited about what Ralph was about to bring to the tracks. Ralph brought the doobie into the control room and offered a hit to Ramone. He took the joint and inhaled. Then he turned, and offered the “j” to me. I looked at him as if to say, really? He nodded and said it was ok, but instructed me to only take one hit. Ralph said that would be all I’d need anyway. I drew deep from the fat joint, mixing in air with the smoke to cut the harshness. It was sweet, premium weed. I came not to expect less from Ralph. Before I had finished toking, my ears started to crackle.
I sat behind Phil by the tape machine, and we watched Ralph through the studio glass. He put out the joint, put on his headphones, and signaled me to roll tape. We started with a song called “Poetry Man.”
Phoebe’s guitar picked the intro. Ralph hit the chimes: sparkle. Then, the finger cymbal: ting. Then, he tapped the bells: chik, chik. In the second verse, he added the woodblocks: tick, tock.
Ralph finished his first take and asked to put on another layer. This time he shook the film can with beads. He interweaved this rhythmically with his first track. Shak. Shak. Then, on the chorus, he added a third layer: shaka, shaka, shaka, shaka. By the second chorus, all of these accents played off one another, in a shimmering play of colorful sound. His playing was spare, tasteful, brilliant. I knew I had just witnessed a simple moment of sublime creation.
Ralph’s sparkling rhythms created a juxtaposition that intensified the emotional depth of Phoebe’s vocal. In the contrasting and intermingling of the green, gold, and silver silk of the guitar, harp, sax, and percussion, with the crimson and caramel hopsack of Phoebe’s voice, a hit single was born.
Each element of the album was created in this way. One part at a time was scrupulously thought through and played by these masters, instilling each musical shade with significance, meaning, depth. These choices were guided by Phoebe’s vision and manifested through Ramone’s sure hand. This was what made this album so singular and astonishing in the end.
On the last night of mixing, we’d worked late and managed to finish the album on time and on budget. I stayed up all night, putting together the final sequence. I threaded the master onto the tape machine at dawn. I called in Phil, Dino, and Phoebe for a playback of the completed album. This was the first record for both Phoebe and me. She asked for bagels and cream cheese, and we ate.
Despite its quality, I was still convinced the record didn’t stand a chance. It was a modest album for that time of overproduced decadence. No matter what was in their grooves, most records required lots of payola to make it on hit radio in those days. After blowing her budget, and with Shelter Records going under, there wasn’t much cash left for that.
But then, the magic hit. The cream really did rise to the top. Spontaneously, with little promotion, Phoebe had a number-five hit record with that song called “Poetry Man.”
We all changed a great deal after that. Phil went on to become a world-class producer, I was promoted to senior mixer, and Phoebe got on the cover of Rolling Stone, and was signed to the world’s most prestigious record label, Columbia Records. We made another album: the gold one hanging on my wall.
Sometime during 1975, Phoebe came in to visit us at the studio. I was shocked when she told me she was pregnant. She had none of the glow that pregnant women usually have. I had a bad feeling. This time, it turned out that my intuition was right. Phoebe’s daughter was born with profound developmental disabilities.
After the birth, Phoebe walked away from fame and fortune. Maybe she didn’t realize all that she had attained with her stardom, money, and big record contract. It had all come so easily; perhaps that it is what made it possible for her to have taken it for granted. Or maybe she didn’t like the way she was treated in the rough and tumble recording world that was New York, circa mid-seventies. More likely, she sacrificed her path to superstardom for a higher calling. Phoebe turned her full attention to caring for her helpless daughter, Valerie Rose.
The awkward, self-involved girl from Teaneck matured. After living through the flimflam of the music biz, she knew what was real, and that was what was going on with her child. Phoebe was, at heart, not only a true artist but, more important, a caring human being.
Before too long, Phoebe was dropped by Columbia. She was never abandoned by her band of faithful followers, but to many she was just another one-hit wonder.
I didn’t recognize what I had either, with my front-row seat to the making of the greatest albums of the era. Also disillusioned with the scene, a few years later, I left A&R and New York, and went to live in the country.
Years passed, but unable to evade the siren’s call, I eventually moved back to the city. That was when I saw Phoebe for the last time. It was a dark period of my life. One night, at about two in the morning, I was walking alone through the streets o
f my beloved West Village, not far from The Bitter End where I saw Phoebe perform all those years ago. Those old streets were narrow and silent.
I noticed a Volkswagen, double parked, with the lights on inside. Something seemed odd about the car. I walked over to look inside, and there was Phoebe was sitting alone in the driver’s seat. We started to talk as if we were in the middle of a conversation that had started decades before. She didn’t seem surprised to see me at all. There was a warmth and familiarity between us. We had been kids together in something big, all too long ago.
Earlier that night, on impulse, I had bought a key chain with a miniature motorcycle jacket on the end from a guy on the street. Phoebe was wearing a motorcycle jacket. So, as we finished up our talk, I handed her the keychain as a gift. She took it, as if she understood exactly what it meant.
Phoebe had some odd beliefs. When we’d hung out together in those early days, she would bring in cassette tapes that she had recorded in silent rooms. She was convinced that if you listened carefully enough, you could hear voices from the spirit world.
I didn’t go in for such mumbo jumbo, but there was something strange about us stumbling into each other here, the only two people alive on this street, she alone in a car, me wandering around in the middle of the night.
After chatting, I walked away into the lonely dark. She sat in the car. We never asked each other what we were doing there. I never saw her again.
As I stood in front of Phoebe’s gold record on my wall, her music played in my head. I heard the cool electric guitar riffs of her friend, Steve Burgh, who played on those early albums. A talented guy, he, too, died young and unexpectedly.
Never Say No To A Rock Star Page 12