Issue 146

In Part One (Issue 145) we talked to multifaceted guitar playing genius Michael Baugh about what inspired him to play guitar, and how he got into film composing. Here, Mike tells us about working to a brief, doing brand endorsements, how to inspire your own musical creative process, and more.

Russ Welton: Would you say it is easier to create musical art for art’s sake, or do the structures imposed by working an outside project make things easier?

Michael Baugh: That is a great question! [Having] limitations produces better work, because you have to be innovative and inventive in order to stand out and to make the worst critic in the world happy – yourself. Without boundaries, limitations or structures, it is very hard to produce truly great work. A friend of mine once said, “You never stand inside one of those pods on the London Eye and think to yourself, gee, I wish these barriers weren’t here!” I would never think to myself, If only I didn’t have to follow the brief, because the brief, much like the barrier surrounding the pods on the London Eye, keep you in the right place. It’s a protection; it supports you in bringing the director’s vision to life, and it forces you to be creative and innovative within a predefined boundary. It’s also a protection in that it means you won’t get fired and you can afford to pay the bills!

RW: You are an Ernie Ball Music Man endorsee among others. Tell us about how this came about and, your input into guitar model design. What do you like to hear from your instruments?

MB: I can’t remember how this came about. I think I sent them a few of my YouTube videos many years back. They recently built me my perfect guitar, where I got to choose the specifications; the wood, the color, and the electronics. I’m a big fan of guitars that both feel and sound good, and I noticed they almost always have a roasted maple neck, stainless steel frets, [a] front rout [for the pickups with the pickups mounted directly into the wood], and alder bodies. I also like the pickups to be medium-low output, as I like that old school twang and how [lower-output pickups] maintain clarity when being driven on higher gain settings. I have to be careful here – I could talk about guitars all night long!

RW: You decided to make your new album The Man with No Name available on an exceptionally high-quality vinyl release (as well as on CD). Tell us about your feelings in making this choice.

MB: Thank you so much! I put a lot of thought into the design of the vinyl, as I usually sell more LPs than CDs, isn’t that crazy? It shouldn’t surprise me either really, as I listen to music on vinyl too; it’s a much nicer listening experience. The main reason why I wanted to do a vinyl was because I wanted my record to be mixed and mastered much like Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, which is one of my all-time favorite records and very much the sound of my childhood. I was very fortunate to have found Grammy award winner Lewis Hopkin at Stardelta Audio Mastering to cut and master the vinyl to get the sound I desired. If you want to hear that record the way it was meant to be heard you have to have the vinyl, and there’s only 200 of them!

RW: Who would you like to compose for if the opportunity arose?

MB: I would love to compose music for all of my favorite books if they became films; Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest and Death’s End, Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward. Also, I would love to compose music for a Christopher Nolan film, as his films are brilliantly written, and I would love to collaborate with Hans Zimmer, and Tom Holkenborg. Those guys are incredible artists and have changed the film scoring world.

RW: Tell us about your home hi-fi gear and how you like to enjoy listening to music the most.

MB: This is my favorite way to consume music: make an espresso, pick up a book and put on a vinyl. I find the combination of coffee, reading and good music to be the most creatively inspiring and relaxing thing one can do. If it’s a new vinyl, I’ll be reading the liner notes and looking at the pictures rather than reading a book, as I love seeing who plays on each record and it never ceases to amaze me how often I see people credited in the notes that I know personally and have worked with. I have a Teac TN-175 turntable player going into a Cambridge Audio AXR85 receiver.

RW: What advice would you give to young and aspiring musicians and composers?

MB: Never be lazy. Train yourself now to think positively, because once you’re in the real world dealing with real stress and high-pressure situations, you will break if you aren’t the glass is half-full type. Try to almost never consume social media; be a creator instead. Lead, do not follow!

Practice as often as you can but play even more. Be willing to fail constantly, so that you can begin to succeed. Make friends with people who are hardworking and reduce association with those who are lazy, as you will end up like those who you associate with, so choose wisely.

Learn how to be the solution to other people’s problems. Collaborate and assist people who are doing what you want to do; this is a masterclass, an opportunity to see how things are done at the top and a wonderful way of networking organically.

Also, learn to save money. Rather than going out on a Saturday night wasting money on alcohol and eating fast food, work on your art, [and] use that money to buy a stunning guitar [and] a decent computer to record with, or get music lessons with a local teacher. Invest in yourself so that your future will be better.

This issue, I’m focusing on a single release, Bob Dylan’s Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16/1980-1985, a new five-disc box that covers Dylan’s return to form following his late-Seventies evangelical Christian period. The main thrust of the box consists of demos, outtakes, alternate takes, and live tracks focused on Dylan’s three albums from the period, Shot Of Love (1981), Infidels (1983), and Empire Burlesque (1985). With the exception of a live recording of Dylan’s 1984 appearance on Late Night With David Letterman, all the performances here are previously unreleased, and Dylan completists and collectors will find there’s a lot to love about Springtime in New York.

The unreleased material from Infidels is actually the real star here; Infidels is one of my all-time favorite Bob Dylan albums, although I have to admit that way back in the day I was a bit bummed when I found out that it wasn’t the blonde in the “Sweetheart Like You” video who was actually playing the guitar. Of course, who could be upset with both Mark Knopfler and Mick Taylor providing the actual guitar licks throughout? Robert Baird used to write a column for Stereophile called “Aural Robert,” where each month he featured an album that he really loved, or frequently lambasted one that he hated. In one particular issue, he chose Infidels as the target of his ire. I was so incensed by his remarks that I immediately fired off a terse letter to then-editor John Atkinson. They didn’t publish it, but for years I dreamed about getting in Robert Baird’s face concerning his obvious bad taste in music!

When Bob Dylan announced in 1978 that he’d become a born-again Christian, fans and critics alike were baffled not only by the sudden overt religiosity of his music, but also by his refusal to play any of his classic songs on tour. Also, his insistence on delivering heavy-handed, pious messages onstage alienated many of his fans. The three albums from that period, Slow Train Comin’ (1979), Saved (1980), and Shot of Love (1981) were all met with lukewarm critical receptions. Regardless, Slow Train Comin’ actually had a pretty good mix of songs, though veteran producer Jerry Wexler said that Dylan even tried to evangelize him during the recording sessions. Wexler’s response was, “Bob, you’re dealing with a 62-year-old Jewish atheist. Let’s just make an album.”

Slow Train Comin’ wasn’t hurt by the presence of Mark Knopfler on guitar, and won Dylan a Grammy award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for “Gotta Serve Somebody.” It went Platinum in the process, but fans cooled to both of the follow ups, neither of which even reached Gold sales status. Those albums suffered the worst reviews of Dylan’s career, and Rolling Stone declared that they were done with him. Dylan took this reception harshly, and basically dropped out of sight for two years; he hadn’t been absent from the music scene since the infamous motorcycle accident in 1966. In Dylan’s 2004 memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, he even commented about his disdain for his music of the “Born Again” period, saying that he was “pretty whitewashed and wasted out professionally.”

About that same time, Dylan had bought part-ownership in a sailboat that was anchored in the Caribbean, and spent as much time as he possibly could sailing about, trying to remain as faceless and nameless as possible. And writing a lot of new songs all the while; songs that would form the foundation for his next album, 1983’s Infidels, which would find Mark Knopfler again onboard, except this time, as producer as well as guitarist. The sessions also featured Dire Straits keyboardist Alan Clark, as well as luminaries including former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor on guitar, and the Jamaican rhythm section of Robbie Shakespeare on bass and Sly Dunbar on drums, which gave the album even more of a Caribbean feel.

 Infidels was a triumph on every level, going Gold very quickly, and Rolling Stone’s review called it “his best since Blood On The Tracks.” The album’s sales got a boost from the exposure several of its videos received on the then-fledgling MTV.

Bob Dylan had become close friends with Tom Petty, and on several tracks of 1985’s Empire Burlesque, he employed Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, and bassist Howie Epstein. Sly and Robbie also appeared on a number of tunes, giving the album something of a carryover feel from Infidels. In actuality, the genesis of many of the songs on Empire Burlesque stems from the same period as its predecessor. While the album didn’t sell as well as Infidels, it debuted to a generally positive critical reception, again helped by MTV placing several of the album’s videos in regular rotation, especially the song “Tight Connection to My Heart,” which featured some nifty guitar work by Mick Taylor.

Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16/1980-1985

This latest issue in Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series mainly focuses on the importance of 1983’s Infidels and the part played by the two albums that bookended it, 1981’s Shot of Love and 1985’s Empire Burlesque. The various entries in the Bootleg Series haven’t always been chronological in nature: Volume 13, Trouble No More, covered the “born again” albums that mostly precede the albums in this collection. And by all reports, that set managed to cast them in a somewhat more sympathetic light than most would previously have thought. Springtime in New York opens with two discs that revisit the period of the third “evangelical” album, Shot of Love.

Following the lambasting he got from the critics with its predecessor, Saved, Dylan apparently had already started rethinking his stance towards playing anything other than Christian music. In mid-1980, he began rehearsals for a tour dubbed “The Musical Retrospective Tour,” where his song selection made it clearly obvious that the shift had already begun. Disc One consists almost entirely of rehearsal recordings of material that was planned for that tour, and opens with a tune from Dylan’s back catalog, a poignant but powerful version of “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” from 1978’s Street Legal. Fred Tackett’s guitar work really shines here, and Dylan is in excellent voice – this track can easily stand alongside the album version. He then launches into a spirited version of 1964’s “Ramona,” where Willie Smith’s organ and Fred Tackett’s mandolin work give the song a waltz-like quality. Dylan then shows that he hasn’t completely abandoned his Christian leanings with “Jesus Met the Woman at the Well,” but things start to get really strange when he launches into a series of totally unlikely cover tunes…like Dave Mason’s “We Just Disagree,” Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” “Fever” (popularized by Peggy Lee, and check out Fred Tackett’s awesome guitar solo), and Dion’s Sixties staple, “Abraham, Martin and John.” The disc’s lone song that’s an unreleased outtake from Shot of Love is also a cover, an authentically-steeped-in-the-blues take on Junior Parker’s classic “Mystery Train.”

Disc Two is comprised entirely of unreleased outtakes from Shot of Love, and opens with a stirring “Angelina,” which has only the vaguest references to religion. In fact, that album was about a 50/50 mix of the sacred and the profane, and as this disc rolls along, you really begin to get the idea that Dylan was on the cusp of abandoning the religion that had been his stock and trade for the previous several years. “Price of Love” follows, and features a really driving beat, some excellent organ work from Benmont Tench, and the dueling guitars of Steve Ripley and Fred Tackett. Dylan offers really great covers of the Everly Brothers’ “Let It Be Me” (featuring a duet with Clydie King) and the Hank Williams’ classic “Cold, Cold Heart.” “Fur Slippers” is a superb blues number; “Yes Sir, No Sir” is a tune that Dylan apparently recut several times but was never satisfied with – it’s unlike anything else in his recorded canon and shocking that it’s only now hearing the light of day. These mostly-secular songs are of immeasurable importance here, because they paved the way for the greatness that would unfold fully-formed in Infidels.

Discs Three and Four consist entirely of unreleased outtakes and alternate takes of songs from 1983’s Infidels, and those outtakes have sparked a great deal of debate among Dylan fans over the years. Apparently, tapes managed to get out of the studio for some of the songs that didn’t end up on the album, with fans bemoaning that the Bard delivered what is merely a good album that could have been a great one if recut with some of the missing material. Foremost among these is “Blind Willie McTell,” which was the first song recorded at the album sessions, and the very last to be worked on before ultimately being discarded. A different version of “Blind Willie McTell” was one of five songs from Infidels that made it onto the first Dylan bootleg collection in 1991 – that’s how highly Dylan thought of the tune. There’s an urban legend of sorts that Dylan always leaves his very best songs off the album; there are definitely a number of tunes here that lend credence to that myth.

Dylan generally worked very quickly in the studio, and he was never one to engage in a lot of studio trickery in the mixing stage of most of his albums. That changed with Infidels, where the actual recording process went on for months, then, after Mark Knopfler signed off on the final tapes, Dylan had a change of heart and spent a couple of more months re-recording and remixing parts of the album. He added a liberal dose of digital reverb to many of the songs, wanting to give the album a sound that would appeal to the then-prevailing tastes in popular music. History was basically repeating itself here: Dylan pulled the tapes for Blood On The Tracks literally as the record presses were running, and re-recorded most of the album, which still went on to become the stuff of legend. So, most of the alternate takes and outtakes from Infidels heard here are presented unvarnished, without any of the additional mixing and (sometimes) excessive reverb that was applied to the finished product.

Another aspect of this box that makes it so valuable to true fans and collectors is that it gives you a lot of insight into Dylan’s creative process. There are two alternate takes of “Don’t Fall Apart On Me Tonight”; one of them is almost laboriously slow, the other much closer in tempo to Dylan’s final version, but both are enjoyable on their own merits. Three outtakes that play back-to-back are a great study in that same process: “Too Late (acoustic version),” “Too Late (band version),” and “Foot of Pride” are all essentially the same song, a crime story. They were recorded within days of each other, but by the time Dylan made it to the “Foot of Pride” variation, it became a much harder-edged tune that bears very little resemblance to the other two, and very worthy of inclusion on the album. Then, there’s “Someone’s Got A Hold Of My Heart,” which would be reworked on Empire Burlesque as the album’s big hit, “Tight Connection To My Heart.” “Baby What Do You Want Me To Do” is another great blues with some superb slide work by Mick Taylor and a seductive harmony vocal from Clydie King. “Julius and Ethel” rocks the Rosenbergs like never before, and the full, seven-minute version of “Death Is Not The End” with Clydie King and the Full Force gospel choir is absolutely sublime. There was definitely enough great unissued material here to easily make Infidels into a double album at the time of its original release. An alternate Infidels to be sure, but certainly just as viable.

Disc Five opens with two Infidels-era live tunes, a blistering “Enough is Enough,” featuring Mick Taylor on guitar and Ian McLagan on keys, and a really terrific version of “License to Kill” that was recorded on Late Night with David Letterman, backed by the L.A. punk band the Plugz. The remainder of the songs on this disc are outtakes and alternate takes from the Empire Burlesque sessions, and are a most welcome addition to this set because they’ve been stripped of the awful Eighties production values that made the album such an unpleasant listen. In Damien Love’s liner notes, he mentions that he had the opportunity to interview Benmont Tench, who told him that while he enjoyed working with Dylan, he hated the sound of Empire Burlesque, because it was so “Eighties” by Dylan’s design, and for Tench, the “Eighties” sound was a horror show. That sound colored his impression of the songs on the album – it would be really interesting to hear how Tench feels about the unvarnished tracks as presented in this collection.

The real highlight of Disc Five is the twelve-minute outtake “New Danville Girl,” which was eventually reworked as “Brownsville Girl” on 1986’s Knocked Out Loaded. It’s an epic song with a magisterial power that hearkens back to Dylan’s greatest songs of yore, and ranks in this collection alongside such gems as “Blind Willie McTell.” It’s that good!

A Beautifully-Done Box Set

My review copy is the deluxe five-compact disc box set; Sony/Legacy is also offering a highlights box that features two 180-gram LPs and two CDs. In partnership with Jack White’s Third Man Records, a four-LP deluxe limited edition set (with each LP pressed from different color vinyl) is also being made available. And there’s no overlap of material between the Third Man and Sony/Legacy sets, greatly enhancing the collectibility aspect of the vinyl editions.

Collectors will absolutely gush over the CD box set, and having worked for the last thirty years in high-end commercial print, it’s easily among the most perfectly realized collections I’ve seen. The slipcase-style box contains two casebound books, and the overall dimensions of the box are about two-thirds that of a standard LP. The construction of the box and the casebound books is pretty much immaculate; all the surfaces and book pages are satin varnished, with high-gloss varnished type and art elements adorning the outer surfaces of both the box and books that add some really bold visual contrast. The appearance of the set is off-the-charts great, and the satin varnish adds a much-appreciated functional improvement to both box and books, because you can liberally handle each of them without getting fingerprints on any of the surfaces. How many times have you opened a beautiful book or booklet and on first touch, immediately, permanently added your indelible fingerprints to the artwork? Yeah, it’s maddening, but that will never happen with this consummately-constructed collection.

The first casebound book contains 104 pages printed on heavyweight coated stock, and opens with an educational and entertaining essay from Scottish writer (and Dylan fanatic) Damien Love, who chronicles Dylan’s ever-changing ethos and activities during the first half of the Eighties. Each facing page of the essay’s 36 pages contains classic and rare images of Dylan, his bandmates in the studio, and handwritten lyric sheets for some of the collection’s songs. Love’s essay is then supplemented with another 30 pages of detailed song notes, where he expounds on each of the collection’s 57 tracks. Completing the book is a section entitled Flotsam and Jetsam, which adds another 38 pages of rare photos, album images, concert posters, Dylan’s own artwork, postage stamps (yes, postage stamps!), magazine covers, and excerpts from reviews and interviews. It’s quite the assemblage of rare and fascinating memorabilia.

The second casebound book opens with sixteen pages (also on heavyweight coated stock) of technical notes about the individual recordings, and contains lists of all the individual artists who performed on each of the tracks. That information is supplemented with more rare photos, lyric sheets, and graphically stylized images of studio tape reel legends. But the book most importantly serves to hold the five compact discs, which are placed into glued, die-cut pockets built from cover-weight coated stock. The placement of the CDs within the pockets is pretty ingenious, and unlike that of any box set I’ve seen, which often use foam dots to secure the discs. Those never seem to work well for very long, and your discs aren’t going anywhere in this configuration. That’s not to imply that this setup is absolutely perfect, regardless of how functionally well designed it seems. Recent Sony/Legacy boxes I’ve seen have included the various digital discs (CDs, Blu-rays, DVDs) encased in scratch-free fiber sleeves that are placed within the disc pockets. That’s not the case here: the CDs all come in contact with the heavyweight stock the sleeves are built from. Although not an ideal situation, once the discs are removed, there’s generally no problem getting them in and out of the sleeves.

But as I’ve often found with discs that are only encased in paper or paperboard sleeves, it’s very easy for the discs to get scuffed either during the initial insertion into the pocket, or during the first removal. Three of the five discs showed quite visible scuffs, and in the case of Disc Two, it took an almost Herculean effort on my part to remove the disc. Upon removal, it became evident that the disc had inadvertently been glued into the pocket upon assembly at the factory – I found this rather shocking, to say the least. Having worked extensively with the assembly of casebound books, these die-cut pockets are usually glued days, if not weeks in advance of the final perfect-bound assembly of the books. So, the glue should have been completely dry by the time of the insertion of the compact disc. Upon removal of the disc, the glue was clearly in evidence on the playing surface of the CD, and I was quite alarmed as to whether the disc would even play. Fortunately, a generous amount of distilled water applied with a very soft cleaning cloth eventually removed enough of the residue to allow the disc to play properly. But this is clearly one of those instances where the whole “form over function” idea in the book’s design phase needed a little more fine tuning.

Conclusion

Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16/1980-1985 offers a stunning exploration of a period of surprising musical riches from Bob Dylan. It’s a period that many fans and critics alike might have pretty much written off, even though Dylan surrounded himself with a stellar cast of musicians. And the Infidels period songs are still remarkably relevant, especially in today’s increasingly dysfunctional world. This deluxe edition comes very highly recommended.

Sony/Legacy Recordings, 5 CDs (download/streaming from, Amazon, Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, Deezer).

Header image of Bob Dylan by Ken Regan, courtesy of Sony/Legacy.

Burt Bacharach is one of those composers who I’ve listened to nearly my entire life. From the age of six or seven, my mother – the adventurous listener in the house – owned a few of Bacharach’s instrumental LPs that she would play every so often. She sometimes mentioned that Dionne Warwick originally sang some of these songs, and I also remember her slipping a Bacharach/David songbook into my stack of piano books. This was much to the chagrin of my elderly piano teacher, who was the lover of schmaltzy Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes as opposed to these newfangled composers.

I would get a couple of Bacharach’s instrumental albums over the years as gifts, but it wouldn’t be until a couple of decades later that I would buy albums or compilations containing Bacharach’s songs. The major catalyst was Rhino’s three-CD box set of Bacharach’s tunes, performed by those who made them famous. That set, The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection, was the real turning point for me, especially with its accompanying booklet that lived up to Rhino’s reputation for being comprehensive and informative. It was a crash course in the timeline of Bacharach’s career, the many artists who covered his tunes, and the history behind them all.

This is the first installment in an ongoing series, covering different eras or specific artists in each issue. Hopefully you’ll find a few hidden gems that you were unaware of, or be whisked back to the 1960s and 1970s with tunes you may not have heard in years. Burt Bacharach wrote prodigiously and is still working to this day at the sprightly young age of 93. Yet his most recognized and celebrated body of work is his long collaboration with lyricist Hal David, much of which we will cover in the series.

The Early Years

In addition to his fruitful partnership with Hal David, Bacharach would occasionally work with other lyricists such as Bob Hilliard or Hal David’s brother, Mack David. There are some gems among these early tunes, many with an unmistakable Bacharach flavor to the melody and arrangement. A student of Darius Milhaud, Bacharach took his legendary instructor’s advice: “Never be ashamed to write something that people can whistle.” Ever a perfectionist, Bacharach’s arrangements and studio session conducting were notoriously meticulous and demanding. That sophistication we find on the Dionne Warwick recordings was honed over time, and the foundation was built on earlier songs like these.

An early success for the Bacharach/David songwriting team was a 1957 release, “The Story of My Life,” by country music legend Marty Robbins, who took it to the top of the Country and Western chart. Apparently he took Milhaud’s aforementioned advice literally with this recording.

The following tune from 1958 was featured over the opening credits of the Steve McQueen film The Blob, penned by Bacharach with Hal’s brother Mack David. The Five Blobs were a studio group assembled by session leader Bernie Knee for the sole purpose of recording this song. A novelty hit at best.

In 1961, Gene McDaniels had a Number 3 hit with “A Hundred Pounds of Clay,” and followed that up two singles later with the Number 5 hit “Tower of Strength,” which Bacharach wrote with Bob Hilliard. Bacharach was dismayed that the producer of the track sped up the tempo, one of the reasons he would later have an iron grip on the entire recording process. McDaniels would later find success as a songwriter himself, penning the Number One hit “Feel Like Makin’ Love” for Roberta Flack.

Another Bacharach/Hilliard tune, “Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird),” was recorded by, and specifically written for, Chuck Jackson in 1962. When Bacharach got wind that label-mate Tommy Hunt was recording an “unauthorized” version, he was insistent to Scepter Records’ owner Florence Greenberg that Jackson record the tune, or he would discard it.

When Jerry Butler recorded “Make It Easy On Yourself” in 1962 for release on Vee-Jay Records, it marked a turning point for Bacharach. Long frustrated by the sound of his compositions in the hands of others, Butler and A&R man Calvin Carter told him, “You get the musicians, you conduct, you make the record.” From that point on, Bacharach would increasingly conduct his own studio sessions, when possible, to build up his works in the studio, and even went so far as to fuss over different pressings on later single releases, to ensure they met his exacting standards.

Jay and the Americans’ recording, “Look In My Eyes Maria” was originally tucked away on the B-side of the group’s “Come Dance With Me” single in 1963. This was produced by Lieber and Stoller, who produced a few early records Bacharach had composed music for.

Lou Johnson was one of the unfortunate vocalists to cover Bacharach/David tunes. Unfortunate in that despite his talent for covering Bacharach’s difficult compositions, most of what he recorded never became a hit, yet would later become a hit at the hands of Scepter Records, and Dionne Warwick in particular. Warwick was a fan of Johnson’s and covered some of his songs, making them hits; in fact, Johnson was sometimes called “the male Dionne Warwick” during those years. This was his first recording of Bacharach/David’s songs, only making it to Number 74 on the charts in 1963.

Gene Pitney would record a Bacharach/David song in tandem with the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (the song itself was not used in the film), but the 1963 mini-story tune “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa” was cinematic all on its own. Hal David had begun writing down short stories in a notebook, which helped organize the lyric writing for his story songs. This one is in the form of a “Dear Jane” letter.

In the next part of the series, we will explore Bacharach and David teaming up with a third partner who would define their unique brand of sophisticated soul throughout the 1960s.

Janácek: Piano Works
Lars Vogt, piano
Ondine ODE1382-2

With his tart rhythms and uneasy tonality, Leoš Janáček, a late Romantic Czech composer and early innovator in folk musicology, circles his own little cul-de-sac. Among the first to use Edison’s “portable” phonograph to compile Moravian and Slavic folk songs, few understand how his modal experiments rival Claude Debussy as tonal innovator, and his jittery rhythmic sense has just enough rarefied dander to limit his reach; both Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana overshadow Janáček as nationalist composers. Opera buffs cherish The Cunning Little Vixen as a staple of the standard repertoire, but what do they know? The novelist Milan Kundera cherished Janáček’s two expansive string quartets, which boast scads of recordings from top ensembles. But pianists steer around much of Janáček’s output, most of which he wrote during the last decade of his life between 1918 and 1928, just as the Hungarians Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók began legitimizing his folk music research.

The latest disc from pianist Lars Vogt upends this perfidy, just as most of Vogt’s recordings stray from received expectations. His 1991 EMI Classics debut disc, now unavailable on streaming services, sported a respectable program of Haydn, Brahms, and Schubert. But after a dutiful Grieg/Schumann Concerto disc with conductor Simon Rattle, Vogt shifted to chamber music alongside his solo repertoire, first with cellist Truls Mørk, and then as violinist Christian Tetzlaff’s keyboardist for sonatas and trios. With Tetzlaff, Vogt has released radiant recordings of the Brahms Violin Sonatas and Piano Trios, and the Schumann’s Violin Sonatas, alongside equally elegant and beguiling solo performances, most recently with pristine yet earthy Mozart Sonatas. 2020 brought his Brahms Second Piano Concerto, typically considered too demanding to conduct from the keyboard, and despite undergoing chemotherapy for liver cancer, he conducts the new season of the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. Several recordings of his Mozart concertos, conducting from the keyboard, appear on YouTube, as does a leisurely Schumann Symphony No. 2.

Vogt’s unconventional piano career has intriguing payoffs, most importantly in the curious way he never really seems to play by himself, even when he’s alone at the piano. His engagement with the material transcends technique, or rather subsumes technique into something more like a conversation. His latest release from the Finnish Ondine label, of Janáček’s Sonata and two suites (“On An Overgrown Path,” and “In the Mists”), ranks Vogt as a virtuoso of personal interpretation.

The Sonata has two ominous movements: “Foreboding” starts off with some jerky figures and sudden hesitations, a stop-and-start gesture that recurs throughout. Through Janáček’s charged patterns, Vogt tries out sounds, repeats them, plows forwards, only to land on unfamiliar yet oddly satisfying new material. Janáček’s palette shares a lot with Debussy in terms of wispy upper glissandi and impetuous swirls, but he always returns to a melodic frame, rephrasing each time and repeating again as if in incantation. Many passages resemble orchestral squalls and then return again into thoughtful restatements; he steps around Romantic clichés to flirt with impressionism—colors creating moods—all through their own organic motions. Instead of thematic development, Janáček seems to think out loud, exploring implicative textures as though they yield to their underlying impulses. His quiet moments emerge stronger than any outbursts, his daunting questions emerge into reveries.

In the second movement, “Death” uses related material to pivot off in different directions. It turns wispy very quickly, as if the material has somehow spent itself and turned into smoke; some sections resemble passages from Debussy’s “The Sunken Cathedral,” and the pedal washes make it sound blurred by rain, watery and submerged. The sudden stops and rhythmic rumblings don’t have the same tensile feel as the earlier movement; they echo and stir, it’s a mood of sustained meditation even when jammed up with notes; the silences return with even more insistence.

“In the Mists” has four movements that start off wandering down another mysterious path with odd echoes and twisted melodic turns. Silvery glissandos stir up rainbow streaks; the passagework (which could come off as busyness) all gets put to expressive purpose. Again, many recurring motifs tease the ear, and Vogt makes every repetition sound different, somehow unique; he turns a major chord finale sound surpassingly odd, and abruptly final.

Janáček’s distinctive voice makes quirky references to familiar gestures. The Adagio breaks out in a brief fugato, only to get interrupted; it’s almost as if interruptions take on a defining quality. The Andantino has charming melodic material, as fragile as anything from Maurice Ravel.

The “Overgrown Path” suite has more immediate general appeal; it’s got winding melodies and bitter counterpoint. In both form and motivation, this music bears a poetic resemblance to Robert Schumann’s “Scenes from Childhood,” innocence glimpsed through an adult mind. “They Chattered Like Swallows” unveils distinctive modal passages that yank at the ear, and “In Tears” returns to a delicacy that admires Schubert. This set could get grouped with Ravel or Mompou, which is not to say Janacek sounds “French,” but that his approach invites comparison to their splashes of light and color. Very few pieces by Dvorak or Smetana have the same ineffable draw.

So in the end, this Janacek disc creates an intuitive logic coming from Vogt, who avoids plowing through warhorses. Instead, by championing little-known corners of the piano’s vast repertoire, Vogt sidesteps the classical industry’s canonic deep-freeze. (The key precedent for this recording comes from Czech pianist Rudolf Firkusny, who advocated for a lot of his nation’s music.)

Vogt has mastered the formalist approach through Beethoven and Brahms so thoroughly that his Janáček carries breathtaking risks, as if he’s pulling away from certainty itself. The discovery and revelation here carry an abiding sense of mystery and intrigue, a sense that alternate realities surround us if we listen closely enough. Janacek’s piano writing yields a strange, inexorable beauty that owes less to folk music than the willful impulses that inspire it.

Janáček’s stretching of tonality parallels his tweaks to formality – you don’t listen for structure, recapitulations into the home key and ripe climaxes so much as you hear the thinking process itself, ideas spilling forward to the brink of meaning. And Vogt’s elegiac touch suits this music perfectly: he listens and responds to sounds as he makes them. It’s not so much that Vogt channels Janáček or interprets his notes, but that he finds his way with Janacek’s ideas, figures out how to shape them as he goes, and discovers Janáček listening back.

Part One of this series (Issue 145) covered Phil Keaggy’s early music with hard rock power trio Glass Harp, his experiments with prog rock, jazz fusion, classical and Elizabethan acoustic guitar, show tunes, and ballads, and his attempts to reconcile these divergent musical directions within the context of what would soon become classified as CCM, or contemporary Christian music. The mid-1980s were a period that featured some of the finest releases of Phil Keaggy’s career, which led to his two Grammy nominations and multiple Gospel Music Association (GMA) Dove Award wins, and the roots of his musical directions as a superb acoustic guitar instrumentalist and a pioneer of looping and multiple capo fingerpicking styles.

April, 1983 saw Underground, released on the Nissi label (and later reissued on CD), a collection of demos in which Phil Keaggy played all of the instruments and produced, engineered, and mixed all of the tracks in his basement home studio, hence the title. Although the mixes are on the rough side, Keaggy’s guitar overdubs show a growing jazz fusion influence with elements of Jeff Beck, Al DiMeola and John McLaughlin in both his chromatic phrasings and tone.

Two years later, Keaggy would release Getting Closer!, also on Nissi. Keaggy’s Paul McCartney-esque vocals and a greater emphasis on more cohesive, less jazz-oriented songs mark Getting Closer! as an artistic breakthrough for him. Songs like the piano-heavy “I Will Be There,” “Sounds,” and “Like An Island” have a Hall and Oates or Toto kind of radio-friendly flavor, replete with prominent Yamaha DX-7 synths, which have become as emblematic of 1980s music as electric 12-string guitars were for the 1960s. The guitar solos also have a slick, ’80s-era type of sound, unlike the rawer tones of Keaggy’s 1970s releases, although his phrasing showcases many sweep picking flurries, a style that didn’t come into prominence until the ’80s. Vocally, he challenges himself with scat singing beyond his normal range into some falsetto shrieks that mimic his guitar lines.

Keaggy clearly has a warm spot in his heart (and music catalog) for Getting Closer! As his Myrrh 2-CD anthology collection, Time, contains the aforementioned three songs.

Phil Keaggy’s next recording, Way Back Home, showed a growing interest in orchestration. While he had incorporated some strings on Love Broke Thru and woodwinds on The Master and The Musician, Way Back Home featured both string sections and arrangements that gave string bass, cello, oboe, clarinet and soprano sax greater prominence in the mix. Perhaps as a result of his listening to these recordings retrospectively, the 1994 reissue Way Back Home would tone down the strings and woodwinds, and even omit some of them completely in these songs’ alternate mixes.

Way Back Home also showcased more original Keaggy music set to classic poetry. Songs like “Maker of the Universe,” written by Frederick W. Pitt, a 19th century British clergyman, and “In Every Need,” with words by    American hymn writer Samuel Longfellow, are examples of Keaggy’s attempts to bring the spiritual messages of these centuries-old writings into the modern world, and his voracious reading would give him further inspiration for additional songs.

New age instrumental music, popularized by synthesizer artists like Vangelis and Kitaro and acoustic labels such as Windham Hill and Narada, became a Billboard magazine commercial category in the 1980s. Smooth jazz, with the harsh tones rounded off and mixed in a wash of synthesizers and ambience, also gained prominence, with artists like Kenny G. becoming both a commercial giant and a critics’ whipping boy.

In this environment, Phil Keaggy’s The Wind and the Wheat, his second all-instrumental album, would become both a commercial and critical success, marking the first of his seven Dove Award nominations, and a win in 1988 for Instrumental Album of the Year. While preserving his sweep picking fusion jazz leanings, Keaggy couched the tones in the smoother direction hinted at in Getting Closer!, simultaneously refining a melodic lead guitar approach akin to Jeff Beck’s Blow By Blow. His use of the tremolo bar and the rack effects of that era are very much a product of the Beck influence, as “March Of The Clouds,” the album’s opening track, would demonstrate.

Phil Keaggy’s previous experience working with producer/engineer Jack Joseph Puig worked well enough for Keaggy to invite him back to handle production on all recording and mixing duties, and essentially be director of all elements related to technical sound on his next album, Phil Keaggy and Sunday’s Child.

Crystallizing his pop/rock sensibilities and early Sixties Beatles and Byrds influences, Sunday’s Child utilized vintage recording techniques and instruments, including Rickenbacker 12-string guitars for the Byrds/Beatles “A Hard Day’s Night” sounds, as well as Ringo Starr’s personal vintage Ludwig drum kit.

Featuring top-notch guest musicians such as bassist Rick Cua (The Outlaws), percussionist Lenny Castro (Toto) and old friends Randy Stonehill and producer/guitarist Lynn Nichols, Sunday’s Child was such an irresistibly inviting pop song collection that it was simultaneously released on both Christian label Myrrh and A&M Records for wider commercial distribution.

The Puig touch is evident in the muscularity of the vocals and guitar parts, concurrently retaining Keaggy’s trademark flash while honed to a diamond-sharp conciseness that eschews throwaway or overindulgent lines in order to fully serve the songs.

“Sunday’s Child,” co-written and sung with Stonehill in a Lennon/McCartney Beatle-esque mode, is a good example of Keaggy’s approach to SIxties pop sounds, with its jangling Rickenbacker 12-string lead riff.

1990 would start the last decade of the 20th century with one of Keaggy’s finest works. Find Me In These Fields marked the culmination of all of Keaggy’s musical influences: catchy pop music, blues, classical and new age acoustic, fusion jazz and hard rock guitar solos, and inspired, melodic vocals – all in a commercially viable collection of brilliant songwriting and performances. Find Me In These Fields garnered Keaggy his first-ever Grammy nomination for Best Rock Gospel album, and was released on A&M. (Personal note: Find Me In These Fields was my introduction to the music of Phil Keaggy, so hearing this record admittedly skews my praise for it.)

The album features brief, minute-long fingerpicked acoustic guitar pieces that range stylistically from Chet Atkins to Andres Segovia, and are interspersed between the rock songs. The kickoff electric track, “Strong Tower,” features a captivating opening riff, leading into an anthemic chorus that adds slide guitar to counterpoint later verses.

Keaggy would include “Strong Tower” in his solo acoustic concerts as well, combining the acoustic intro piece from the album.

“Carry On” is another strong song that demonstrates how adept Keaggy is at seamlessly shifting rhythmic, chromatic and modal elements in his virtuosic flourishes while still maintaining infectious, commercial hooks and a sense of genuine fun throughout, especially during the drum break and the jazzy runs near the end.

1991 saw the release of Beyond Nature, perhaps the overwhelming favorite record of Phil Keaggy fans (according to the plethora of most-played songs culled from the album on Spotify) and the record that put him on the map for acoustic guitar instrumental enthusiasts worldwide. An all-instrumental album, Beyond Nature manifested all of the classical, folk, and new age acoustic guitar influences that Keaggy had been woodshedding over the past two decades, with a compositional approach inspired by the works and life of Christian author C.S. Lewis.

The liner notes contain the C.S. Lewis quote from his book, Mere Christianity:

“Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her…Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects.

And in there, and beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life.”

Songs such as “Brother Jack,” “Addison’s Walk” and “Fragile Forest” referred to Lewis’ long, meditative walks through British woodlands, often in prayer and with close friends like writer J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings).

Keaggy included an arrangement of Edvard Grieg’s “Symphonic Dance (Op. 64)” called “Symphonic Dance – A Variation on Allegretto Grazioso,” and his sparse, but nuanced use of stringed and woodwind instruments, such as fiddle and oboe are the pinnacle of previous experiments from The Master and The Musician and other albums. In keeping with his updated arrangements of hymns, Beyond Nature includes the gorgeous “I Feel the Winds of God Today,” with recorders, pizzicato strings and bass in discreet accompaniment, while Keaggy’s acoustic guitar takes liberties with the melody in a number of variations, stylistically crossing between Andres Segovia and Michael Hedges, a guitarist whom Keaggy grew to admire greatly.

Additionally, Keaggy’s forays into altered guitar tunings, such as the Celtic-influenced, Davy Graham-created DADGAD (low to high), which has also been a favorite of finger stylist Pierre Bensusan and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page (“Kashmir’), led to “County Down,” a fingerpicking masterpiece. It’s probably the song most identified with Keaggy among acoustic guitarists as a must-learn-how-to play cover song, much like the way “Stairway to Heaven” has become a similar “must learn” tune for rock guitar neophytes.

A close second favorite song, as confirmed by the number of YouTube cover versions posted by professional and amateur guitarists alike, is “In the Light of Common Day,” which opens Beyond Nature and which Keaggy reprises as the second-to-last track on the album. An audience favorite, Keaggy performs it regularly in his acoustic concerts.

Beyond Nature would go on to win Keaggy’s second Dove Award for Best Instrumental Record.

Riding an artistic and commercial high, in 1993, Keaggy reunited with Glass Harp drummer John Sferra, which inspired new recordings, including some cover songs and arrangements in the Glass Harp power trio vein. New bassist Wade Jaynes and old friends Phil Madeira on keys and Lynn Nichols on guitar rounded out what would later become Keaggy’s touring ensemble.

Recording in a converted old Victorian cottage in Nashville that would eventually become known as Vibe56, Keaggy released some teaser tracks on an EP entitled Revelator, which included what Keaggy has described in interviews as a “Cream-style interpretation” of the old Son House and Blind Willie Johnson blues gospel song, “John the Revelator.”

“John the Revelator” was added to the album, Crimson and Blue, that grew out of these new sessions, which would garner Keaggy a second Grammy nomination for Best Rock Gospel album. In addition to fresh Keaggy originals that continued in the vein of Find Me In These Fields, the album featured a cover of Van Morrison’s “When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God,” and the old gospel hymn, “Nothing But The Blood.”

In an interview, Keaggy explained: “I started Crimson & Blue with a two-fold purpose: to record something more aggressive, and to work with John [Sferra] again. We recorded all the basic tracks together and most of the leads were recorded live.”

In what easily could have been included on Sunday’s Child, Keaggy’s “Love Divine” was an intentional homage to the Beatles’ “All My Loving” in structure, yet with a completely different melody and guitar solo. Keaggy’s vocal is unabashedly McCartney influenced.

Interestingly, Epic Records decided to release Crimson and Blue in a more commercial version titled, Blue, which substituted several more secular songs from the Vibe56 sessions. Among them was a stunning cover of Badfinger’s classic, “Baby Blue.”

Blue also featured  “All Our Wishes,” and a Glass Harp-style jam, “The Further Adventures of…” from Revelator, as well as shorter versions of “Doin’ Nothin’” and “Everywhere I Look.” Five songs from Crimson and Blue were deleted, including “Love Divine” and “Nothing But The Blood.”

Part Three will give a partial overview of Keaggy’s subsequent works until the present, as his prolific output increased exponentially as a result of the improved quality of his home studio, and his elevated profile as a solo acoustic guitar artist. Also, once he became an unsigned independent artist, he gained greater freedom to collaborate with peers and friends from all genres of music, including rock luminaries Tony Levin and Jerry Marotta, Christian metalheads P.O.D., and even former Monkee Mickey Dolenz.

Additionally, Part Three will take a closer look at Keaggy’s pioneering digital looping work, which has become almost a gold standard for acoustic guitarists, and a technique that has become popularized (in much more elementary form) by Ed Sheeran and K.T. Tunstall, among others.

Martin Theophilus is the Executive Director of the Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording (MOMSR), a private collection of recording machines, tapes and other materials, along with a companion website. The site contains a wealth of information and photographs of vintage gear. J.I. Agnew interviewed Martin at length. Part One appeared in Issue 144, Part Two was published in Issue 145, and the final installment of the interview is presented here.

JIA: It appears that your collection/museum has been a family project. Who else was involved over the years? What were their roles and contributions? 

MT: Family has been essential in this quest. Chris (Martin’s wife) and I met in 1984 and were married in 1985. Our first date ended in a recording studio. Second date was at a horse dressage event, where Chris was a judge’s runner. So, recording and horses would become our life. Chris is from Suffolk, England. Her British accent and outgoing personality added a wonderful edge of credibility to our company. She never hesitated to support our efforts to succeed. This was especially true for the collection and Museum. She helped lug heavy tube recorders up to the second floor studio/museum.

She integrated herself in the Texas music community. For several years [our music management company] represented Texas music at the Cannes Midem [music] conference. Chris was great in establishing international relationships for us. In fact, [after] her presentation to a Canadian [management] group, it resulted in their recommendation [that] we should be pursuing more profitable work with corporations, rather than investing our resources on new talent. She evolved us to a very profitable booking situation in a partnership with David Perkoff Music.

We both served on the Austin Music Business Association’s board. This later merged with the Austin Chamber of Commerce’s music business support organization, which then became the Texas chapter of NARAS (the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, later The Recording Academy). We were part of the group that [officially] named Austin “The Music Capitol of the World,” and were committed to making Austin music a serious business endeavor as well. We were part of the first South By Southwest (SXSW) conference [in 1987] and the following year, the first company to bring international representation to SXSW. We formed a partnership with a British company who became Phantom Productions, UK with offices in Milton Keynes and Hong Kong.

In addition to Chris’ total commitment to the Museum, she previously joined me in another multi-year project. MIX magazine released a list of recording [engineering] schools in 1986. I realized there was no school in the Austin area that provided recording tech. Chris and I decided to advocate for one. We were working with musicians who were fabulous performers. However, their business skills were sorely lacking. We wanted them to know basic copyright law, simple contracts, advertising, and how to promote their music. We wanted this to be included in a business and music [curriculum as] part of a university.

I researched and visited several recording schools around Texas, in Houston, Dallas and Lubbock. We then put together a proposal and began going to local schools. We visited the University of Texas at Austin, Concordia University, St. Edwards University, and Texas State University in San Marcos. Sounds interesting, but no takers. Finally we found interest at Austin Community College. We formed a working committee made up of Austin music business and performers as well as ACC staff. We worked on the project for three years. Finally, ACC granted us one trial class called Music Marketing. Our advisory group met after a week and the ACC staff came in and asked if we had any interest. The class of 12 had 37 signups. We were on our way. I taught music marketing for a while. Today, ACC has a full recording studio complex. It is [part of] the music department; however, it does provide all the business courses we wanted [to implement].

One other unrelated surprise. Chris likes hot air balloons. So, I [signed her up for] a class at Austin Community College about crewing for hot air balloons. I videotaped the class. The instructor had catered our wedding, and asked that we produce a hot air balloon crew training video with him. We did, and for 30 years it has been the video used for training new crews at events around the world. Additionally, Chris and I [have] videotaped ballooning events from Austin to Baltimore, Andrews Air Force Base, Mexico and England. One of us would ride in a balloon, and the other with the ground crew.

JIA: What kind of activities have you been involved in as a museum curator and collector?

MT: I’ve continued my active memberships in the Audio Engineering Society and The Recording Academy, and we joined the Austin Museum Partnership. We’ve attended all the Texas Chapter Grammy events and have met with the Austin Museum Partnership. We were always promoting the prospects of a museum.

JIA: What would be the ideal team size to run an organization like a full-on museum of recording?

MT: We hoped to [have] 10 full-time, plus some part-time staff. The staff for the proposed non-profit museum included a director, an assistant director, two studio manager/engineers, a stage manager, an accounting/business officer, an advertising/promotion person, a workshop restoration staff, two or more tour guides, a receptionist, and other support staff.

JIA: How demanding is it in terms of capital, both in acquiring the machines and in maintaining them, keep everything running and keeping the team going?

MT: This past week, we met Margaret Koch, the Bullock Texas State History Museum director, for a tour of their current traveling guitar display. The coronavirus hit them hard. However, they were able to place staff on emergency leave, so no one lost their jobs. She talked about the challenges of keeping [exhibit items] rotated, and creating events to keep folks coming back to the museum. The Bullock has significant donors, as well as State funding. As we were initiating our quest [to establish a] museum in 2012, Margaret showed us their open space on their third floor and I salivated. She considered taking on more of our displays (we had already provided some recorders and hardware for their exhibits); however, the Bullock’s curator came out, went through our collection and said, one, our items were too big for their displays; and two, only the Ampex 200a [recorder that] had ties to [the band] Asleep At the Wheel [had any] potential visitor attraction. The Bullock instead converted [one of] their theaters into a history of the Austin City Limits show, and displayed historical artifacts from Texas musicians.

Acquiring the recorders [in our collection] was a matter of watching eBay and following forums, plus following up on leads and offers. Chris and I have both talked about how lucky it is that we started the collection when we did [when it was easier to find things]. Prices and availability have definitely changed. Plus, [higher] shipping [costs] now impacts all the buys and sales.

Interestingly, 3-D-printed parts have provided a new resource; previously [we were] dependent on eBay, Craigslist, Goodwill, or Reverb [to obtain certain parts]. There is [also a company called] Terry’s Rubber Rollers. Terry rebuilds tape recorder rollers, and they’re excellent. Often, I have sourced parts by purchasing less-desirable units that had the needed parts intact, [and using them as donors].

Then, regular exercise (running the recorders from time to time) is truly the key to keeping them healthy. Some will always be on point, like the Berlant Concertone, [and our] Otari, Ampex, Studer and mostly Teac [models]. Teac dominates the hits on our website, and there are [in general, also] more parts available for the Teac TASCAM machines.

JIA: What are the potential sources of income if one wanted to get involved in such an endeavor? 

MT: I’m not sure there is a profit to be made. As I built the collection, I was able to upgrade regularly, and in almost every case, sell the old model for enough [money] to replace it, which was very lucky when I think back. Interestingly, some of our most profitable sales were of the Calrad 1960s mics that originally sold for around five or six dollars each. We sold them to all sorts of folks like The Tony Danza Show, theaters, and just folks who wanted to display them. In fact, we have a web page of Calrad mic sightings. For a while, we were buying the mics for under $25 and selling them for up to $350. [At one point] Chris said, “boy, I wish we had a whole crate of them.” Sure enough, along came an electronics store [that was] going out of business, and we bought all of them. I wouldn’t want that to be a museum’s [sole] income stream, [however]!

JIA: Looking back over the years, has it been a satisfying experience? Would you say it has served its purpose?

MT: We know that we seriously raised awareness of the reel to reel tape recorder. We have an e-mail list of several thousand folks. The DVD set [we produced] sold well and its now downloadable from our website. Folks from all over the world visit our sites every day. They’ve also participated in many surveys we’ve released as we tried to gauge folks’ interest in a permanent museum.

Would I do it again? Probably! However, go in with less-rose-colored glasses. But maybe it was better to believe it was going to happen than [to] have reservations.

JIA: What are your hopes for the future of your own collection and of magnetic sound recording technology in general? 

MT: After the dissolution of the non-profit [The MOMSR began in 1998 and was run as a non-profit from 2012 through 2017 – Ed.], I decided to regroup and downsize the collection to the items I believed to be most relevant to the development of magnetic tape recorders. This dropped the collection from about 225 to 115 [pieces], plus the 100 mics, many mixers and other accessories. It also opened up our space to improve the displays and have only the best available for tours.

The board [of the non-profit] had voted to transfer the name Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording to Chris and me, so there would be continuity.

So, my “to dos” are:
1. Update the 10-year-old video series about the collection.
2. Sort and add a couple of thousand photos [that are] pending addition to our website.
3. Organize all the donated archive documents. My hope is to source a repository for the printed material. I’ve had one recommendation for the Smithsonian. It seems more logical, [however, for the materials] to be in a technology or music museum. The Ampex archives went to Stanford [University in California], and are only available to researchers.
4. Return to providing limited private tours to the existing collection until I’m no longer able. Then I anticipate we’d sell or donate the collection to another collector.

On a hopeful note, I [recently] received a comment on one of my YouTube postings, Part Three of our series on reel to reel tape recorders. It said, “my mother was told a while ago these [recorders] were only going to increase in value, and they have, so she bought a couple of them [that] she keeps as a sort of nest egg.”

If someone’s mom is investing in reel-to-reel tape recorders, that’s a very positive sign for sure – depending on what she bought! 🙂

Cheers!

Header image: Across the top: Webcor Squire recorder; Roberts 770X; Tape-Athon Model 7210 background music tape player; Second row: Sony TC-630 and 1954 Berlant Concertone 20/20 recorders. Third row: Ampex 602-1, Akai Terecorder; Roberts Duet recorder with matching amp/speaker. Far right: Tandberg 3500X; below it is a Marantz 5420 cassette deck and a Nagra III machine. The mics are from Shure and Sennheiser.

“Greetings, funky friends.”

So began a recent email announcing the latest release from one of my favorite music labels, Analog Africa. Launched in 2007, AA has so far produced 44 ear-opening reissues and compilations of rare and little-known music from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. As the name suggests, the label’s catalog is mostly focused on Africa, but there are also several titles from South America.

Analog Africa is based in Frankfurt, Germany, home of the label’s founder and owner, Samy Ben Redjeb (SBR). Originally from Tunisia, SBR developed his ear for funky dance music while DJing in Dakar, Senegal. As his collection of African music grew, he found that the rawer styles he preferred weren’t always so popular with the disco crowd. Later, during a stint as a flight attendant for Lufthansa, he made about a thousand trips to various African cities, using his free time during layovers to hunt for records.

Some Western listeners have been introduced to African music from countries like Mali and Nigeria through international superstars like Salif Keita and Fela Kuti. But many other nations have deep music scenes that are still relatively unknown. AA has focused on the music of those countries, including Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso, among others.

SBR personally chooses every cut on every Analog Africa compilation. When assembling a compilation he may listen to 1,000 tracks or more in order to end up with 14 or so keepers. He gradually whittles down the number of tracks to a few dozen candidates, then listens to them again and again over the course of months, gradually discarding the ones he tires of. Once he decides on the final track selection, sequencing them for optimal flow can take several more months.

Besides going to great lengths to gather the choicest cuts, and ensuring that these less-than-pristine sources sound their best, AA consistently provides deluxe packaging, including liner notes that may run to 40 pages or more. These booklets don’t include song lyrics, which nearly always aren’t in English. Nor will you find technical specs on the recording process or equipment used. What you will find are Samy Ben Redjeb’s personal stories of how each recording came to be, fleshed out with interviews with musicians and producers, plus loads of great photos.

With a name like Analog Africa, you’d expect the label to be vinyl-focused, but that’s not necessarily the case. The recordings are virtually all-analog, but the music is digitized prior to re-mastering. Each release is initially available as an LP, CD, or digital download (check out AA’s Bandcamp page). Some LP titles are pressed on audiophile-approved 180-gram vinyl, while others get more typical 140-gram vinyl.

Samy Ben Redjeb himself has said that the CD and vinyl versions usually sound very close, and that he sometimes prefers the CDs for their more detailed sound. I’ve only purchased CD versions so far, and played through my current DAC – the Benchmark DAC3 HGC – they sound clean, clear, and dynamic. If you’re on the fence, one reason to consider vinyl is that the format provides a bigger canvas for Analog Africa’s cool, colorful artwork.

I’d been hosting a world music radio show for a few years before I discovered Analog Africa, and when I did, it was a real revelation. I’d simply had no idea that this type of music was being made during this time period, in these places. I return to AA’s compilations often, both for radio play and for listening at home. Although it’s been decades since these tracks were originally laid down, they always sound fresh, funky, and fun!

Every Analog Africa compilation is packed with groovy tunes, but if you’re wondering where to start, I’d suggest Afro-Beat Airways. You might associate Afrobeat with the pioneer of the genre, the late Fela Kuti, but much of Afro-Beat Airways doesn’t feature his slow-burn style. The selection here, by the Togolese band Orchestre Abass, sounds like it owes as much to Bo Diddley as to Fela. What stands out to me is the raw energy that infuses this and every other cut on this compilation.

Awula Bo Fee Ene (Orchestre Abass):

AA is mainly known for its collections that feature several bands representing certain musical styles. But their catalog also includes titles showcasing a single artist or band. For Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, a band hailing from Cotonou, Benin, Analog Africa actually released three CDs culled from dusty cartons of vinyl and master tapes that SBR found in a warehouse. Echos Hypnotiques is volume two of the three, and probably my favorite for its consistency. This is one of the greatest African bands ever!

Mi Ve Wa Se:

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa with a diverse music scene that draws influences from neighboring countries like Mali, Ivory Coast, and Ghana. The jangly guitar and upbeat pop energy of “Rog Mik Africa” make it a bit of an outlier in AA’s Bambara Mystic Soul compilation.

Rog Mik Africa (Orchestre CVD):

Amara Toure first made his name as the lead singer and percussionist for Le Star Band de Dakar, who helped popularize Afro-Cuban music in Senegal in the late 1950s and early 1960s. After 10 years with the Star Band, he cut records with two other Afro-Cuban groups: L’Ensemble Black & White in Cameroon, and L’Orchestre Massako in Gabon. The AA release Amara Toure collects music from his Cameroon and Gabon periods.  These atmospheric songs make for great late night listening.

Lamento Cubano (with L’Ensemble Black & White):

Here’s a link to a Spotify playlist featuring music from Analog Africa:

Header image of Samy Ben Redjeb from the Analog Africa website.

Returning after a long absence, Contributing Editor Ken Kessler – who started with Copper Issue 2 – provides us with a cautionary study of the open-reel tape revival, an addiction that has him listening to Percy Faith, Don Ho and Mantovani…without irony.

Header image: Solomon Kessler in 1957 with his Voice of Music tape recorder, home-built mixer and Columbia record player.

Along with many mainstream audio publications and websites, Copper – in fact, more than most – has actively acknowledged and supported the revival in open-reel tape. Its contributors have dug deep into rare transports, undertaken interviews with producers of the period, dissected microphone quality, and examined other issues. What begs further investigation, especially when the format’s observers are bold enough to mention it in the same breath as the vinyl or cassette revivals, is the fundamental difference: open-reel tape is, for all intents and purposes, dead to domestic consumers. For that, read, “audiophiles of normal means.”

Let me back up a bit because I am as guilty as any reel-to-reel devotee in touting the format’s merits, and for home use – not just analogue-oriented studios. I have become a tape obsessive, acquiring eight decks and over 2,200 commercial pre-recorded tapes in three years. (Yes, two thousand, two hundred.) At the same time, however, I have consistently stressed that open-reel tape can never return on a commercially viable level, as have LPs or cassettes, because, unlike those formats, it is not supported by affordable hardware nor pre-recorded media. We’ll get to the current offerings of both shortly, but bear with me.

Where the formats diverge, then, is simple availability-cum-accessibility, especially for those who prefer new hardware and media over second-hand. Any veteran will tell you that a format succeeds or fails strictly according to the scale of the support of the music labels, and that applies, too, after the format has passed its commercial peak, e.g. CD may be on the decline, but go to your preferred store or site and check out this season’s costly CD box sets.

LPs and cassettes were never truly dead because at no point after CD arrived were LPs totally out of production, nor were cartridges, tonearms and turntables. Name any date post-1983 and you could still buy a brand-new record deck and fresh LPs, while the second-hand markets for both remain massive. Cassettes may have been less well-served since the 1990s, but you can still buy new machines as of 2021, the tapes are making a comeback, and I don’t recall a time when blank cassettes were unavailable.

Open-reel? To the best of my knowledge, Otari was the last major manufacturer of reel-to-reel machines, and it ceased production of them over a decade ago. While eBay and other online sources are full of used decks, most are over 20 years old, beaten to sh*t, most are in need of impossible-to-find spares and – as if you need proof of renewed interest – offered at ever-escalating prices.

That in itself is a testimony to strength of the reel-to-reel renaissance. A Sony TC-377 or an Akai GX-4000D which would have been easy to find for under $100 three years ago will set you back $500 for a mint example in 2021. Technics RS-1500s are rapidly exceeding the $2,000 mark. There are no fully-serviced decks on the market which say “Studer” for under $1,000. As for the big Studer 800 Series decks, the most loved of all, five figures is the norm. And I don’t even bother looking for a Crown tape deck anymore, long my holy grail machine.

As for the new decks, some of which remain apocryphal so far, the primary example is the very-much-genuine Ballfinger from Germany. While you can configure it any way you like – and its target clients are mainly professionals, or the sort of consumer prepared to pay $450 for a single reel-to-reel recording – the cost of entry is above €15,000. The Thorens playback-only version of the Ballfinger announced at the last Munich High End Show (pre-COVID-19) will sell for €12,000. And it’s 2-track only, which tells you what tapes it expects to be fed.

What to Play?

Which brings us to the current pre-recorded tape situation, and which begs the question: why would anyone even investigate a return to reel-to-reel? The obvious answer is sound quality, but here I will reserve opinion on an underground cult which argues that copying an LP to tape results in a better-sounding recording. Let’s not go there. Home or live recording are separate issues, and not the reasons I got into open-reel tape. For me, it’s all about playback.

That means pre-recorded tapes – both new and old, and I care only about the latter. For everyone else, the suppliers are those bold enough to produce both brand-new or reissued recordings, priced at the top of the scale. Blessedly, in a recent issue of The Absolute Sound (October 2021, Issue 320), Jonathan Valin manfully, nay, heroically compiled the most comprehensive list I have seen yet of currently-available pre-recorded open-reel tapes.

His list included The Tape Project, Foné, STS, Hemiola, Chasing the Dragon, and many others, which I dutifully counted for you, reaching around 600 titles. With precious few exceptions, the tapes are 1) 15 ips, 1/2-track recordings on 10-inch spools, for maximum fidelity, and 2) sell for anything between $250 – $700 each. Think about the latter figure: that’ll buy you four Mobile Fidelity One-Step LPs if you need context.

At the risk of getting skinned alive, I have to point out that around half the titles JV listed are only of interest to people who are pre-disposed toward stilted performances reminiscent of 1980s audiophile LPs, mainly by musicians of whom you’ve never heard. Sorry to be so negative, but for $500, I want nothing less than Ohio Express – at least I know what I am getting. Fortunately, the other half of the available tapes, e.g. titles from The Tape Project, are well-known releases from star musicians. It’s obvious, though, that buying current pre-recorded tapes is as restrictive in financial terms as is buying a new machine. And as sonically superb as these tapes are, the repertoire remains severely limited.

On the Road to eBay

Before regaling you with tales of how I got a copy of Casino Royale on reel-to-reel tape, and why I have over 30 tapes of Hawaiian music, some personal history. Long before I attended kindergarten, I was au fait with open-reel because my father was a tape enthusiast in the 1950s. He was never what we would call an audiophile and was unimpressed when his son committed himself to hi-fi separates at the age of 16. His schtick in the previous decade was swapping tapes with English enthusiasts, much as there once were pen pals.

As I understand it, LPs were way out of reach to the average impoverished Englishman in the 1950s, as post-war rationing continued in Great Britain until mid-1954. Imports were taxed prohibitively to protect local manufacturing, and the country survived on exports. According to one source, 95% of all the sports cars produced in England – Triumphs, MGs, Austin-Healeys, Sunbeam Alpines, Jaguars, etc., etc. – went to the USA.

What my father swapped were big band recordings (he was a Glenn Miller fanatic) and I inherited his massive mono Voice of Music 700 Series recorder when he lost interest. I used it to record radio programs in the 1960s – live Rolling Stones, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, etc. – but the tapes are long gone. I next used open-reel tape a few times to record live gigs in a wine bar where I worked in Canterbury, but found cassettes much easier in a crowded cellar with no safe space for a big tape deck.

After a long hiatus, some 40 years, my rediscovery of open-reel tape was inspired by the late Tim de Paravicini. Because Tim was globally-renowned for his tape deck servicing and/or hot-rodding skills, his list of clients contained two Beatles, Abbey Road Studios, at least one member of Pink Floyd, Bob Ludwig, and too many others to list.

This celebrity status in turn gave him access to tapes about which most of us can only dream. Thus, when I happened upon his room at the Tokyo High End Show in 2017 and he was playing a tape of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, I assumed that he was playing a copy off a master tape. It sounded too good to be true.

What he held up when I asked was the box of the bog-standard, 7-1/2 ips Capitol commercial pre-recorded open-reel release from circa-1970, with the blue-edge carton. I was stunned. I knew that his Denon DH-710 was a spectacular machine, and the real reason I was in the room was to hear his stacked pairs of Falcon Acoustics BBC LS3/5A speakers, but this was too unlike any of the 30-plus copies I have of that album, on every format aside from 8-track. I was absolutely gutted, wondering how I would be able to acquire a copy.

When I returned back to the UK, to my delight, I actually had a mint copy. I set up my ReVox G36, coincidentally hot-rodded by Tim, I stacked two pairs of LS3/5As and thus reproduced precisely what I had heard in Tokyo. From that exact moment onward, pre-recorded tapes became my audio raison d’être, overtaking everything else. My obsession was swiftly augmented by the few tapes I found alongside Sgt. Pepper: Aretha’s Gold and Roy Orbison’s Greatest Hits. In every instance, I was staggered by what I heard, of tapes that hadn’t been touched in decades. Sorry, Mikey, but they slaughtered the best vinyl alternatives.

I honestly cannot recall a single occurrence in my 53 years as an audiophile which so overcame my hi-fi sensibilities. At that point, I had three G36s in need of service, a couple of tape decks in storage, and maybe 10 pre-recorded tapes. I wasn’t interested in home-recorded tapes, whether copies of LPs or CDs, or even high-quality FM radio broadcasts. It was the overwhelming realization that the pre-recorded tapes from both the early specialists like Audio Fidelity, Command, Bel Canto and Everest, and the best of the major labels, especially RCA, Capitol and Columbia, delivered sound so audibly superior to LP in every way.

In Part Two, KK describes the hunt for tape decks and – crucially – decent tapes.

In rock and roll you always take the wins where you find them. Al Staehely is the only person who has both played Carnegie Hall and provided legal services for Stevie Ray Vaughan. A musician with a law degree, he headed to California like so many others with a dream to make it big. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1971, and a few months later he and his brother John were asked to join the critically-acclaimed band, Spirit. With Al as the band’s new lead vocalist, bass player, and chief songwriter – and with brother John taking over lead guitar duties from Randy California – Spirit recorded their fifth album, Feedback, in November of 1971.

When Spirit later broke up, Al and John formed the Staehely Brothers, releasing the album Sta-Hay-Lee on Epic Records in 1973. It was an album that received good reviews, but the act was short-lived. When his brother John got an offer to join Elektra Records’ act Jo Jo Gunne – a band whose albums had consistently hit the charts – Al decided it was time to go it alone.

Having written most of the songs on both Feedback and Sta-Hay-Lee, Al began focusing on his writing, getting Bobbie Gentry, Marty Balin and Keith Moon among others to cover some of his songs.

But his focus was always on securing a solo record deal. Staehely recorded more than a dozen tracks in LA between 1974 and 1978, working with a collection of first-rate musicians that included Steve Cropper, Jim Horn, Gary Mallaber, Snuffy Walden, and Pete Sears. Between sessions, Staehely headlined clubs in L.A. and New York City, opened concerts for The Moody Blues and Hot Tuna, did sessions for Keith Moon’s solo LP, and toured with Chris Hillman.

In 1980, Staehely returned to Texas and decided to make law his focus. Between 1980 and 1985, in addition to the law practice, he did two tours of Europe, and an album, Monkey Medicine, with John Cipollina and Nick Gravenites (of Quicksilver Messenger Service). He also recorded a solo album, Staehely’s Comet, released in Europe on Polygram in 1983, as well as a yet-to-be-released album produced by Andy Johns.  He didn’t totally focus on law until 1985. That led him to providing legal services to Stevie Ray Vaughan, who had been kicked off David Bowie’s Let’s Dance tour due to a dust up between managers.

This fall, Al will release solo recordings from his days in Los Angeles titled Post Spirit 1974 – 1978 Vol. 1. The initial track is “Wide Eyed and Innocent,” which is coupled with a new version of the song. We had an opportunity to speak with Al and discover some unique stories about his musical journey. From a legal perspective, we did get a point of view on perhaps the most important musical litigation of our day: Spirit versus Led Zeppelin.

Ray Chelstowski: What made you decide to tackle this project now?

Al Staehely: Well, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I have had this high-quality stuff, and for a variety of reasons it was never released. But as for why now – it’s kind of the combination of getting the right team together, and kind of, where I am in my life. If not now, then when? I knew that I could just do a “digital dump” [and put the music out there]. But I thought that this material deserved a bit more than that. Ron Stone from Gold Mountain Entertainment (who managed me when I was with Spirit and then went on to manage everyone from Bonnie Raitt to Nirvana) and I reconnected in France a few years back. We kept in touch, and I helped him with a couple of things.

I called him when I was thinking about doing this, to find out if he knew of any digital marketing people who could help me do more than just put this out there. He put me in touch with an ex-Warner [Records] guy who has his own company and [who Ron] puts all his acts with. So, I reached out to him. We spoke a few times and I called Ron back to let him know that I was going to use his guy. He said, “you know I’m a manager, don’t you?” So, everything kind of came all together. I just didn’t want my son to one day come across these tapes in big plastic boxes and wonder what to do with them.

RC: Where were these recorded and what condition were the tapes in? Did you have to remix anything?

AS: Some of these recordings were done in legendary studios like The Record Plant, engineered and produced by guys who helped make some of the biggest records of the 1970s. I had everything [the tapes] baked and transferred to digital to keep them in the best shape possible. But nothing was remixed. These were [the] 2-track mixes from back then.

RC: Were there any tapes you looked for in those boxes that you had wished you had found but didn’t?

AS: Right toward the end of Spirit, we did a couple of shows with the James Gang and Cozy Powell on drums. If anyone possibly recorded one of those shows I would love to hear it!

RC: You assembled some remarkable musicians like Steve Cropper to back you on these recordings. How did that come about?

AS: I was renting a room from my friend Austin Godsey, who was an engineer and had worked on “Sweet Home Alabama,” and with Stevie Wonder and all sorts of people. He had also worked with Cropper before. They were good friends and I met Cropper through him. This batch of recordings came after years of trying to get a solo deal. I finally got one, signed the contract and started the record. Steve Cropper, Gary Mallaber (drums, Steve Miller Band, Eddie Money, others) and Pete Sears (bass, Starship, Rod Stewart, others) became the backup band.

I had known Sears from Starship. I was one of the three people they auditioned to take Marty Balin’s place when he left Starship in 1978. In fact, Marty suggested to the band that they hire me to take his place because he liked my songs. He had never liked the way the band democratically approached song selection, where everyone would get three songs [per album]. Marty always wanted to just pick the best one, like they did with “Miracles.” They auditioned three of us, one per week. The last to go was Mickey Thomas, and of course Mickey Thomas is such a great singer that he got the gig. The other thing he had going for him is that he didn’t write his own stuff (laughs). So, he didn’t present any competition to the other members when it came to getting songs on an album.

I do have a great story about Cropper though. We were recording at the house and Cropper had this little Fender Harvard tweed amp. It was in such good condition that I thought it was a reissue. So, I asked him if it was. He said, “oh no man. Everything you’ve ever heard me do on a record is through this amp.” I asked, “Everything?” He said, “Yep, everything.” We were recording in the fall and the Santa Ana winds were blowing in. In L.A., everything wasn’t air-conditioned, especially in the hills above Studio City. It was getting really warm, so we decided to knock off for a few days. Cropper leaned his guitar up against that amp and left. Over the next few days it sat there like a shrine, and I pointed it out to everyone who came by to visit: “see over there? Everything you’ve ever heard Steve Cropper do is through that.” Interestingly enough., about six months ago I saw an interview with Cropper, and he was talking about the equipment he uses. As it turns out that amp is now in the Smithsonian.

RC: Why didn’t this material get released before?

AS: [A&R man and producer] Greg Geller had given me $5,000 to do some demos. He offered to send them to his management team in New York and if they liked it, maybe we might be able to do a solo deal. A couple of days later he called and said, “hey do you know [producer] John Boylan?” I said I did, because he had managed Linda Ronstadt. He apparently wanted to work with me on my demos, so I asked if they could send over a couple of the things he had done, just so that I could get a feel for him. They sent over a test pressing for a group that hadn’t come out yet. I listened to it. It wasn’t the kind of stuff I was doing but it was real well done. Turns out it was a test pressing for the first Boston album, which I wish I still had!

Right out of the box the Boston record was a smash. Suddenly, Boylan was having to go out and meet the band on the road. This slowed my project down quite a bit. We finally got the demos ready to be sent to New York, to Steve Popovich, who was the head of A&R at Epic [Records]. Geller told me that Popovitch had heard the tape and liked it. But before the deal could get finalized Popovich left Epic to start Cleveland International [Records] with Meat Loaf.

RC: Was it difficult to follow Randy California (lead guitarist and vocalist of Spirit, who left the band in 1972)?

AS: When I first started rehearsing with them Randy was still in the band. But he was very erratic. He’d play great one night and the next he was a completely different guy. Some of the guys told me that during the making of [the album] Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus he had been thrown off a horse. He had hit his head and that may have had an effect. Whatever it was, before our first gig he decided to leave the band. Then [the other band members] John Locke and Ed Cassidy decided to keep working.

When the band broke up the partnership agreement stated that the [Spirit] name stayed with the remaining members. So, my brother and I ended up owning the name. We did one tour of Australia and a couple of shows without any original members. Then we probably made a mistake. Randy and Cass had decided that they wanted to start playing again, so we worked out a deal that gave them back the name Spirit. We weren’t comfortable using it if they were reuniting. That’s when I learned the value of a brand name. Even though [we had] the same lead singer and so on that fans had been hearing for the last couple of years, when we didn’t have the name Spirit any longer the booking agents couldn’t get us gigs – at least ones that would get us to break even. So, The Staehely Brothers never toured. In retrospect I should have just kept the name. The way these bands are, a year or so later a bunch of the guys probably would have started coming back to the group.

RC: After you left Spirit, I read that you saw Al Jarreau play the Troubadour and thought, “If this guy doesn’t have a record deal, what am I doing here?’”

AS: When I was with Spirit and we would headline Carnegie Hall I’d think, “isn’t this great! I’m never going to have to do anything but concerts from here on out. I’ll never be back in a club.” Well I was humbled pretty quickly with the loss of a brand name. I did a few of those Monday nights at the Troubadour where you got 15 minutes to do three or four songs, and one night I did catch Al Jarreau. After hearing him sing I thought just that!

RC: This all led you back to pursue a career in law. How did you come to represent Stevie Ray Vaughan when he had been thrown off the David Bowie Let’s Dance Tour?

AS: I got the gig with Stevie through Cutter Brandenburg, who was his main roadie. He put us together. Stevie already had management, but he didn’t have a lawyer. The one thing his PR people handled well was making this look like Stevie was the one who didn’t want to do the tour. But he really did want [to get] back on. I was in Sweden at the time, and I was supposed to meet up with him for the beginning of the Bowie tour. His first album was about to come out and we were going to talk about making some sub-publishing deals for him.

I called his house from Stockholm to find out where he was staying in Brussels. Lenny (Stevie’s then-wife) answered the phone. She told me he wasn’t in Brussels; that he was there with her, and that it was best if he explained why. Stevie told me that his manager Chesley Millikin and Bowie’s manager got into it at the rehearsals in New York. Chesley wanted Stevie and Double Trouble to be the opening act on [the Bowie] tour and for whatever reason Bowie’s people didn’t want that to happen. It blew the deal. Stevie said, “if I could get on with David think I could put it back together.” I found out where [David and his people] were staying and spoke to Bowie’s manager. He said, “look, I don’t ever want to talk to Chesley Millikin again.” I responded with, “well, what if I could work it where you never have to speak to Chesley again, you just speak to me?” He said, “if we had spoken a few days ago we could have worked this out. But I already have [session guitarist] Earl Slick on a plane to rehearse and I’m not going to tell him to go home at this point.“

RC: The Spirit estate engaged in one of the highest-profile legal battles in music when they took on Led Zeppelin over whether Led Zeppelin stole the opening riff to the Spirit song “Taurus” for the opening of “Stairway to Heaven.” Do you think Led Zeppelin stole from the song “Taurus”?

AS: I don’t know. I haven’t exactly been swamped with inquiries about it. I didn’t follow the case that closely. I did talk to Randy California’s sister because I was hopeful that [the people representing Spirit] would be successful. Certainly, Led Zeppelin had a history of this kind of thing, and they certainly didn’t need the money. She told me that if they had been successful, all the money was going to go to a non-profit that Randy had put together to help buy instruments for young musicians. It’s too bad. I think they had a credible case.

Header image of Al Staehely courtesy of Hill White.

For a variety of reasons, we left in the late evening of July 27^th, 1973. The trip to Watkins Glen Grand Prix Raceway was about 265 miles. It was going to be a long drive and we planned to drive all night. One reason we left so late was that we thought traffic would be better at night. Also, my friend and business associate, Jim Kellem, had to go as part of his job. Jim worked for Creative Management Associates (CMA) and The Band was a client of the agency. Watkins Glen was remote to say the least, so CMA was happy when Jim volunteered to go and represent the agency at the event, Summer Jam at Watkins Glen.

Jim (one of the “two Jims” at CMA) was driving a Honda 750cc four-cylinder. That motorcycle had recently been introduced by Honda and to our knowledge was the only four-cylinder motorcycle available at the time. It was a beauty, smooth and quiet. Following on a Yamaha 650 cc that had a strong resemblance to a Triumph (a British motorcycle) was our late dear friend Lanny Turner from New York’s Bedford Street in the West Village, and finally, me with my two-cylinder Honda 450cc.

For the three of us the reality was, it was just an excuse to get on the open road with our bikes. Once we got on the New York State Thruway it was going to be three-lane interstate all the way, and it being nighttime, we expected to be cruising at a good speed. We were going about 70 miles per hour, a nice pace. Around 80 miles north of the city we were overtaken by four Harley Davidsons. The riders were friendly and waved at us. These guys rode Harleys, but they had no patches or outlaw memorabilia, so I deduced that they weren’t Hells Angels or any other outlaw biker club. They motioned for us to ride along, while punching their speed way up over 80 miles per hour. We happily throttled up and cruised along with our new friends.

At the next service area, we all pulled over and got acquainted. These guys were from Danbury, Connecticut and were friendly. We filled up, got sodas and got to talking. I mentioned that I was concerned about getting a speeding ticket, and they looked at each other and smiled. They told me not to worry about that and I was, “OK, really? How is that?” One of the guys said, “look, we are just regular bikers and are taking it easy.” Hmm, I thought, what does that mean? They told us they weren’t interested in anything like smoking (pot), and did not care if we were or weren’t. “Well,” I answered, “we aren’t either,” and told them our plan was mainly for drinking beer.

Then the guy said, “we are just going to the festival. We can go as fast as we want and we will not be getting any speeding tickets. We are Danbury, Connecticut police officers. When we flash our badges there will be no problems; professional courtesy.” “Oh, okay, no problem,” I said. They seemed relieved that we were cool with them. I understood that they wanted time off from being blue and in order to do that they had to go incognito.

When we left the rest stop, we were cruising around 90 mph. That was close to the top end for my bike. I was almost but not quite redlining it. This was fun, the seven of us flying along through the night with no fear of getting a speeding ticket. It was a rare experience. The funny thing was, even though we were bulletproof we never saw any police or state troopers.

By dawn of July 28^th, 1973, we were close to the Watkins Glen racetrack. The roads were clogged but that’s not a problem for motorcycles. Our new friends had tickets, and we had all-access backstage passes. They had to go into one of the entrance gates, and we said goodbye and drove on to the backstage area. I had no idea what to expect. The area was huge and in fact the Summer Jam turned out to be the biggest outdoor festival in the history of rock festivals. Even bigger than Woodstock.

The festival was bigger than planned. The feeling among some of the people and band members involved was if the crowd got to be 100,000 people that would be great.

All the bands were staying 18 miles away in a small motel in Horseheads, New York. On the 27^th they were supposed to do sound checks, but the roads were completely clogged. There were abandoned vehicles as far away as eight miles and the occupants had to walk the rest of the way.  It was an unbelievable sight, with all the deserted cars parked every which way.

The band would not be driving to the concert ground. Helicopters were hired and as they drew close, the pilot was asked to circle the site. “We wanted to soak it in and it was absolutely stunning, exhilarating and exciting to see this incredible mass of human beings,” recalled Allman Brothers keyboardist Chuck Leavell. “It was an ocean of bodies. We were all just really buzzed by the whole scene and situation.”

With our credentials we were able to drive our bikes right up to the side of the stage. It seemed like there were a thousand people in the backstage area. We put down our kick stands, parked our bikes near the stage and looked around for a beer. The grounds were already occupied as the doors…er, gates…had opened at noon the day before. There were at least a couple of hundred thousand people already there and more were piling in. At that point the gates and fences had been pulled down.

Jim went to the dressing room area and checked in with the Band. He made a point of saying hello to Robbie Robertson and the rest of the group. While Jim was doing that, Lanny and I climbed up the stairs to the big stage. As we stood on the side of the stage, we looked out over the audience. There were a lot of them and the area already looked quite crowded. A beautiful scene. I have never seen anything like that before, or since.

A sound check had been requested by Robbie Robertson but due to traffic delays it was pushed back to the next day. So, when it happened, he was surprised at the amount of people sitting in front of the stage. Sound checks aren’t usually open to the public; they are a start-and-stop situation. The band and the people doing the sound have to stop frequently in order to make adjustments. However, because of the large amount of people, the Band’s approach changed to playing complete songs as they and the crew made adjustments on the fly,. That became a forty-minute set.

The Allman Brothers also did a sound check and it was just like a live performance. They had fun with it, and it ran for about two hours. Of course, the Grateful Dead’s sound check was last, as they were going to be going on first. I didn’t watch, but it was said to be two and a half hours (no surprise there) long. Quite a few of those present said the sound checks had some of the best music performed at Watkins Glen.

“We got the short stick on who would open and who would close,” said Bob Weir, as quoted in an article written by Alan Paul, author of One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. Weir added, “As I recall, it was essentially determined by drawing cards out of a hat, because it was impossible to rank the bands. It would have been nice to have the lights, and we didn’t get them because we played in daylight. I do remember the jam at the end [of the concert] was pretty spectacularly wiggy.”

At noon and on time Bill Graham introduced the Grateful Dead by exclaiming, “From Marin County to Watkins Glen, the Grateful Dead.” They launched into “Bertha” and played about four and a half hours, until about 4:30 pm. The three of us watched the Dead for close to an hour, and then wandered around the backstage area chatting and hanging out while picking up the occasional beers and hot dogs from different dressing room areas. The Dead were on their game, and remember, it was still early in the day.

The Band had not played a gig together in a year. Nevertheless, they were on their game, even though they had had some strife due to personal issues regarding publishing rights to some of their songs, as well as substance abuse becoming more prominent. An interesting fact was that the decision to have The Band join the festival was because the promoters asked the Dead and Allmans which act they would most like to have on the bill with them. It is very unusual for acts to have that kind of say so, but the decision was unanimous.

The Band came on at close to six in the afternoon and everyone went crazy. The sea of humanity seemed to go on forever. Everybody was having a good time and things were running smoothly. The folks in attendance had come from all over the country, though mostly from the New England area.

Standing on the side of the gigantic, elevated stage structure was a good place for us to be. The viewing angle we had was great, but the sound, not so much, because we were off to the side and slightly behind the drummer and the main PA speakers. I found out later that the sound was much better out front. This was important, because many of the attendees never even got close to the stage, and I’ll have more to say about that later.

The promoters, Shelly Finkel and Jim Koplik, had hired Bill Graham to handle the staging and backstage area. Bill had a close relationship with both the Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers and the bands had pressed Finkel and Koplik to hire Bill Graham’s FM Productions to handle the details. Graham had constructed a welcoming backstage area, which Willie Perkins, the Allman Brothers’ road manager, recalls as “idyllic.” Palm trees were brought in, though I didn’t notice them. The bands each had their own trailers, and people were coming in and out of one another’s space, saying hellos, checking out each other’s digs and spontaneously having jams and hangout sessions.

The sound system, a 50,000-watt monster, was provided by Bill Graham’s FM Productions. They also provided the lights and staging. Bill’s firm had hired a New Jersey electronics company, Eventide, and at Summer Jam, they introduced a new concept to mitigate the problem created by the slow speed of sound traveling in the air.

To be continued.

Header image courtesy of Eventide Audio/A Agnello.

Many people think of Roon as a media player or media server, but it’s neither! Good thing, too, as it would be crazy to spend $120/year renting software to play music you already own, right? After reading this article, you’ll know what Roon is, why you might consider subscribing, and where and how to deploy it like a pro. This is the guide I wish I’d had when I started using Roon six years ago. Even if you’ve never heard of Roon or know nothing about it, you’ll be more of an expert than most subscribers after reading both parts of this series.

Roon Defined

The Red Book Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA) format does not include metadata (artist, album title and other information)…not even track titles. Modern CD ripping software uses a CD’s track count, song durations, and song sequence as a “fingerprint” to match a CD to one or more online metadata databases, like freedb, Music Brainz, Gracenote, and Discogs. The software populates the album, artist, and track names if there’s a match – a big timesaver versus manually having to enter these. If there’s no match, the software may upload the track names you enter to these databases, saving others the same effort. As content in these databases is mainly crowdsourced, the quality is less than perfect.

Album cover art can make navigating a music library more enjoyable, yet scanning cover art is time-consuming. Most CD ripping software uses the album title and artist to search the internet for a suitable image. Often, these images are scraped from sites like Amazon and Discogs. The software embeds album and track metadata plus cover art into each file after ripping. Traditional media players, like foobar2000, rely exclusively on this embedded metadata plus file names and folder structure to make sense of your music library and present it in a meaningful way.

Roon is different. At its core, Roon is an online music metadata service. Unlike freedb, access to the service is limited to subscribers using software Roon Labs and its partners provide. Roon identifies albums in your music library and matches them to Roon’s online metadata. Successfully identified albums appear in the Roon software with metadata enriched from Roon’s cloud service, expanding upon or overriding what may be embedded into your track files. Roon never modifies your files.

Being an online service, Roon requires an internet connection; however, as it identifies albums, Roon downloads the metadata to a database (local to your installation) for performance and resiliency. Roon’s metadata service contains material licensed from the copyright holders (the bulk of Roon Labs’ operating expenses, besides salaries). This includes high-quality album cover art, song lyrics, album reviews, artist and composer bios, and detailed, searchable album credits.

Roon is also a set of applications for interacting with your music. These applications present your music library, enriched with information from Roon’s cloud service, in a way that encourages exploration. Names of performers and composers are hyperlinked to bios, discographies, and related works. Roon also tells you about collaborators with the artist you are exploring. When integrated with a music streaming service (TIDAL or Qobuz), Roon makes album recommendations and shares new releases. Roon’s presentation is a magazine-like format that is pleasing to read without getting in the way of doing what you came there for, to play music.

Finally, Roon is an ecosystem of hundreds of compatible devices, with varying levels of support and functionality depending on the degree to which manufacturers choose to integrate. Products with “Roon Ready” certification are running code provided by Roon, with every aspect of their functionality verified to high standards. “Roon Tested” products do not run Roon software, but Roon Labs has tested them to verify interoperability. Some devices offer functionality beyond their integrations with Roon, to appeal to the broader marketplace. Unfortunately, this does not always result in the best user experience, especially when competing ecosystems are involved.

In summary, Roon is a subscription service that provides access to continually updated, licensed metadata. Roon’s applications present your music, enriched with an overlay of high-quality images and information, in a way that encourages deep exploration and engagement.

Note: I realize that what you’ve read so far may sound like an advertisement for Roon. Let me assure you that I have no commercial association with Roon Labs. They have not compensated me in any way for sharing this information. I’m just an amateur audiophile who has spent hundreds of hours interacting with a wide range of applications and services to explore and play digital music. My aim is to act as your guide, showing you the surest path to enjoying what a Roon subscription has to offer.

Why Roon Is Necessary

A Roon subscription provides no actual music…only expanded information about the music you’ve already purchased or have access to via the TIDAL and Qobuz streaming services. You can play all of this music in some fashion without Roon, so where’s the value proposition?

If your playback environment consists of a single audio system and you only have a small local music library that’s well organized, Roon offers little value. The enriched metadata overlay would improve the experience of navigating your collection and finding something interesting to play. However, the depth of associations and crosslinks will be minimal, with a library consisting of only a few hundred albums. You likely know your music well enough to quickly find what you want, without needing any advanced search, exploration, and recommendation tools. You don’t require sophisticated features to manage multiple playback environments with different capabilities and optimizations. You may not have other members of your household, each with unique preferences, using the system. I don’t want to talk you out of giving Roon a try, but if this sounds like you, Roon is unlikely to provide sufficient benefit to offset its $9.99 a month cost.

Roon starts to make sense as soon as you have a subscription to Qobuz or TIDAL. These streaming services offer access to massive libraries containing tens of millions of tracks. While they provide rudimentary navigation, exploration, and recommendation tools, there are oceans of cruft to wade through before you find that gem of an album that’s worth your time. Most people feel a bit lost when approaching a library this size, and unless you’re into hip-hop, R&B, and rap, TIDAL’s default recommendations are likely to be disappointing at best. Search for an artist in Roon, and you are presented with albums from their discography sorted in order of popularity, instead of date or name. This makes it easy to select one that you are likely to enjoy. We audiophiles know that the sound quality of albums is heavily influenced by the recording and mastering engineers and others involved with the production. Unlike the TIDAL or Qobuz apps, Roon enables you to search for albums mastered by engineers like Bernie Grundman. The 1,800 or so matching albums on TIDAL are likely to be some of the best sounding recordings you’ll find anywhere.

When your personal music library contains over a thousand albums (roughly ten thousand tracks), you’ve reached the point where Roon’s discovery, association, and navigation features begin to offer real value. You’ll learn facts about performers, composers, and albums that you didn’t know before using Roon, like how session guitarist Dean Parks appears on a surprising number of your albums. Roon will even tell you about upcoming concerts and share links to their websites so that you can support your favorite artists directly. Roon’s metadata overlay enables you to get maximal value out of the music you’ve paid for. You’ll rediscover albums you may have forgotten you own and develop a deeper appreciation for your favorites.

Although you may have one primary audio system for serious listening, most music lovers desire the ability to play music in multiple rooms in their homes. Managing many devices from various manufacturers with different capabilities gets complex quickly. Each may have its own proprietary control app and way of presenting your library. There may be no way to group zones or transfer the playback queue from one room to another. Even if you are comfortable navigating such a multi-vendor system, getting family members up to speed will be challenging. If this is you, Roon’s unified, multi-user control surface and abstraction of device capabilities will quickly become invaluable to you.

In Part Two, we’ll explore the particulars for getting the most out of a Roon-based audio system, including computer and hardware requirements, and how to configure the system and network for best performance and sound quality.

Part Two of this article appears in Issue 147. To read the article, click here.

Jay Jay French was the lead guitarist and is the business maven behind Twisted Sister, one of the world’s most successful rock bands with more than 20 million records sold. But the band had to claw their way up from less-than-humble beginnings, taking 10 years and encountering failure after failure before hitting it platinum in the early 1980s with the smash album Stay Hungry and the rock anthems “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock.”

Jay Jay’s new book, Twisted Business: Lessons from My Life In Rock ‘n’ Roll (released September 21), co-written with Steve Farber, is part memoir and part business advice book, a combination that isn’t as odd as it might seem, especially once you start reading. (Full disclosure – Jay Jay is a Copper columnist and a friend, and this isn’t a book review per se. Plus, I don’t want to give away too many spoilers.)

Frank Doris: In the first of many surprising disclosures throughout the book, you mention that the first song that made an impression on you wasn’t a rocker, but the sappy pop song “Hey Paula” by Paul and Paula. Why?

Jay Jay French: It was not only the Number One song on the WABC-AM chart that week (in 1963) but it stayed Number One for several weeks, which made me wonder why and how that happened. It really is such a nondescript ’50s doo-wop chord progression but it did the job. It hooked me on pop radio 11 months before the Beatles broke all the rules!

FD: My father, like yours, begged me not to consider becoming a rock star (my dream as a teenager and through my 20s), thinking there was no future in it and that I’d ruin my life. What was your dad’s take on it?

JJF: I doubt that my dad ever thought that I could really become a rock and roll star. Why would he? Really, what are the odds?

We had a talk about his work when I was around 10 years old. He asked me if I wanted to be a jewelry salesman like him. It was a very fleeting thought. I asked him if he made a lot of money. He told me that diamond dealers did, but he only sold gold jewelry, because there was too much danger in selling diamonds. I never forgot that warning.

A couple of months after the conversation, one of his peers, a diamond salesman, was robbed and murdered in broad daylight in Miami, and a diamond dealing rabbi in my apartment building was robbed, and I not only was a witness, but I was nearly a victim (as detailed in the book). The idea of selling jewelry was [then] out of the question for me. [After] that point we never spoke about any kind of career goals. As time went on, he became supportive, however, and he died the day Stay Hungry went platinum, although he was aware of [the album]. The last photo of him before he died, in which he is holding platinum album award, is in the book. It was a bittersweet moment for sure.

Stay Hungry has now sold about six million copies worldwide.

FD: When did you first realize you had to play guitar? Not just to be cool or meet girls, but because you had to?

JJF: My brother Jeff, who was 10 years older, played guitar. I used to watch him and was envious of the attention he got while playing. That was probably why I wanted to learn how to play.

FD: You mentioned your first good guitar was a Fender Telecaster, bought because you worshipped Mike Bloomfield. Who were some of your other early influences?

JJF: As much of a Beatles fan as I was, I never cared to own any of the instruments they had (ironically, a Gretsch White Falcon was by far the most expensive guitar I saw on 48th Street in 1966). [48 Street in Manhattan was known as “Music Row” for its many music stores where stars and professionals shopped, at places like Manny’s and Sam Ash. – Ed.] I also didn’t really want to emulate George Harrison.

Bloomfield’s playing on The Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s debut album (1965), however, sealed the deal. I had to know how and why he played the way he did. That was followed in short order by Clapton’s playing on the Blues Breakers’ debut (Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, 1966), Keith Richards’ Chuck Berry guitar riff intro to the song “Down The Road a Piece” and then Albert King’s guitar tone on “Crosscut Saw” from the Born Under a Bad Sign album.

FD: You were pretty nervy as a kid, and, well, went into drug dealing for a time. Where did you get that chutzpah and disregard for getting caught? Or, did you live in fear of being thrown in jail, beaten up, or worse? What about the moral implications? What about the fact that you might have fried your brains and those of others?

JJF: I pretty much thought that I was invincible and way too smart to get caught. I got really good at taking huge amounts of drugs purely as entertainment. I was a very lucky person and I know that!

 FD: Then, you basically quit the whole drug thing cold and went on to insist there would be no drug or alcohol use in Twisted Sister. The book goes into this in detail, but can you talk about that here?

JJF: The drug scene that tore through the New York City hippie culture in 1967 started out as “all peace and love.” [People were using] mostly psychedelics. By 1971 into 1972, heroin came on the scene and it started to take its toll with the death of many friends, either by OD’ing or [being] murdered during drug deals. I knew it was time to get out to save myself.

FD: You and I played and hung out at a lot of the same Long Island clubs in the 1970s, places like the OBI North, Hammerheads, Rumbottoms and Speaks…although I don’t remember if I ever made it to the glamorous Mr. T’s. The tri-state area circuit was quite a scene in the 1970s. What was it like in those days? And how did it affect the band when the drinking age went from 18 to 21 and disco came in?

Making the scene: Jay Jay back in the day.

Two can play that game! Your editor back in the day.

JJF: With the drinking age at 18 and the ability to make phony drivers’ licenses in school shop class, the amount of kids available to go to the bars was insane. The bars held huge numbers. Speaks in Island Park held 2,000, Detroit in Portchester held 1,500. Hammerheads in West Islip held 3,000. The Mad Hatter in Stony Brook held 1,250. The OBI East in Hampton Bays held 3,000, the Glen Island Casino held 3,000, the Soap Factory held 3,000 and the Fountain Casino held 5,000! These were all copy band bars, not professional concert halls.

This scene was unique and I don’t believe that this incredible scene will ever be replicated again.

FD: Twisted Sister had plenty of competition in other local club-circuit bands of the day like Railway and Gunn, Harlequin, Cintron, Rat Race Choir, and the Good Rats, who, especially, never got the success they deserved. Why do you think you guys make it big when the others didn’t?

JJF: The top tier tri-state bands were: Twisted Sister, The Good Rats, Zebra, Rat Race Choir, Another Pretty face, The Stanton Anderson Band, Crystal Ship, Southern Cross, and White Tiger. The Good Rats always played original music. The money a band could make at the top tier was insane and very few bands wanted to risk making the jump out of the circuit where (as far as money goes) they would have to start [again] at the bottom. Twisted Sister always knew that the events that created this scene couldn’t last indefinitely, so we always planned to take big risks and move on.

FD: Some readers may not realize what a radical concept it was for a rock band to dress in drag and wear makeup back then, although by the 1970s, glam rock and people like David Bowie and Elton John were popularizing such looks. How much crap you get for that? Or, was it the other way around?

JJF: Twisted Sister was created at the right time. We never got any pushback about how we looked; In fact, many bands that existed before us started to wear makeup just to try to keep up!

FD: MTV really changed everything, didn’t it?

JJF: MTV did change the entire music scene and we rode that wave for better…and for worse.

FD: Most people don’t know how hard it is to achieve success as a rock band, and become really good at it. You guys played thousands of dates. How physically and mentally punishing was it? And how euphoric to be on stage?

JJF: We gave it our all every night. When you play thousands of shows, whether you know it or not, you get better, I call it “the boredom of excellence.” Most people don’t get up at 4:00 am to figure skate, but the best ones do. That dedication to excellence is repeated in every endeavor that pays off, whether that means a gold medal, a leading film role, first chair at the Philharmonic, climbing the highest mountains, or making mega-selling records and tours. As far as [being] euphoric? As a professional, one strives to be great every night so that the audience gets off. If the audience goes crazy then I’ve done my job.

FD: I don’t want to give away the business framework model mentioned in the book or for you to give away the store here, but you mention things like sticking to it, learning from your mistakes, staying true to your vision, and the importance of trust. What is some advice you’d give not just to aspiring musicians, but anyone seeking to become successful?

JJF: Read the book. I give you a roadmap to understand how to turn roadblocks into pathways. Reinvention is the key to success, and I was turned down more times than a bed sheet and came back more times than Freddy Kruger and Michael Myers!

 FD: Whether you become a successful rock band or entrepreneur, what do you gain – and give up – along the way?

JJF: The price one pays for blind ambition can’t be stereotyped. Everyone handles it differently. I will say that many younger people who reach great success and fame make the mistake of thinking that the success (and money) will last forever. Wrong!

Fame is rented, never owned!

FD: Tell us about your relationship with co-author Steve Farber. And, how did you wind up becoming a motivational speaker and a business advisor?

JJF: I met Steve at a social media event in 2011. He was a guest speaker. While watching him, I said to myself, “I could do that.” That got me thinking, and Steve became my mentor in the public speaking business, which led to the development of the book. I could not have done this without his ability to hone my messages into a coherent narrative.

FD: Why do you think your band has struck gold in licensing songs for commercials and other media? And, did you ever think one of your songs would be in a dog food commercial?

JJF: Timing and the right songs got us to where we are. We have had our music in hundreds of movies, TV shows and commercials. Our music has been used in many different applications. Our position is, counter to many ’60s bands that were opposed to their music being used in commercials, is this: There are millions of songs that are out there with millions more added every year. As long as there is an outlet for our music where we can keep it in the public consciousness (as well as get paid!), we will do it. While many young people will say that they never heard of Twisted Sister, most will sing along with “We’re Not Gonna Take It!” I can live with that.

FD: The book talks a lot about what entrepreneurs and musicians should do to become successful. Looking back, what might you have done differently?

JJF: The biggest mistake we made is detailed in the book…read it!

FD: Where do you see yourself going from here?

JJF: Let me just enjoy the moment, Frank!

Thank you and all the readers of Copper.

Things Worth Remembering is the second album by pop/rock band Clandestine Amigo. Recorded in pure high-resolution Direct Stream Digital (DSD) and mastered using Octave Records’ DSDDirect Mastering process, the album finds singer/songwriter/pianist Jessica Carson, singer Giselle Collazo and the band stretching their musical and lyrical boundaries with the addition of vocalist Katie Mintle and an expanded ensemble sound. Carson noted, “when I’m writing, I usually start out with a feeling and try to find chords, music and lyrics that match that feeling. And people’s feelings and experiences are complex.”

Things Worth Remembering was recorded at Animal Lane Studios in Lyons, Colorado in pure DSD using the Sonoma recording system. It’s available as a limited-edition release of 1,000 hybrid SACD discs with the master DSD layer and a CD layer. In addition, the album can be purchased as a download bundle including DSD64, DSDDirect Mastered 192kHz/24-bit, 96kHz/24-bit and 44.1kHz/16-bit PCM. In the DSDDirect Mastered process, the mastering occurs at the same time as the mixing, thereby eliminating a generation of audio processing to maintain maximum sonic purity. Things Worth Remembering was produced by Jessica Carson, also the executive producer, with Giselle Collazo as co-producer. It was recorded and mixed by Jay Elliott and mastered by Gus Skinas.

Vocalist Katie Mintle adds a smooth, sultry element to Clandestine Amigo. “Her lead vocals really fit what the songs are trying to say,” said Carson. Mintle is featured on three tracks, “I Wish,” “Things Worth Remembering” and “Let It Be.” In addition to the core band of Jessica, Giselle, Michael Wooten (drums) and Kyle Donovan (acoustic and electric guitar), the record features guest appearances from Octave Records artists Gabriel Mervine (trumpet), Bradley Morse (upright and electric bass), Tom Amend (organ, flute), Jonathan Sadler (vibraphone), Eben Grace (pedal steel) and Jay Elliott (tambourine).

Jessica recorded her piano parts on a Yamaha 7-1/2-foot concert grand piano and the basic tracks were recorded live in the studio using a Sonoma digital audio workstation (DAW) in pure one-bit DSD. A variety of Neumann, Coles, Sennheiser, AKG and other mics were used, including a C24 custom-modified by Tim de Paravicini, along with Manley, Forsell, Grace Design, Summit Audio and Neve mic preamps. The result is a warm yet detailed, spacious yet inviting recording.We interviewed Jessica Carson about the making of the album…and went off on a few tangents.

Frank Doris: The album’s lyrics and themes seem a little darker than the last Clandestine Amigo album, Temporary Circumstances. I also get a feeling that you appreciate what you have in life more now, and want to hang on to it.

Jessica Carson: These songs are actually two or three years old. The album kind of built over time. There are songs that are in the same vein as Temporary Circumstances, but this is an album that has a sense of closure on those earlier songs.

FD: You used a lot of other Octave Records artists on the album. For example, Gabriel Mervine’s trumpet solo on “Stay” is just gorgeous. How did that come about?

JC: A huge part of my job [as a producer] at Octave is bringing in artists, and since I now know all these amazing musicians, I thought, why wouldn’t I bring them in and make this album shine? Also, I knew I wanted it to sound a little more “produced” than the last one.

FD: How did you find Katie Mintle, and what made you decide to hand over the mic to her for lead on three of the songs?

JC: I found Katie on Instagram! I saw her and thought, wow, this woman has such a beautiful voice, a smooth kind of sultry voice that really lends itself to jazz. We met, and hit it off. I feel like she really gets it, especially for the more emotional kind of softer songs.

FD: I feel like the music is something Dionne Warwick or Dusty Springfield would do. How do you come up with the chord changes and melodies? You’re not just banging out C, F and G.

JC: If a chord progression takes me by surprise, I like it. When I’m writing, usually I start out with a feeling and try to find a chord progression that matches that feeling. Then I’m able to start getting lyrics that describe my state of mind or the experience that I’m trying to process.

People’s feelings and experiences are complex. Humans are complex creatures. So, finding a chord progression that expresses that complexity is really what I go after.

FD: With a lot of songwriters, the lyrics come first, or a title or an idea.

JC: There’s no wrong way to write a song.

FD: Some of the images in the lyrics jumped out at me. “I need to learn how to walk, ’cause I know I can’t run forever,” from the song “Run Forever.” Where’d that come from?

JC: I have a tendency to think way too far ahead. I’ll running be so far ahead in my mind that I can drive myself crazy with trying to [solve] problems that are really not relevant in the present moment. I was seeing this big life change on the horizon, and was trying to figure everything out and solve everything [about it] overnight, and just realized, you know, I can’t predict the future. I need to learn to mentally slow down and appreciate the moment that’s right in front of me. Then I could be a much more peaceful person, you know?

FD: “Doubt inhales me like a cigarette.” (“The Over-Thinker”). Leonard Cohen would be tipping his fedora to you for that one.

JC: I do like to play with imagery. There’s something that feels very nostalgic about watching somebody smoke a cigarette in the rain. I know it’s bad for you. But there’s something about seeing the end of it burn. That feeling of being sucked in.

FD: It’s a reversal. You’re not inhaling the cigarette; the doubt is burning you up.

JC: This tendency to overthink things and jump way too far ahead is a [recurring] theme [on the album]. That’s why [there’s also a song about] finding a place where I can just let it go!

FD: The album sounds very “finished” and “produced.” How was it made?

JC: I do a lot of pre-production, especially with our drummer, Michael Wooten, who is kind of the foundation. He and I will get together and play for hours and hours and get tight before we bring anybody else in. Then, when I get into a studio, if we have to do more than three takes on something, I’ll just move on and come back to it later.

We did the basic tracks live. Michael Wooten and I played live together and Brad Morris, the bass player, was in an isolation booth, just to have a little bit of separation. Katie was in another room and sang all the songs while we recorded. Everything else was overdubbed later.

FD: How about the line from the title track, “when I die, I hope to leave a black hole and the people that shared my love will pull towards each other.”

JC: When we lose somebody, when that light goes out, there’s a hole left. And all the people that cared about them turn their attention, whether it’s a day or a month or for the rest of their lives, toward the hole that was left, and [then] there’s nothing to be found except for the other people who also loved that person.

And the best thing that could happen is that the people that I loved, that shared love with me, all find each other and remember the best parts about me, or someone [who they’ve lost]. And those parts will live on in those people.

Every piece of you turns into something else.

FD: You’ll give life to something; your molecules will be reinstated somehow. I didn’t think we were gonna get this profound! Maybe this album will inspire people to think about these things more deeply.

JC: We should think about these things because when we don’t, we ignore the facts of life. [We] should be grateful and should appreciate every day that [we] get to have with the people that we love.

Click here to order Things Worth Remembering by Clandestine Amigo.

The first installments of this series appeared in Issues 143, 144 and 145.

It was well after midnight by the time I staggered back from downtown Spearfish. I had a hard time locating my campsite. That’s because I was looking for the wrong thing. Instead of seeking a large site with a single tent, I should have been looking for a tent city surrounded by Hogs and an ugly yellow school bus.

The renegades had found me.

It was after 2 am and they were all asleep. I crawled into my sleeping bag shaking my head. Guess I was stuck with these guys.

The next morning, I was wakened by someone shaking my tent. Chip announced, “Breakfast is ready.” Boy, was I ready for that. On opening the zipper, he was sitting at the picnic table smoking a fat joint. He held it out to me as if I could reach it: “Breakfast!”

It was windy. As the summer sun warms the prairies, the heated air rises and drags in cooler air from the west. The mature oak trees surrounding us rustled under the strain. Candy was almost blown over from a blast as she walked towards us.

Suddenly, there was a thunderous, earthshaking crash. Candy screamed. Others screamed. I thought a plane had been blown into the ground. We looked to the source of the racket. A giant branch had split off from one of the trees and crashed with the bottom end still attached at the base. The rest of it was laying across a row of Harleys parked near the road. It was hard to see the damage as everything was covered in a mountain of leaves the size of a semi-trailer. Startled people were crawling out of their tents around the periphery. They told us no tents were trapped underneath. Some riders immediately started digging through the fallen forest to see if they still had a means of transport. Others threw their arms up in despair and headed to town for breakfast.

No one seemed hurt, but that didn’t comfort the owners of the crushed bikes. There was a lot of swearing and lamenting. A few minutes later, an ambulance blared into the park. After an hour assessing the scene, it left without taking anyone to the hospital. Shortly afterwards, a city crew arrived and started cutting away the branches under the supervision of the bikers. They were especially empathetic and did their best to free the bikes without further damage.

Then, as if he could smell the business, a lawyer rode in on an overdressed bagger. His name was Russ Brown. He parked in the middle of the action and started taking photos. The city crew asked him to move his bike out of the way. Instead, he handed them his business card. Then he walked over to everyone standing around and did likewise. He assured the victims not to worry, that he’d take care of everything. I learned months later that he’d succeeded in getting them (and himself) well-compensated.

When I got back to my campsite, the renegades were happy to see me and thanked me for letting them share my campsite (I didn’t recall being asked). We all strolled to the town’s main street for breakfast. Candy grabbed my hand; perhaps that was her way of thanking me. Chip was right next to her so I felt safe.

We commandeered the whole balcony of a corner restaurant, watched the endless parade of roaring bikes roll by, and shared stories. They enjoyed hearing about my experiences with the Boy Scout troop at Devils Tower.

Gimp hobbled in shortly afterwards and sat across from me. He was the driver of the ugly school bus, and Tina was his devoted girlfriend. The first thing she said was, “Nothing better after a natural catastrophe than a country breakfast.” Everyone laughed.

We got to talking and I asked Gimp about the damage to his leg. He told me a story about a drunk driver who had turned left in front of him. He spared me most of the ugly details, except for the extraordinary lengths the surgeons employed to save his leg. When he finished his harrowing story, I commented, “I’m sorry you’re the victim of such a mindless…”

“I’m not a victim,” he interrupted. “Victims are angry people who blame others for their problems. I’m not one of those. I knew the risks before I chose to ride. It just so happened that my number came up. I could just as easily have been laid low by a mishap in some other sport, or in some other type of vehicle, or from a fall in the bathtub!

“I love your attitude man.”

His continued, “I refuse to assume a plantation mentality. I’ll continue to be in control of my life just as I was before, to enjoy life as much as possible.”

Tina cut in, “Gimp believes that self-pity is addictive. Once you get sucked in, it controls you. That’s the default position. Gimp has to screw up the courage and resolution to fight it every day. I really admire him for it.”

I admired Tina for her insight and commitment. She reminded me that, other than health, there is no greater resource in life than a devoted partner.

There was a stop sign at the intersection next to the restaurant. Every once in a while, a pair of riders who happened to arrive simultaneously would drag race spontaneously, with lots of noise and smoke. Everyone cheered. After a few of these incidents, one racer lost control and almost plowed into a row of parked bikes. Before he even came to a full stop, police rushed out from nowhere to surround and handcuff him. He was hauled off and his bike was impounded.

That’s good policing, I thought. Punish the excess, not the behavior.

There wasn’t a lot of drag racing in Spearfish for the rest of the day. The renegades and I strolled the main street for a couple of hours, gawking at all the bikes and talking to their owners. They all had lots to say.

The day was too hot for comfort by the time we got back to the campground. One of the renegades’ lieutenants opened the back door of the ugly school bus. The other one pulled out a ramp, and soon a Harley three-wheeler was rolled onto the grass.

“Thanks a lot guys,” Gimp said as he arrived.

“All right, let’s gear up!” Chip commanded. I had no idea where they were going, but I was ready for a nap.

One of the two lieutenants, Spider, intercepted me and urged me to gear up too. “There’s a spectacular swimming hole not far from here,” he said. “It’s a great way to cool off. You should join us.”

I hemmed and hawed. I was still suffering from the night before and it just felt too hot to fight inertia.

“Dude, Candy will be swimming au naturel.”

Inertia be dammed.

The swimming hole was north of Belle Fourche, only 45 minutes from the campground. We had to ride a half mile of yellow dirt through rolling dunes to get to the river. It was a beautiful spot in a wooded gorge, with car-sized boulders scattered about. Soon, stripped renegades were making a beeline for the cooling waters. Unlike them, Candy looked as good unwrapped as wrapped. It wasn’t long before I was next to her in the river.

Sign commemorating a point 20 miles north of Belle Fourche, South Dakota as the geographic center of the United States. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/48states at English Wikipedia.

 

Red, the guy whose bike I’d fixed on top of the Big Horn Mountains, jumped in with all his clothes.

“He bashful?” I asked.

“Nah, he’s doing his laundry.” Candy responded.

“He ought to ride his bike in,” I remarked.

Everyone who heard that broke out laughing. We were having a good time.

Spider and I floated downstream on our backs for a few hundred yards. We didn’t know where the current would take us, but it was a joy relishing the high, sandstone bluffs and tall trees overhanging the river. After a few minutes, the trees opened up to expose another swimming hole. This one had a large beach. Adjacent to it was a green lawn, picnic tables, brick restrooms, and a paved parking lot with a bus labeled Rapid City Covenant Church. The place was littered with children.

We quickly dove underwater so they wouldn’t spot us, and splashed our naked butts back to our pool in the eighth circle of hell as fast as we could. I’d never held my breath for so long.

Courtesy of Pexels/Abhishek Sanga.

 

When we got there, beer coolers and munchies were set out on blankets under a tree. Spider and I were laughing like juvenile delinquents as we related our naughty story. Everyone laughed heartily.

Spider had a lot of questions about my bike, and seemed genuinely interested in BMWs.

As the midday heat passed, it was time to head back to Spearfish. While gearing up, Spider insisted on riding my bike the half mile to the pavement, “just to see what it feels like.”

I insisted he wouldn’t.

He swore that if anything went wrong, he’d pay for it. And he’d let me ride his bike, which was a nice, late-model Low Rider.

Chip assured me that Spider was an experienced rider, and that if anything should go wrong, he was “good for it.”

“Only to the pavement!” I emphasized, “then we swap back.”

I got on his lumbering Harley and followed Chip and Candy to the pavement. When we got there, Gimp and all the other guys pulled up behind us, but Spider was nowhere to be seen. A moment or two later, we turned around and headed back to look for him.

We found my BMW laying on its side with a crushed fairing and tail section. Spider was leaned over a fallen tree trying to catch his breath.

To be continued.

Editor’s Note: we are aware that “gimp” can have a derogatory meaning and mean no insult to anyone disabled. In the story, the person with that nickname doesn’t consider it as such, and we present the story in that context.

Header image: woman on her way to Sturgis, South Dakota. Courtesy of sturgismotorcyclerally.com.

If Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683 – 1764) had not embarked on a new aspect of his musical career in middle age, the world would be deprived of some very fine operas. Already a famous music theorist, he turned his attention to writing operas in his late 40s, eclipsing the glory of national favorite Jean-Baptiste Lully as a craftsman of opera in French.

It wasn’t an easy handoff of power. Lully, from two generations before, was still so revered in Paris that his proponents were known for entering into shouting matches, and occasionally fist fights, to defend him from the pro-Rameau crowd. You can read more about Lully in my recent Copper piece in Issue 148. The only thing that brought the two sides together was the growing prominence of Italian opera, which was threatening to oust French works even from Paris theaters.

Rameau’s sound differs from Lully’s mainly in his use of harmony, both in terms of which chords Rameau chooses, and the way he makes those chords obvious and rhythmically prominent rather than obscuring them in a contrapuntal texture. One mark of a good Rameau performance is the acknowledgment of that essential fact while incorporating musical subtlety and avoiding an overly weighted sound.

The opera Dardanus was first performed at the Paris Opéra in 1738. A new recording of Rameau’s 1744 revision was recently released on the Glossa label with György Vashegyi conducting the Orfeo Orchestra and the Purcell Choir. With a story inspired by Greek mythology, the demi-god Dardanus (Cyrille Dubois) goes to war with King Teucer (Thomas Dolié) but falls in love with his daughter, Iphise (Judith van Wanroij). You’ll be relieved to hear that, despite the opera being categorized as a tragédie lyrique, it has a happy ending.

Van Wanroij, a Dutch soprano, has a powerful voice with layers of depth. Here she sings “Régnez, plaisirs, régnez” from the Act I Prologue. Vashegyi leads the orchestra with fluid grace, so the metrical block chords never overwhelm the forward motion of the phrases.

The Hungarian-based Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir are part of the same organization and both under Vashegyi’s direction. As has been true since the invention of opera, the chorus is at least as important as the soloists in telling the opera’s story. The way a composer handles the chorus determines our sympathy toward the main characters. The way a conductor handles the chorus determines our sympathy toward the composer’s work.

Rameau has a staunch advocate in Vashegyi and the Purcell Choir. This excerpt from Act V, Scene 5, “Que vos flambeaux éclairent nos rivages,” shows off the singers’ serene virtuosity as they circumvent melismas worthy of a Handel oratorio.

Dardanus also gets some attention on a new recording by the L’Orfeo Barockorchester (not related to the Orfeo Orchestra), on the CPO label. The performance, conducted by the orchestra’s founder, Michi Gaigg, includes excerpts both from Dardanus and the slightly later Pigmalion. Gaigg, who is also a baroque violinist, conducts under the noticeable influence of her late mentor, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, pulling a bright, energetic sound from the orchestra.

The singer of the opera excerpts is Swedish tenor Anders J. Dahlin, with a lithe and passionate voice that matches well with Gaigg’s purposefully edgy rhythms. A good example is this aria from Dardanus, “Hatons-nous, courons a la gloire.”

On the other hand, both Gaigg and Dahlin can switch into mournful gear when needed. However, while Dahlin’s expressivity is always moving, there are moments when his ornaments seem over-hasty. Here is the aria “Fatal amour” from Pigmalion, a version of the beloved Greek myth about a sculptor who falls for his own artwork. Dahlin has a “mixed voice,” one that can move from a chesty, almost baritone sound to a floating head voice that brings him into countertenor range. It’s ideal for French baroque music.

Rameau wrote 15 different versions of his very successful opera Les indes galantes, important in music history as the first time Rameau tried the old Lully style of using a lot of ballet in an opera. It’s more a series of love tales than a single opera, set in exotic locales like Turkey, Peru, Arabia, and (ha!) America. The title refers to “the Indies,” a vague geographical concept of non-European lands.

In a new live recording from the Chateau Versailles label, Valentin Tournet conducts the instruments and voices of La Chapelle Harmonique. Emmanuelle de Negri, who has worked with many top early-music groups like Les Arts Florissants, lends her smooth, focused soprano to several roles. Philippe Talbot, as the male love interest in the tales, is best known for late 19th-century light tenor parts, yet his clear and delicate voice brings out the intricacies of Baroque writing.

Although the performance is available only as a CD and is apparently not streaming anywhere (quite unusual these days), this choral excerpt gives a taste of its intensity. You’ll notice the crashing sounds, made by striking a thin sheet of metal, to represent a stormy sea. The theatricality is immediate and thrilling, helped by Tournet’s tight control that lets just enough wildness emanate from the chorus.

Composing an opera is not just about writing great recitatives, arias, and choruses. Rameau was equally skilled at crafting orchestral movements for his theatrical works, and some of those have been collected in a recent recording on Glossa by the Orchestra of the 18th Century. Frans Brüggen leads the ensemble in instrumental suites excerpted from two of Rameau’s operas, Les fêtes d’Hébé and Acante et Céphise, both laden with enough dances to be called ballet-operas.

A surprising takeaway from Brüggen’s relaxed yet royal rhythmic interpretations is how forward-looking these pieces sound if played in this way. While Rameau himself was in effect reaching back to Lully to create these dance-laden operas, he was also a man of his time; the pre-Classical galant style was beginning to blossom in Europe, and even an aging music theorist was not immune to its charms when he put pen to paper.

Isaac Hayes had an inauspicious start. Born in 1942 in rural Tennessee, he was raised on a farm by his sharecropping grandparents. He would go on to become one of the most influential singers, producers, and songwriters in the soul genre.

Hayes started singing and teaching himself musical instruments as a child, relegating music to an evening hobby into his 20s. But once he got started as a pro, there was no stopping him. He was hired as in-house songwriter for Stax Records in Memphis, the center of blues, R&B, and related styles at the time. With his creative partner David Porter, he made hits for the performing duo Sam & Dave, most famously the song “Soul Man.” He also became interested in producing, working on albums by Sam & Dave and Carla Thomas.

In 1968 he made his own debut album, Presenting Isaac Hayes. No one paid much attention to that jazz-influenced first effort. His second solo album might never have happened if an emergency situation at Stax hadn’t thrust Hayes back into the studio on the non-desk side of the glass. In 1968, Atlantic Records took over the entire Stax back catalog, making it urgent that all the signed Stax artists record new material to give the company something to sell.

For Hayes, the result was the groundbreaking Hot Buttered Soul (1969), an exploration of the potential of soul music as an amalgam of blues, pop, funk, gospel, and jazz; it also demonstrated that soul could be brainy, complex, and emotional all at once.

The R&B/funk band The Bar-Kays were his backup, helping him spin out massive, meandering versions of a mere two songs per side, including a 19-minute exploration of Jimmy Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” On the full album, Hayes’ recording of Burt Bacharach’s “Walk on By” lasts 12 minutes, but it was cut down to 4 1/2 minutes to become a successful single.

The shortest track was the five-minute “One Woman,” composed by saxophonist Charles Chalmers with lyrics by Sandra Rhodes. Hayes’ voice is not the silkiest in the genre, but it’s always gentle and irresistible.

The Isaac Hayes Movement (1970) followed the same format, with two long tracks on each side. The album reached No. 1 on both the soul and jazz charts. Also, like the first album, the second one included covers of Burt Bacharach and Chalmers/Rhodes songs.

Side A features “I Stand Accused” by Jerry Butler, and George Harrison’s “Something.” The rich, imaginative arrangements are by Dale Warren, who had helped to sculpt the Motown Sound. In an interesting genre-bending move, Hayes had jazz violinist John Blair play as guest soloist on “Something.” The contrapuntal piano introduction (probably by Sidney Kirk of the Bar-Kays) is worthy of George Martin himself.

In 1971, Hayes turned his talents to another type of project: he wrote the soundtrack for Gordon Parks’ film Shaft. The combination of Black action movie and funky music was a revelation to many. For his efforts, Hayes won both a Grammy and an Academy Award. The album version was released as a double LP by Stax.

Black Moses (1971) was his next studio album, which soared to the top of the R&B charts and won him another Grammy. Its big single was “Never Can Say Goodbye,” a Jackson 5 cover. But the real powerhouses of the album are the two Curtis Mayfield songs, “Man’s Temptation” and “Need to Belong to Someone.” On the latter, the sound balance of the many textures – keyboards, brass, strings, drum kit, backing singers – is exquisite, including the choice to remove all those factors when Hayes’ deep voice first enters.

Hayes released a live album in 1973, followed later that year by the studio recording Joy. This five-track collection is distinct from the previous ones for focusing on Hayes’ own songwriting. The arrangements, as usual, are thoughtful and dramatically impactful; arranger Johnny Allen knew just where to drop in a chorus of female backing singers or some stirring brass harmonies.

On his composition “The Feeling Keeps on Coming,” Hayes shows how he’s figured out how to combine the power of funk, the sexiness of soul, and the harmonic interest and rhythmic variety of jazz.

The next couple of years brought a string of albums, including two that embraced disco, the trending subgenre of funk taking over the dance clubs: Disco Connection (1975) and Juicy Fruit (Disco Freak) (1976).

Groove-A-Thon (1976) finds Hayes’ star starting to wane. But the low-key, disco-influenced album, written entirely by the singer, has some nice moments. “Rock Me Easy Baby” is especially interesting for its use of Latin percussion, most notably the purring scrape of the guiro on every downbeat.

After Hayes signed with Polydor, the albums kept coming, about once a year, among them New Horizon (1977), featuring the single “Out the Ghetto,” and Don’t Let Go (1979), which briefly got him back into the Top 40 with its highly danceable title track. When Lifetime Thing (1981) failed to sell well, Hayes decided to take a few years off from recording and pursue an acting career. During this period he appeared in Escape from New York and the TV series The A-Team, among other projects.

Aptly titled, U-Turn (1986) was his fresh start in the studio. Released by Columbia Records, this album suffers from oddly mismatched layers of sound, particularly in the discord between Hayes’ grainy voice and the smooth sheen of Gerald Jackson’s synths. Love Attack (1988) is an underwhelming experiment using drum machine and leaving behind acoustic strings.

After another hiatus, Raw & Refined, and Branded, both from 1995, were Hayes’ last trips to the studio. The former was all instrumental, mostly recorded many years before. Branded, on the other hand, contained new material, in what turned out to be a noble farewell from Hayes to his music fans.

Among that album’s best moments is his cover of the song “Fragile,” written by Sting for his 1988 solo record …Nothing Like the Sun. Hayes spins it into a 13-minute meditation, with spoken word, singing, and instrumental passages.

Although he made no more records, Hayes kept himself in the public eye as an actor, taking small roles in films and television until his death in 2008. And while he found a new fanbase as the voice of the character Chef on South Park for about a decade, it was the way he had expanded and re-defined the genre of soul 30 years earlier that secured his place in the American musical pantheon.

Near The Valley of Rocks in Lynton, England is a coastal stretch of land that is truly dramatic, with a landscape that has endured intense weathering. Here it is rugged and ancient, permanent in its stance against the elements. This stoic tree appears as if it is offering its arms to those who would sit in its company.