by Ramone, Phil
At that time, listening to music was part of socializing, and when people partied, they listened to album sides. Friends would gather, put an album on, drink, and have fun. When the album side was finished, they’d either flip it over and listen to the other side, or move on to dinner, dancing, or a movie.
The compact disc reinvented the way records were made and how we listened to them. For better or worse, a CD treats the listener to one long, uninterrupted helping of high-fidelity music. While today’s technology offers unprecedented sound quality and convenience, it poses a serious dilemma for the artist and producer.
Does the artist have to fill the entire seventy-seven minutes of available time on a CD? Is an artist who is compelled to fill a CD to capacity really giving the listener their best efforts?
Not long ago, Paul Simon and I reminisced about the days we spent making LPs.
When Paul wrote twenty-two minutes of music for one side of an album, it was pure: He refined every note until each song stood up on its own. There’s a big difference between conceiving, writing, and recording a fifty-minute album (our limit during the vinyl LP era), and an eighty-minute album (the capacity of a compact disc).
For singer-songwriters, the prospect of writing enough songs to fill a CD can be overwhelming.
The shuffle mode on CD players—and portable music devices such as the iPod—has further refined the concept of programmed albums. While I love the convenience and variety that shuffling offers, it has killed the art of assembling a cohesive hour of music that brings the listener through a thoughtfully designed musical arc.
In a sense, things have come full circle: We’re back to condensing music into singles the way we did in the 1960s.
I consider these factors when the artist and I begin developing ideas, and during the second meeting I’ll ask several questions to help us hone in on what they’d like to achieve:
What is the concept?
Will the album feature old songs, new songs, or a combination of both?
What kind of audience will it appeal to?
Will the record present you in a way that your fans are unaccustomed to?
Karen Carpenter and I spent hours talking about these things in 1979 when I produced Karen Carpenter, her first (and only) solo album. The last two were points we dwelled on, given Karen’s close identification with the Carpenters.
The Karen Carpenter album holds bittersweet memories for me, and in the course of explaining how it came about I’ll share some very personal thoughts. My involvement with Karen and the record not only illustrates the planning process; it underscores the fragility of the relationship the artist and producer share with the omnipotent record label.
I’d known Karen and Richard Carpenter for years, and like everyone else, loved the sound of their records. The opportunity to work with Karen came at the request of her manager, concert promoter and filmmaker Jerry Weintraub, who explained that Richard was taking a year off and that he (Jerry) thought it would be the right time for Karen to do a solo album. Not long after, I received a call from Herb Alpert, asking if I would produce the record.
When Karen and I first sat down to talk about the project, I had no idea that the record we were about to make would stir up considerable controversy and lie in the vault for sixteen years.
Richard Carpenter wasn’t overjoyed about his sister going solo, and I understood his concern. Her voice and wholesome image was the Carpenters’ trademark, and Richard was afraid that a solo album might alienate their loyal fans or lead to speculation of a breakup. To Karen and me, that was preposterous. She loved Richard and the music they made together, but she also yearned to express herself as an individual. Karen had no plans to abandon Richard or the Carpenters.
To truly appreciate the love and adventure that accompanied the making of her solo album, you should know that Karen made a conscientious decision to experiment with songs and styles that differed from the Carpenters’ records.
Karen loved disco, and asked me to find a song with a good dance beat (“Lovelines”) to open the album; she also entertained recording songs that included adult overtones—those that spoke more provocatively about love and relationships.
Presenting her in a new context became the focus of our prerecording discussions, and Karen insisted that whatever we did should express her love for all music, while appealing to Carpenter fans and a new audience alike.
While she was in New York, Karen stayed with my family in Pound Ridge, and we drove back and forth to the studio together. The laughs and silliness we shared on those trips forever made us friends. While we were driving, Karen would be the DJ, playing all the songs that had been submitted for her consideration. She’d sit with a legal pad, listen intently, and rate them. “Should this be on the A list, or the B?” she’d ask.
Karen liked the energy on Billy Joel’s records, so we decided to use his band (Russell Javors, Doug Stegmeyer, and Liberty DeVitto). They gave Karen love, support, and reassurance, and validated her artistic decisions. Russell—a fine songwriter—wrote two memorable tunes that were included on the album: “All Because of You,” and “Still in Love with You.”
To add a bit more texture, we brought in Peter Cetera (who wrote and sang a duet with Karen), Rod Temperton (who wrote several songs and did vocal arrangements), Richard Tee (a first-rate keyboardist who also played on Paul Simon’s records), Bob James (who wrote orchestrations), and all-star jazz musicians Michael Brecker (saxophone), Steve Gadd (drums), and Airto Moreira (percussion).
We recorded at A&R in New York, and during the sessions I saw Karen blossom. It was wonderful to see her relax and let loose, joking with the crew and the guys in the band. You could see the sparkle in her eyes, and you can hear her smile on the record.
But everything wasn’t perfect.
Karen’s lingering sadness was evident to me, and it sometimes came out in unexpected ways. At one point during the sessions she sang the word love and it cracked. I said, “Karen, it sounds contrived.” She did it again and I said, “Not quite.” She tried it a third time, and I noticed tears in her eyes. I felt guilty. “Did I do that?” I asked. “No,” she said. As much as she was enjoying what we were doing, she was under a lot of pressure. It was as if she sensed the inevitable hassles she’d face for taking this leap of faith.
The reception that Karen’s album received from her brother Richard and the executives at A&M Records was cooler than expected. The pessimism of the executives won out, and Karen decided to shelve the album.
A year or so after we finished her solo album, Karen called me at home.
She and Richard had signed a new deal with A&M Records earlier in the day, and she was happy about going back to work. “We’ll be making a new Carpenters album,” she said, “And I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.” Then she lowered her voice. “I hope you don’t mind if I curse. I still love our fucking record!”
In the morning she was dead.
Although Karen didn’t live to see her solo record in the hands of her fans, it was issued on CD in the mid-1990s when Richard agreed that enough time had passed. By then, it had become a curio more famous for the rumor surrounding its nonrelease than for its musical significance.
As the aforementioned story shows, an album’s concept—and the songs an artist and producer selects—can make or break a record.
Singer-songwriters commonly write songs custom-tailored to fit their album’s concept. But what if the artist is not a songwriter? How does he or she sift through thousands of potential songs to arrive at the twelve or thirteen that will end up on the album?
Usually, I’ll start by creating a list of songs that I think fit the kind of album we’re making. When Tony Bennett started talking about doing an album of blues standards, I compiled a CD of songs that I felt would both fit the blues mold and work as duets. This made narrowing our choices much easier.
I’ve produced several albums for Natalie Cole, and one of the things I love about Natalie is her
keen sense of balance when it comes to choosing songs. When she was picking songs for the album Snowfall on the Sahara, we mulled over scads of them.
For Snowfall, Natalie wanted to bring an edge to some classic R&B songs, but she didn’t reject the idea of singing contemporary tunes, either.
To start, I asked Natalie to select twenty or thirty of her favorite R&B songs, and told her that I would do the same.
I then combed the archive for some of the classic tunes recorded by Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, and the songs that Al Green made in Memphis during the 1960s. Frank Military at Warner-Chappell Music sent over a CD full of possible choices. Friends called both Natalie and me to suggest Motown songs; a few mentioned the duets that had been done by Marvin Gaye and Tami Terrell.
Rough song choices for Playin’ with My Friends, 2001 Phil Ramone Collection
After a week, we compared notes, and found that our ideas were similar. During phone calls between Los Angeles and New York, Natalie and I whittled the list down to twenty-five candidates, which I burned onto two CDs. After repeated listening, some clear favorites emerged. We spoke almost daily, and through the process of elimination, distilled the remaining songs into a “must do” list.
One of the unexpected songs to top the list was Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody,” which Natalie’s sister suggested. Natalie loved the song, but after running it down at a rehearsal, she voiced a concern. “The message is powerful, but Dylan makes reference to guns in one of the verses, and I’m not comfortable with it,” she explained.
“Gotta Serve Somebody” was a very strong choice, and I knew that Natalie would be disappointed if we didn’t include it. So I decided to ask Bob Dylan if he’d consider changing the verse in question for Natalie’s recording.
I sent Bob a message through his manager (Jeff Kramer), and Bob quickly sent back two new verses written especially for Natalie. They worked beautifully, and Natalie wrote Bob a note to thank him and to let him know how much of a musical influence he had been. Until then, I had no idea that she was a fan of his work.
Sampler CD of potential songs for Natalie Cole’s Snowfall on the Sahara Phil Ramone Collection
On a par with the selection of songs is the selection of musicians.
Some artists leave the choice of musicians to me, while others travel with their own band and use them on their records, too. But as I explained earlier, I have a list of session players—many of them noteworthy jazz players—whom I use frequently, and if I feel that one of my regulars would bring something special to a particular record I’ll suggest using him. Ninety-nine percent of the time the artist agrees with my recommendation, as Paul Simon did on Still Crazy After All These Years and Billy Joel did on 52nd Street.
But what happens if an artist insists on using one of their players, and that person isn’t the best choice for the job?
It’s not the end of the world—we’ll adjust to emphasize that player’s attributes. I’ve had situations where the musician in question has approached me and said, “I don’t think this is working for me. Maybe one of your experts—one of the better-known guys—would be better suited for this song.” If someone is a pro, they know their limitations.
While we’re on the topic of musicians, I’d be remiss if I didn’t explain the immeasurable contributions of the arranger. Arranging and orchestrating is fast becoming a lost art; very few arrangers put pencil to paper the way arrangers did forty and fifty years ago.
At that time, an arranger would listen to a melody, come up with inventive embellishments, and sketch out chord symbols indicating what they wanted each instrument to play. Then a musical assistant (copyist) would sit and write a detailed “chart” for each instrument. That chart would be on the music stand at the session, ready for the musicians to play.
But the proliferation of sophisticated electronic keyboards, MIDI systems, and home recording studios has changed the way pop records are arranged and recorded. It’s expensive to hire a rhythm section or a forty-piece orchestra for an album and have them sit idly while the vocalist works through their part.
Artists look for perfection in every part of their performance, and vocalists today prefer to lay down a scratch vocal and come back later to rerecord their part.
To reduce the risk of delay, I’ll ask an arranger such as Patrick Williams, Jorge Calandrelli, Rob Mounsey, Rob Mathes, or Philippe Saisse to write a chart and record some basic rhythm tracks electronically in his home studio. I still record most records with a live rhythm section, for feel. After the singer lays in their part, we can embellish the recording with strings, percussion, guitar, horns, or whatever else we desire.
Do tracks that are arranged and recorded with electronic keyboards sound the same as those recorded with a real orchestra? No, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t work well (or, at times, better) for some projects. I’ve found that marrying rhythm samples and real instruments is a nice combination.
No matter who does the arrangements or how they accomplish them, I’ll suggest the colors or textures that I think will work for the album. The goal is to bring a fresh perspective to the music, no matter how familiar the songs are.
For example, when George Michael made Songs from the Last Century, he chose to include Johnny Mercer’s “I Remember You”—a song recorded by dozens of the most celebrated singers in the world. As a harp-and-vocal duet, though, George’s version stands alone in its stark originality.
As the artist and I begin discussing songs, musicians, and arrangers, we often invite their manager to join us.
The manager often plays a key role in promoting the record. They can tie it into an upcoming tour, arrange for Internet and radio promotion, and book the artist on national television programs such as The Tonight Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and Saturday Night Live. With MTV and VH1’s shift away from straight music videos, the nightly talk and comedy shows have become an invaluable forum for exposing new music, and exposure is what helps to sell records.
While working with a manager can be a blessing, there’s a flip side: some managers can be unreasonable and aggressive.
In the midst of making Ray Charles’s Genius Loves Company, I got a scathing letter from one guest artist’s manager complaining that I’d switched a line in their duet around, and that she—the manager—hadn’t given her approval.
The tone of the manager’s message was condescending and un-professional, and my response to her arrogance was straightforward. “It worked for Ray and for me when we recorded it, and it’s my privilege as the producer to deviate if I so desire.”
Part of being a producer is that you are occasionally confronted with overinflated egos. When dealing with them, it’s important to be candid—and to make decisions that preserve the integrity of the artist and their music.
TRACK 9
Group Therapy
Peter, Paul and Mary, mid-1960s Courtesy of Michael Ochs Archive
There’s nothing like producing a rock-and-roll band.
So far, I’ve described the way I work with an individual artist. Producing an organized group of musicians (as opposed to a solo artist) necessitates a specialized approach.
Much as a family adapts to the preferences and behaviors of each member, musical groups that spend any appreciable amount of time together develop a policy for how the group will travel, live, write, rehearse, and record. The years I spent touring with and recording groups as diverse as Peter, Paul and Mary, Chicago, and The Band offered tremendous insight into the psychology of working with groups.
Peter, Paul and Mary personified 1960s folk music.
The trio’s spirited renderings of folk songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Puff (The Magic Dragon),” “I Dig Rock & Roll Music,” and “Leaving on a Jet Plane” have become landmarks in the modern folk canon; “If I Had a Hammer”—a single from their first album recorded in 1962—became an unofficial anthem of the civil rights movement.
En
gineering Album 1700 and many other Peter, Paul and Mary records taught me the secrets of recording harmonies, and how to help a group maintain harmony in the recording studio.
I was charmed by the trio’s sound from the moment I heard them. Their fastidious attention to detail and the way they’d harp on a phrase until it was burnished and blended to their liking blew me away. While I’d heard about how meticulous Brian Wilson was when it came to recording vocal harmonies, working with Peter, Paul and Mary gave me a sense of why Brian was so relentless when it came to his own work arranging and producing for the Beach Boys.
Each member of the trio had an ample reserve of passion, and none were shy about sharing their convictions. As individuals and as a group Peter, Paul and Mary were social activists whose springboard for personal expression happened to be music.
Peter Yarrow emerged as the leader. He was the most forceful of the three and had an almost militaristic approach to editing.
Noel Paul Stookey was introspective—a perceptive songwriter who used humor to mediate and keep the peace.
Chicago recording session, late 1970s Phil Ramone Collection
Mary Travers was honest, direct, and intense—a no-nonsense woman. She didn’t like doing multiple takes, and would typically be the one to present a rational, persuasive argument for—or against—the specific interpretation of a vocal line. They were always healthy arguments!
For technical purposes, I recorded Peter, Paul and Mary with three separate microphones. When we recorded, the three principals would often bicker over which mike was whose. To quell the unrest, I had three small name tags made up and hung them around the mikes so we could keep track.
Peter, Paul and Mary were all about editing; most of their records were heavily edited from the best lines of all the takes.
We’d start by doing at least ten full takes of a song. Then we’d play back every take and listen. Noel (Paul), Peter, Mary, producer Milt Okun, and I each had a lyric sheet, which became our blueprint for editing. As we listened to the multiple takes, each of us would mark our comments on our lyric sheet: “Use the third line from take two, the fifth line from take seven,” and so on.