Remembering this incident, which by then seemed so long ago, I stopped. It had been only two years before. Now I was all of nineteen, and wasn’t pushing the hand truck anymore. I was on the verge of becoming a major cat (In retrospect, when I hang with teenagers now, I can barely fathom how I had anything resembling the inner strength or maturity to handle the kind of situations I found myself in at that young age).
Recognizing what was at stake, and unable to resist my indoctrination, I pulled my shit together. I knew I had to go back. I turned around and returned to the studio.
When I walked in, everyone was really concerned. Phil had alerted the entire staff that I had bailed, and they all knew this meant trouble. They couldn’t do it without the schlepper. It didn’t really give me any sense of pride or value. I just had to pull the dick-head through.
Now Phil struck low. “I don’t know what I was doing hiring someone as young as you.”
I kept my mouth shut, but thought, really? I’ll show you, you out-of-date, lame motherfucker. I took over the task of making the new copies. I yanked the second elephant-sized multi-track tape recorder in the room and linked the two machines up umbilically. I made sure the techies did their job, and we recorded a nice, neat copy. I didn’t let Ramone near the machine, and I insisted on putting the pieces together myself. When I was done with the edit, I got levels on the band. All Ramone needed to do was sit down and say, “Hit it.” I was now good enough so that if Ramone fell over and died of a massive coronary from eating too many pork ribs, I could take over the cockpit and bring the sucker in for a landing.
The next day, Brooks called me into his office. “You’re graduating, my friend. Phil is moving on.”
That was the end for me and Phil. We broke up. We were both ready. For good or ill, I was always pushing to move on to the next step, to be more independent. I didn’t want to be Phil’s lobby-boy anymore; I wanted to do my own thing. Besides, I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut. I wasn’t cut out for taking that kind of shit. I was insolent, oppositional, and defiant, and the last thing he needed was a cheeky assistant.
I was also good at what I did. I had become Ramone. When I started with him I could barely rewind a tape machine without jamming a tape. When I was done, I was a senior recording engineer, another product of the apprenticeship to the master. I was ready to fly out from under his wing.
One guy that followed soon after me was far more patient and lasted for years, in the hopes that Billy Joel would one day have him produce. Today, that guy is working at Staples or something. And I’m a shrink, writing this.
Phil and I had an amicable divorce. It really was like a marriage. I certainly spent far more time with him during those two years than he spent with his actual wife. After we got out of each other’s hair, we became better friends. He rarely said a good word about me to my face, but showed his respect by throwing me some really nice gigs. And I would do anything for the guy. My loyalty to him was absolute. If he asked me to assist all weekend recording the horrible singing of members of the fascist religious cult he became involved with for a short time after his actual divorce, I would do it. (Which I actually did.)
I didn’t get to assist on the rest of the Still Crazy album, but I followed its progress. Since we were in the studio together 24 hours a day, Ramone and I would occasionally hang out and he’d keep me up to date on what was going on with the record.
After the usual gruelling endless process they finished recording, and the disc was finally released. There was nothing as satisfying and relieving as finishing a project with Paul Simon. Phil was in a relaxed mood. He sat in his Knoll chair in R-2 at his usual spot behind the board, his hands behind his head, his legs stretched out and crossed before him. I faced him from the front of the control room, my chin in my hands, my arms resting on the console.
Paul had done a few shows to promote the new album, and Phil had gone along to see the reaction to the new material.
With an ironic, disbelieving smile on his face, he said, “Guess which song is going to be the hit single?”
Among the many attributes of the record guy, the ability to pick hits was seen as the pinnacle. If you could tell which song was going to succeed with the public, you were worth gold to the record company. This was one of the great skills that Phil and Paul were famous for. They had been responsible for, or participated in, more hits than anyone could possibly count.
Given the acumen of these two giants, guessing the answer wouldn’t be too hard. Anyone could tell which songs were selected as singles by the way the songs were sequenced on the album. In the days of vinyl, when you had 5 or 6 songs on a side, the hits were put first, maybe second, and rarely, last on side one. If there was another single it could be first on side two.
Thinking this was a trick question, I started with the first cut on side two. I guessed “Gone at Last.” That fun tune that Paul sang with Phoebe Snow was certainly a kick. Ramone shook his head. Then I tried, “My Little Town,” the track Paul had done with his ex-partner Art Garfunkel. Surely a comeback single would get people to plunk down the $1.49. Nope. Then I went with track one, side one. “Still Crazy?” Uh-uh.
I couldn’t figure.
Then he told me it was “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” People were going wild for this song at the shows. I was shocked, as Ramone had intended.
Because I’d been tracking the progress of the record, I had heard how this song came to be. Simon, who struggled so hard for worthy product, could barely come up with enough material to fill a vinyl disk, which could hold about 40 minutes of music and still have good quality. “50 Ways” was a throw-away track, something slight created to fill up a few grooves.
Paul had written it using a cheap, rudimentary drum machine. He’d programmed a nice little beat on this box. He brought it in for the hired guns to get inspiration.
Steve Gadd, the heaviest of the drum cats, heard the pattern and came up with a riff that turned out to be so memorable you could sing it to just about anyone who was listening to music then, and they could instantly identify it as “50 Ways.” Um-bam doo-dam ba-dum b-r-r-r-r-r-r um-bam doo-dam ba-dum boooomb.
This scored Gadd a permanent home in Simon’s world where he still resides today. The success of that goofy chorus indicated to Paul that maybe his growing musical sophistication was not the way to make the shekels, but he would not really abandon this path until Graceland, where he had the proof of a few flops to get him to give up the 12-note thing and groove deep into musical simplicity.
So Paul and Phil were completely off when it came to predicting which song from the Still Crazy record was going to be a smash. The biggest ears in the business can’t always hear a hit. If you don’t believe me on this one, just look at where the song lives on the album. Geniuses like these guys never bury one of their top selling records of all time fourth on side one.
It didn’t matter. No one was the wiser. Paul and Phil’s efforts paid off. Still Crazy After All These Years won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
TRACK TWELVE
The Saddest Thing of All: My Thirty Minutes with Frank Sinatra
During the broiling New York August of 1975, between sessions, I walked into A&R’s main office at 799 7th Avenue to check the scheduling “book.” I did this every chance I could get. It was better than going to the mailbox. You never knew what cool surprise awaited. Anyone could be coming in to record.
The “book” rested on a drafting table that stood about chest high. It covered the entire angled platform with card-stock heavy white sheets held together at the top by three metal rings. Each page was one day’s schedule of recording sessions in our five studios. A-1, A-2, and A-3 were at “799.” Studios R-1 and R-2 were at “322”.
The studio manager, Tony, was in charge of booking the dates. He sat on a high stool sporting his pipe, with his only other prop, the black Bell Telephone, next to him. That day, he was in his usual position, hovering over the book, the phone at his ear. Using the pink eraser, he
was feverishly rubbing out the details of one session and swiping the rubber shavings onto the floor.
He replaced the old session data with the new information that was coming in. He did this with pencil because, as in this instance, he often had to move things around to accommodate all the clients, producers, and mixers who were certain that their session was the most important in history.
“OK. So that’s Eastern Airlines in R-1, two to five with a possible hour. Ed Rice is the engineer. Right?”
I stood next to him and waited as he completed the task. When he hung up the phone, I sidled up to see what the next days had in store for us.
“Berger! What do you want?” Tony said in his typically derisive tone.
“I want to be famous, like you. Whaddya think?” I answered, in my best Brooklyn tough-guy voice.
I placed my hands on the top page as I perused the schedule for the next day. The feel of those thick sheets covered in pencil provided a tactile pleasure. I lifted up sheet after sheet. As I looked over the days to come I felt a sense of pride in our roster of clients like Columbia Records, 20th Century Fox, or the world’s #1 jingle house, HEA Productions. I saw the names of artists from Bo Diddley to Barry Manilow, movies like The Godfather and Carrie, and million-dollar products like Chevrolet.
Along the left hand column of each session Tony would draw a line to indicate the hours for the date, but the allotted time usually wasn’t nearly enough. Sessions were notorious for going over. I can’t count the number of times I disappointed friends and lovers by saying I’d meet them for dinner and a movie at eight and then wouldn’t show up till the wee small hours of the morning. It was the rule more than the exception and if my girlfriend couldn’t swing with it, the relationship was doomed.
The name of the senior mixer would be in a circle in the middle. Finally, at the top, he’d put in the name of the assistant engineer. That’s where I would find my name.
I’d get a warm buzz looking at the names of the people coming in to work, and it was especially fun to see “Berger” on as many sessions as possible.
This reminds me of a story I once heard about the great departed comedian George Burns, who performed ‘til he was 99. When someone asked how we was doing, he’d say, “I’m booked!” Seeing my name on those pages meant everything was all right.
As I turned to the page for August 18th, 1975, I saw that in our premier room, A-1, the client was Reprise Records. The time booked was 4 PM to 6 PM with an extra hour in case we went over. A feeling of awe came over me as I saw the artist’s name: Frank Sinatra.
When I checked to see who would be engineering, I was a little surprised that Phil Ramone, my mad mentor, wasn’t on the date. Rich Blakin, one of Phil’s former disciples before I had become his #1 boy, was slated to sit behind the board. Phil was generously giving Rich a shot at the big time. He was like that, especially if he had something better to do.
Underneath Rich’s name it said “Vocal O/D.” This meant Frank would be coming in to add a vocal to a previously recorded instrumental track.
I looked to see who would be assisting. My name was at the top. Sinatra was coming in to sing and I was on the date. The feeling I had was akin to Moses approaching the burning bush: a mixture of gratitude, humility, and awe at the imminent presence of the deity.
I had to find Blakin. I tracked him down in what we called the “back forty,” a hidden labyrinth of storage space behind the studios where we’d hang between dates.
“Hey, man, did you see we’re doing Sinatra?” I said, in hushed astonishment.
Rich was more reserved. “Yeah. Actually, it’s a little scary.”
I knew what he was talking about. We’d all heard about Sinatra. This stuff was common knowledge among the cognoscenti. It wasn’t that Frank was capricious. It was just that those who were superb demanded the same from everyone around them. He represented the extreme-sport end of recording: if you lost your grip, you could be maimed for the duration.
Everything we had trained for, all the torture we suffered at Ramone’s hands, was on the line.
“This is the big test, Berger.”
My stomach tensed at the words. If we could do Sinatra, we were the shit. We could pull off anything. But if not …
When the special day came, I put on a shirt and tie instead of my usual outfit of ripped jeans, tee-shirt, and sneakers. The schlepper didn’t get paid much, but I did what I could to show the guy respect.
As usual, I got to the studio early. I made sure to be out of my previous session in plenty of time. I was the first one there. Rich, a fine engineer with impeccable integrity, showed up soon after me, way before the downbeat. There was no question but that we had to get it right for the Chairman of the Board.
We chose a lusciously warm tube U-47 for the microphone, a favorite of Frank’s. By this time I knew how to move those behemoths on their Atlas booms with ease and grace, as Rich had taught me to do. I situated the mic in a spot where we would be able to see the singer from the control room but away from the reflective glass. I placed a simple stool in front of the mic and a music stand between the two, under the microphone. I set up some burlap-covered fiberglass baffles behind which Frank would be sitting so the sound wouldn’t be too ‘live’ in that big room. I sat on the stool and adjusted the height of the mic and stand so there would be minimum fuss when the star arrived. I figured he was about as tall as me.
Rich thoughtfully suggested something a bit unusual. Considering Sinatra’s reputation for not suffering fools and our desire to impress the king with our standard of excellence, we wanted to give him every option for happiness. In the old days, Sinatra would sing together with the orchestra. Everything would be recorded at once. Back then, you actually had to be able to be great on cue to be a recording star. But with the advent of multitrack recording, you could record instruments one at a time, and add the vocal later. Singers would listen to all the previously recorded instrumentation, and could sing over and over again, if they wanted, until they got the performance they found acceptable. In order to do this, they would listen to the prerecorded tracks while they sang along. Some singers liked to listen through headphones that covered both ears. Some liked to only cover one ear; it was easier to hear yourself that way, which could make it more likely that you’d stay on pitch. We wrapped both a two-sided headset and a single-sided one around the music stand, so Frank could have either option. In front of him, just behind the mic and a little to the side, we also placed a small cube-shaped speaker called an Auratone, in case he didn’t want to use headphones at all. Having Frank listen through a speaker would not have been optimal because some of the pre-recorded music would “leak” into the vocal mic, but if that was what Ol’ Blue Eyes wanted, we’d oblige.
I straightened out the cables from the mic and headphone box that plugged into the wall so they were neat and out of the way. I adjusted the lights to suffuse the area around the mic with a blend of warm colors that deepened the rich darkness of the large room around it, filled with the shadows and music vibrations from time past. For this guy, we would go classic.
Blakin, a fastidious man and one of my great teachers, stroked his beard, looked at my set-up, nodded, and said, “God is in the details.”
Preceding Frank’s arrival, a record company functionary delivered the multi-track tape. I opened the box to find the “track split,” the sheet that indicated what instruments appeared on each track of the multi. It also listed the name of the song. It was “The Saddest Thing of All.” The arranger of the tune was Gordon Jenkins, a Sinatra mainstay on many of his poignant ballads.
With a Sharpie on a masking tape strip beneath the faders of the “juke box,” I notated which instrument would come up on which volume control.
Professional audiotapes were always stored end-first. To get to the take we’d be using, I rewound the 10-pound, 2” tape on the mammoth Ampex MM-1000 16-track tape machine until I passed 2 strips of white “leader-tape.” The first white strip, a few f
eet long, marked the end, and then, after several hundred feet of black magnetic tape, the second strip delineated the beginning, of the master recording we would be using for our vocal overdub. I stopped the machine at the top of the tune.
I pressed play and Rich turned one knob at a time to create a rough mix of the lush, orchestral arrangement of strings, woodwinds, and horns. He balanced the instruments, placed them across the stereo plane, and added reverb from our sweet echo chambers that lived seven stories below in the basement, next to the library where I once worked and suffered. Later, as Sinatra sang, if he chose to use headphones, Blakin would feed the live vocal, slathered in luscious echo, back into the cans, on top of the pre-recorded track, to inspire the greatest standard vocalist of all time to do his thing.
We followed our usual approach of having the minimal amount of electronic gear between his baritone and the tape. Microphone, pre-amp, that’s it. Why screw around with this guy’s voice unless you had to? Better to have the pure signal on tape. Once you committed to processing you couldn’t remove it but if you had recorded the real deal you could always treat the sound anyway you wanted later. At the same time, just to be safe, we kept a Fairchild limiter, LA-4A compressor, and Neve Equalizer a patch cord away. Most singers needed a little help with their sound and we were there to provide whatever was necessary.
We checked all the gear three times. Everything was cool. We sat down to wait. That was the way we liked it. When the artist entered, we’d be nonchalant. We wanted to exude the professionalism that made it all look easy, just like Frank sounded when he sang. But underneath, we were on code red, the highest alert.
Never Say No To A Rock Star Page 17