Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music (10 page)

What a challenge! I could think of worse ways to spend an evening.

Patricia and I repaired to a bar near the studio, where she drank brandy and smoked cigars. After a couple of hours—when her voice had taken on the measure of huskiness that Patricia desired—we went back to the studio and she rendered the song with a sensuously smoky hue.

In a healthier vein, Paul Simon took to jogging before tracking a vocal because it opened up his lungs and relaxed his breathing. The exercise loosened his diaphragm, helped the air pass to his vocal cords, and relieved some of the physical stress of having to concentrate on
singing. It all started during a session when Paul was recording “American Tune” in 1973.

For some reason, the vocal wasn’t coming easily to Paul; he sang the song eight or nine times, and sounded forced on every take. “Why don’t you give it a break?” I suggested. “Go take a run around the block while I finish these edits.”

I was half-joking.

I thought that maybe going out into the fresh air to walk around or get a bite to eat would help ease Paul’s distress. But Paul took my advice literally. He jogged from Seventh to Ninth Avenue and back again. When he got back to the studio he said, “Oh, fuck it—let me just try the song again.”

Paul did another take, and for the first time that day, his vocal on “American Tune” sounded comfortable. “Should I include that in your schedule? Run a couple laps before every session?” I quipped.

Nothing, though, compared to the couple whose prelude to recording a song was having sex—in the booth. “Kill the lights,” they’d say. After the engineer left the room they’d proceed to fornicate with an immodesty that was impressive, even for our business. Afterward, the man would go out into the studio and sing his lead. “The poor girl,” I said. “We’ve got five songs to do tonight! How the hell is she gonna make it?”

With Natalie Cole
Phil Ramone Collection

What is an album?

Fifteen or twenty years ago, an album was a vinyl record containing five or six songs (eighteen to twenty-five minutes) per side. In the rock and pop worlds, the collection often had a loose concept, with songs that were—to some degree—related to the theme. Each album was conscientiously programmed to have a discernible ebb and flow; we’d often fret as much over placing the right song in the right place on the album as we did over recording them.

At that time, listening to music was part of socializing, and when people partied, they listened to album
sides
. Friends would gather, put an album on, drink, and have fun. When the album side was finished, they’d either flip it over and listen to the other side, or move on to dinner, dancing, or a movie.

The compact disc reinvented the way records were made and how we listened to them. For better or worse, a CD treats the listener to one long, uninterrupted helping of high-fidelity music. While today’s technology offers unprecedented sound quality and
convenience, it poses a serious dilemma for the artist and producer.

Does the artist have to fill the entire seventy-seven minutes of available time on a CD? Is an artist who is compelled to fill a CD to capacity really giving the listener their best efforts?

Not long ago, Paul Simon and I reminisced about the days we spent making LPs.

When Paul wrote twenty-two minutes of music for one side of an album, it was pure: He refined every note until each song stood up on its own. There’s a big difference between conceiving, writing, and recording a fifty-minute album (our limit during the vinyl LP era), and an eighty-minute album (the capacity of a compact disc).

For singer-songwriters, the prospect of writing enough songs to fill a CD can be overwhelming.

The shuffle mode on CD players—and portable music devices such as the iPod—has further refined the concept of programmed albums. While I love the convenience and variety that shuffling offers, it has killed the art of assembling a cohesive hour of music that brings the listener through a thoughtfully designed musical arc.

In a sense, things have come full circle: We’re back to condensing music into singles the way we did in the 1960s.

I consider these factors when the artist and I begin developing ideas, and during the second meeting I’ll ask several questions to help us hone in on what they’d like to achieve:

1. What is the concept?
   
2. Will the album feature old songs, new songs, or a combination of both?
   
3. What kind of audience will it appeal to?
   
4. Will the record present you in a way that your fans are unaccustomed to?
   

Karen Carpenter and I spent hours talking about these things in 1979 when I produced
Karen Carpenter,
her first (and only) solo
album. The last two were points we dwelled on, given Karen’s close identification with the Carpenters.

The
Karen Carpenter
album holds bittersweet memories for me, and in the course of explaining how it came about I’ll share some very personal thoughts. My involvement with Karen and the record not only illustrates the planning process; it underscores the fragility of the relationship the artist and producer share with the omnipotent record label.

I’d known Karen and Richard Carpenter for years, and like everyone else, loved the sound of their records. The opportunity to work with Karen came at the request of her manager, concert promoter and filmmaker Jerry Weintraub, who explained that Richard was taking a year off and that he (Jerry) thought it would be the right time for Karen to do a solo album. Not long after, I received a call from Herb Alpert, asking if I would produce the record.

When Karen and I first sat down to talk about the project, I had no idea that the record we were about to make would stir up considerable controversy and lie in the vault for sixteen years.

Richard Carpenter wasn’t overjoyed about his sister going solo, and I understood his concern. Her voice and wholesome image was the Carpenters’ trademark, and Richard was afraid that a solo album might alienate their loyal fans or lead to speculation of a breakup. To Karen and me, that was preposterous. She loved Richard and the music they made together, but she also yearned to express herself as an individual. Karen had no plans to abandon Richard or the Carpenters.

To truly appreciate the love and adventure that accompanied the making of her solo album, you should know that Karen made a conscientious decision to experiment with songs and styles that differed from the Carpenters’ records.

Karen loved disco, and asked me to find a song with a good dance beat (“Lovelines”) to open the album; she also entertained
recording songs that included adult overtones—those that spoke more provocatively about love and relationships.

Presenting her in a new context became the focus of our prerecording discussions, and Karen insisted that whatever we did should express her love for all music, while appealing to Carpenter fans
and
a new audience alike.

While she was in New York, Karen stayed with my family in Pound Ridge, and we drove back and forth to the studio together. The laughs and silliness we shared on those trips forever made us friends. While we were driving, Karen would be the DJ, playing all the songs that had been submitted for her consideration. She’d sit with a legal pad, listen intently, and rate them. “Should this be on the A list, or the B?” she’d ask.

Karen liked the energy on Billy Joel’s records, so we decided to use his band (Russell Javors, Doug Stegmeyer, and Liberty DeVitto). They gave Karen love, support, and reassurance, and validated her artistic decisions. Russell—a fine songwriter—wrote two memorable tunes that were included on the album: “All Because of You,” and “Still in Love with You.”

To add a bit more texture, we brought in Peter Cetera (who wrote and sang a duet with Karen), Rod Temperton (who wrote several songs and did vocal arrangements), Richard Tee (a first-rate keyboardist who also played on Paul Simon’s records), Bob James (who wrote orchestrations), and all-star jazz musicians Michael Brecker (saxophone), Steve Gadd (drums), and Airto Moreira (percussion).

We recorded at A&R in New York, and during the sessions I saw Karen blossom. It was wonderful to see her relax and let loose, joking with the crew and the guys in the band. You could see the sparkle in her eyes, and you can hear her smile on the record.

But everything wasn’t perfect.

Karen’s lingering sadness was evident to me, and it sometimes came out in unexpected ways. At one point during the sessions she
sang the word
love
and it cracked. I said, “Karen, it sounds contrived.” She did it again and I said, “Not quite.” She tried it a third time, and I noticed tears in her eyes. I felt guilty. “Did I do that?” I asked. “No,” she said. As much as she was enjoying what we were doing, she was under a lot of pressure. It was as if she sensed the inevitable hassles she’d face for taking this leap of faith.

The reception that Karen’s album received from her brother Richard and the executives at A&M Records was cooler than expected. The pessimism of the executives won out, and Karen decided to shelve the album.

A year or so after we finished her solo album, Karen called me at home.

She and Richard had signed a new deal with A&M Records earlier in the day, and she was happy about going back to work. “We’ll be making a new Carpenters album,” she said, “And I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.” Then she lowered her voice. “I hope you don’t mind if I curse. I still love our
fucking
record!”

In the morning she was dead.

Although Karen didn’t live to see her solo record in the hands of her fans, it was issued on CD in the mid-1990s when Richard agreed that enough time had passed. By then, it had become a curio more famous for the rumor surrounding its nonrelease than for its musical significance.

As the aforementioned story shows, an album’s concept—and the songs an artist and producer selects—can make or break a record.

Singer-songwriters commonly write songs custom-tailored to fit their album’s concept. But what if the artist is not a songwriter? How does he or she sift through thousands of potential songs to arrive at the twelve or thirteen that will end up on the album?

Usually, I’ll start by creating a list of songs that I think fit the kind of album we’re making. When Tony Bennett started talking about doing an album of blues standards, I compiled a CD of songs
that I felt would both fit the blues mold
and
work as duets. This made narrowing our choices much easier.

I’ve produced several albums for Natalie Cole, and one of the things I love about Natalie is her keen sense of balance when it comes to choosing songs. When she was picking songs for the album
Snowfall on the Sahara
, we mulled over scads of them.

For
Snowfall
, Natalie wanted to bring an edge to some classic R&B songs, but she didn’t reject the idea of singing contemporary tunes, either.

To start, I asked Natalie to select twenty or thirty of her favorite R&B songs, and told her that I would do the same.

I then combed the archive for some of the classic tunes recorded by Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, and the songs that Al Green made in Memphis during the 1960s. Frank Military at Warner-Chappell Music sent over a CD full of possible choices. Friends called both Natalie and me to suggest Motown songs; a few mentioned the duets that had been done by Marvin Gaye and Tami Terrell.

Rough song choices for
Playin’ with My Friends,
2001
Phil Ramone Collection

After a week, we compared notes, and found that our ideas were similar. During phone calls between Los Angeles and New York, Natalie and I whittled the list down to twenty-five candidates, which I burned onto two CDs. After repeated listening, some clear favorites emerged. We spoke almost daily, and through the process of elimination, distilled the remaining songs into a “must do” list.

One of the unexpected songs to top the list was Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody,” which Natalie’s sister suggested. Natalie loved the song, but after running it down at a rehearsal, she voiced a concern. “The message is powerful, but Dylan makes reference to guns in one of the verses, and I’m not comfortable with it,” she explained.

“Gotta Serve Somebody” was a very strong choice, and I knew that Natalie would be disappointed if we didn’t include it. So I decided to ask Bob Dylan if he’d consider changing the verse in question for Natalie’s recording.

I sent Bob a message through his manager (Jeff Kramer), and Bob quickly sent back two new verses written especially for Natalie. They worked beautifully, and Natalie wrote Bob a note to thank him and to let him know how much of a musical influence he had been. Until then, I had no idea that she was a fan of his work.

Sampler CD of potential songs for Natalie Cole’s
Snowfall on the Sahara Phil Ramone Collection

On a par with the selection of songs is the selection of musicians.

Some artists leave the choice of musicians to me, while others travel with their own band and use them on their records, too. But as I explained earlier, I have a list of session players—many of them noteworthy jazz players—whom I use frequently, and if I feel that one of my regulars would bring something special to a particular record I’ll suggest using him. Ninety-nine percent of the time the artist agrees with my recommendation, as Paul Simon did on
Still Crazy After All These Years
and Billy Joel did on
52nd Street.