Chinese Democracy, the long awaited album by Guns and Roses was 17 years in the making, and garnered quite a bit of press for that reason. The new record, Willie and The Wheel from Willie Nelson and Texas Swing legends Asleep at the Wheel has been 30 YEARS in the making.
It seems that legendary producer Jerry Wexler who worked with, produced, or signed artists like Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, Dusty Springfleld, Ray Charles, and Bob Dylan, suggested that Wheel and Nelson work together in the early 1970’s when Willie was on Atlantic Records. Unfortunately, Nelson left the label before the project could leave the ground, and it became a fond “what might have been” tale.
In 2007 Willie did a Texas Swing tour with Merle Haggard and others, and that got the ailing Wexler, who was in retirement in Florida, thinking about reviving the idea. He reached out to the two bands with a list of songs that he choose just for the album, and “voila” it all came together. As fate would have it, Wexler died at age 91 in August of 2008 before the record could be completed.
Both acts are remarkable for their stamina. I performed on the bill with Wheel last fall at The Key Club in Los Angeles, and they routinely play hundreds of dates a year. Of course, Willie Nelson is the all-time grand champion of touring. Spending his vast majority of days on a bus, smoking weed, and getting ready for the next show with his band/family. In addition Willie is remarkably prolific in the recording studio. Since 2000 he has released 15 studio albums, 3 live albums, and 8 partner albums (like Willie and The Wheel). He’s also 75 years old - the mind boggles.
This new record holds few surprises. Texas Swing and Asleep at The Wheel hold to a fairly strict format with only a few detours into areas that sound more New Orleans than Texas. The best example being Willie’s duet with Elizabeth McQueen on I’m Sitting on Top of The World - slow, with rich bourbon street horns, and a tasty piano solo.
But this is music made for dancing…Oh! You Pretty Woman is a prime example. 140 beats a minutes with an infectious drum pattern that compels you to dance. This song also has a hallmark of Texas Swing, and it’s hard to explain, but it is the tone of the fiddle. It has a soft edge, not like a country/hillbilly fiddle sound at all. It is light-hearted and almost like another voice. Another treat is South which features David Letterman band leader Paul Shaffer trading licks with chicken-picker, Vince Gill, and band leader Ray Benson.
One of the criticisms leveled against Texas Swing is that it can sound “samey”. Willie and The Wheel has been made with an eye towards that criticism and the production team has obviously worked to make a record that will please those already in touch with the genre and the uninitiated.
Perhaps the best part of the collaboration is the tour that has naturally followed. The shows have been, if online reports are true, outstanding with the set list including most of the record as well as Willie’s hits and Wheel’s Classics.
It was a great time in the studio as we put the finishing touches on a couple of tracks for the new record, Stand Up Man.
We’re working at Rich McCulley’s Echo Park Studio. It’s small, cozy, and full of delicious black coffee. Americana music requires lots of bitter black coffee.
Tonight’s session goals are actually replacement parts. On Pretend You Love Me Tonight, I had Larry cut some guitar that mimics a pedal steel. He does it very well, but alas a telecaster is no steel guitar. A steel guitar is perfect cross between a piano, a 6-string, and a violin. On “The King of Sunset Hills” I sang all three backing vocal parts…but it sounded like Bohemian Rapsody. I’ve always loved the timber of Sarah Stanley’s voice and he agreed to come in and re-sing the highest parts.
One of the best parts about making music in LA is your access to talent. Within a 10 mile radius you can pull in some of the best players in the country. In fact, you come to know these people by just hanging out and playing around town.
Chris Lawrence has a long and distinguished resume. He is a member of the famous Sin City All-Stars, is a permanent side-man for Mike Ness, and most importantly, to me, he has a great story and photo of him and The Boss having a beer in new Jersey last year. Bastard.
This guy is amazing.
Chris Lawrence getting the sweet tone
He comes in, listens a couple times and then KILLS YOU with every take. He left an hour later, and we had 4 takes that each could’ve been used without a single edit. A real pro.
Sarah Stanley has graciously helped at several points in the production of the record, and tonight she was coming in to do a high harmony on the backing, “Doo Wop” vocals.
Sarah has a career that makes people furiously jealous. She writes and places some of the tastiest music in TV and film. She performs all over LA with her band, has a new record in the can, and ACTS!
Sarah Stanley
She works with Rich on lots of projects, and it’s always fun to hear them “kidding” each other. It’s a married couple kind of relationship.
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for many years, and spent hundreds of nights at The Mint on Pico Blvd. This night was, perhaps, the craziest, most sold-out, mash-up of a show I’ve ever seen, much less performed in. By the time it was over, I was exhausted, thrilled, and confused.
Marquee at The Mint
Who knows how these bills come together? Lowen and Navarro opened the show with a nice long set. L&N are an acoustic duo who got their start in the 1980’s writing great songs. As most of you know, Eric Lowen has A.L.S. and uses a rather sophisticated wheel chair to move onto the stage. The venue was already packed with fans - a number of which also appeared to be dealing with A.L.S. and using elaborate computer communication systems. The vibe and soul in the room was overwhelming…and they closed their set with the monster hit they penned for Pat Benatar, We Belong. Not a dry eye in the house.
Then local heros Stonehoney did their set of expertly crafted country rock. Shawn, Dave, Phil and the rest of the guys have decided to make a move to Texas, so the show was a goodbye to LA of sorts. It is so rare to find bands with one guy who can really sing, and they have 4 strong voices. They are, to my knowledge, the only band working the west coast today who commits to 3 and 4 part harmony in almost every song. It’s smooth, classy and a joy to behold.
Next it was me, GL and The Supermodels. I had decided to hold off doing any live dates until the new record was finished. This opportunity fell in our laps, and we couldn’t turn it down…but let’s just say we have our studio legs these days and not our live legs. The band was tight, and Tony, Larry, and Josh did an knock-out job. The problem was with me.
I went to Spain in December, then to London and got sick with some sort of sinus infection. Came home, thought I kicked it and boom - got sick again with another sort of head cold. Needless to say, this DESTROYS your voice. In fact, there is a 3 or 4 day lag effect. When you first feel bad you can sing like a bird. Then after you’ve recovered physically your voice is still dealing with the swelling from the drainage.
Too much detail for you?
Anywho, we rocked, we got through without incident and a good time was had by all.
Finally Relentless7 came up - Ben Harper’s new band/sideproject. I’ve been a fan of his usual music for some time, and always had great respect for him as a player.
He is, in fact, one of the best lap steel players working today. This band is also full of some MOFO musicians. Most notably the drummer, Jordan Richardson is worth the price of admission.The music is harder than Ben’s solo stuff…driving, frantic, very close to hard rock. This band is really making a go of it, with East coast dates and a trip to Australia. Check it out.
Needless to say. Quite a night for us… Here’s hoping we have many more just like it!
The very first time this occurred to me was some years ago when the Shania Twain song, Honey I’m Home came on the radio. Please take a listen. At 1:08 in the song, you’ll hear a backing vocal that sounds AMAZINGLY like a background part from a Def Leppard record, circa 1985. And, of course, Def Leppard producer Mutt Lang was the mastermind behind Shania. I thought, “DAMN that sounds like Pour Some Sugar on Me.”
Over the years the evidence began to build: Big Choruses, Power Ballads, Rock Beats, and records that, essentially, have nothing to do with country music. Most obviously the music began to gain a sheen. Any sense of real performance was beaten out of it as it was polished and perfected to an astounding degree.
There is precedence with country music moving to mimic another musical genre.
In the late 1950’s country music went through an evolution as guys like Chet Atkins helped create a more pop sounding brand of country. The old fashioned hillbilly style of country wasn’t selling records anymore, and in an attempt to revive the genre the conventional wisdom was to make it sound very similar to pop music – with string arrangements and sophisticated crooners like Eddie Arnold.
But what I was hearing with modern country artists like Shania Twain, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, and Rascal Flatts wasn’t an attempt to sound like a more a current genre, but an attempt to sound like a style of music that is so passé as to be extinct. 1980’s rock has become a laughing stock. The style was pulverized by Grunge in the early 90’s and it never really came back. Sure, we all still love some of the 80’s rock songs, and many of those tunes by bands like Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Cinderella, and Slaughter and are really great. But the 80’s rock style – the exploding drum sounds, the wheedly wheedly wee guitar solos, the crazy reverb…seems pretty silly now.
If country was going to mimic a successful genre I suppose they would turn to hip hop, (And that has happened with some embarrassing results.) but mostly Nashville country sounds like watered-down 80’s rock music. Why?
For years I bumped up against this – and it was finally a long road trip conversation with sometime supermodel John Ramey when it all fell together. The audience that was 18 when 80’s rock was big and making an impact are 40 now…and they consume COUNTRY MUSIC. Their tastes and preferences were honed in a world ruled by Warrant, Motley Crue, and Poison. If the country music business wants to sell records (or downloads) to these people the best way is to make the music sound similar but softer to account for the years. This is just what has happened.
There are notable exceptions. Kenny Chesney has modeled himself after Jimmy Buffet with great success. Toby Keith is doing a kind of Hank Williams, Jr. take, and female singers, like Carrie Underwood are really just pop stars…but Modern Country and 80’s Rock are linked at the hip.
In case, dear friends, you are unfamiliar with The Dwarves I recommend you take a moment to google the meanest, most inappropriate, nude, and offensive American punk band to ever plug in an amplifier. I’ll spare you the detailed history here, but the only thing they seem to like more than making loud fast music is taking the piss out of the record business and their fans.
You may be asking yourself why an Americana musician would ever want to go see a punk show. Three reasons: 1) good music is good music is good music. be it Stravinsky or Prince or Frank Sinatra. Anyone who has a policy of disliking a genre of music is only cheating themselves. 2) Punk music is a great form of exercise, more on that later. 3) Fast Hillbilly Country music and Fast Punk music have a lot in common - just ask Hank Williams III.
Hewhocannotbenamed from The Dwarves
When you get one of those forwarded emails that contain a list of “worst album covers” The Dwarves’ Blood, Guts, and Pussy is always featured, because it is the most offensive album cover in the history of vinyl. It feature two naked women and a midget - covered in blood, and…wait for it…the midget appears to be sodimizing a rabbit. YES, friends this is truly out there. The kind of punk ethos that most punk bands can’t get near.
They once announced that the guitarist, Hewhocannotbenamed, was dead. You’ll recognize him because he performs in a wrestling mask and nothing else, save an occasional leather jock strap. And he likes to spit at the crowd. The Dwarves even released music in tribute to their “dead” guitarist. That little stunt got them kicked off SubPop Records.
The amazing part about The Dwarves is that their songs are MELODIC. sure they are fast as hell, and offensive as hell. But there are entire subgenres of punk that pride themselves on making insane noise. The Dwarves write songs and the singer, Blag Dahlia, is funny, musical, and sometimes leads the band like a conductor.
Sunday night in LA…the beauty of LA is that no matter the night something is going on, and it is probably less than $20 to do it. I saw that The Dwarves were playing at The Knitting Factory for $12. Grabbed my leather jacket, jumped on the bike and jammed down there. There were 4 other bands, and I got there just as the lights were going down for the headliner.
I’m a pretty big guy and I have been in a pit or two in my day. (A Motorhead show comes to mind when the guy who was with me fell down and everyone started stomping him for fun. I got him up with a broken arm, and when the other moshers saw he was really hurt they helped carry him out of the club. See, they don’t MEAN to hurt people.) These days I’m into grabbing a Stella and standing off to the side. Once you loose you pit chops it’s hard to get back in the game, so I prefer a more relaxing evening.
Grant gets clobbered at Dwarves show
The problem is you never know how big the vortex is going to be, and i had crowded in a little too close. Just as the band kicked in, i pulled out my iPhone to take a photo, (that move alone should’ve gotten me beaten at a true punk show.) and BOOM i’m in the pit. Pushing. Spinning. Screaming. I thought of my wife and loved ones - no one even knew where i was!
In the end, it was all okay. I just rolled around the circle a couple times pushing and rocking like it was 1993 until i spun right out of the danger zone. and the show was AWESOME!
I can remember having a job once where i was creating a audio program to promote new age music - the kind of music you listen to when you need to relax. I couldn’t help but notice that listening to that kind of music all day made you want to strangle a stranger and hide the body. When I would leave work I would be so tightly wound I was shaking.
And when we got around to doing the same kind of program for punk music I found that the opposite was true as well. Listening to punk music for hours on end drains you of energy, leaving your body calm and satisfied. So….the next time you’re feeling tense, sad, depressed, tight, or confused grab the paper and find your nearest punk show….I guarantee instance relief. Just stand along the outside of the room.
Spent the evening holed up in Red Hill Recording Studio with Rich McCulley banging out the guitar parts for Damn Good Day and The King of Sunset Hills. We have a nice time doing this work, but the chit chat is to a minimum when you’ve got knock out 7 guitar parts. Who said Americana music was simple?!
The King of Sunset Hills
For this tune we decided to do what we never do and that is to duplicate an electric guitar part on the acoustic. My Taylor 510. Standard Tuning. Same voicings. It’s kind of a slow and boozy number and I wanted the electric rhythm to be a little sloppy, so this guitar will actually be the foundation - even if you barely end up hearing it in the final mix. It will be back there somewhere locking things down.
Then we plugged the Gretsch Chet Atkins Nashville Model into Rich’s Vox A60 amp. I wanted this part to be a little crunchy and muddy, so we turned it up and I played while looking around the room and taking sips off a beer. All in the interest of being sloppy and casual with it all. Couple takes later we had it ironed out.
I ordered a pizza on my phone and then ventured into the next tune.
Damn Good Day
This song is a fast country stomp. Lots of picking, and we’ve intentionally put the tempo so fast that hopefully I can barely sing it. It needs to be lighthearted and that should help. Not matter what ridiculous stuff happens it is almost always a Damn Good Day.
We cut the acoustic first, capo-ing it up around the 5th fret to give it a little mandolin kind of vibe. of course, the licks that naturally fall under your hand down on the first fret can prove to be almost unplayable somewhere else on the neck, so I had to think my way through this one…eventually it worked.
Electrically there is a kick-off lick and that re-occurs several times in the tune and then Larry and I will share a duel harmony lead. But, all this was written out when the song was to be played at a slower tempo. Every time I’ve said, “YES! I think it sounds better a little faster,” I’ve not been thinking about the licks that need to be played during the solo. Last night the chickens came home to roost.
I could ask Larry to play all the parts and he could do it easily, but the song will have so much more personality if we have two players with different tones doing the different lines. So, I hack, cursed, and said, “one more time” as Rich patiently looked on. We had swapped amps and we now using my Fender Vibroverb 1965 re-issue. It has one huge 15″ speaker, and it sounds great for the country slap-back rhythm parts. For the lead stuff I plugged in the old yellow Boss SuperDrive pedal.
3 Hours, 1 Pizza, some Beer, and it was in the can. Another step closer to the finish line.
I’m an early adopter. I bought the first iPhone the day it came out - so silly to wait in line for a phone when i had a phone in my pocket that worked just fine, but I did it. Less than a year later, I went out and bought the slightly newer iPhone when it became available. This time I circled the Beverly Center on my scooter on a Sunday morning waiting for the stores to open so I could be first in line. My addiction to the new and unproven got an early start. As a youngest i bought the FIRST commercial CD Player - a Sony CDP-101. It was early 1983 and while there were practically no compact discs in the stores I listened endlessly to my Deep Purple, Perfect Strangers and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony - the two CD’s that came with the player.
I was a music freak growing up. Starting with my first Herb Albert and The Tijuana Brass LP, I would sit in my room for hours listening to records. When I started playing the guitar at age 10, I would sit with my record player and guitar picking the tunes of the day. I would endlessly move the needle back and forth trying to learn that lick at the beginning of The Spirit of Radio. I would see if I could play through all the tunes on side one of Back in Black while standing and shaking my head back and forth. I was also a clean freak about my vinyl. I put each jacket in a loose plastic cover (shrink wrapping warps the disc, man!), I cleaned the needle. I used disc cleaner and a brush with every play. I even stored the normal paper inner sleeve and replaced it with a super clean, high quality plastic sleeve.
But even with all that love, when CD’s came into my life I packed up the vinyl. I gave my turntable to my little brother. I was a DIGITAL man, and while those early cd’s sounded tinny, brittle, and thin, it was like magic. The last vinyl disc I purchased was in 1983 was Yes’ 90125. Oie.
Ah....The Plastic Disc
Fast forward 25 years. Like some sort of time capsule that I am compelled to drag around the earth, my record collection is still with me. Wrapped, taped, boxed, sealed I’ve moved these slabs of plastic exactly 16 times since I left Hartselle Alabama for college. Most recently the box became a toilet for the rats that decided to infest my garage in Los Angeles. When I went to clean it all out I had to wear rubber gloves and a surgical mask to work in the filth and stench. But once I cleaned it up and cracked open the box - there they were as neat and clean as the day i boxed them up. Waiting.
I jumped on Craigslist and bought an old Kenwood turntable. I found an online source for needles and turntable pre-amps. (You didn’t think that today’s stereo amplifiers would just work with a 1972 turntable did you?) Within a few days I was in business, and brothers and sisters let me tell you. It is GLORIOUS. It’s like music has been born again, or more likely risen from the dead. And after 25 years of digital music - CD’s, MP3’s, WAV’s, AIFF’s, Downloads, and iPods - it is clear to me that music is BETTER on vinyl. It’s WAY better on vinyl, and he’s why.
The Minor Reason #1 - It sounds better.
As a musician one of the first things you learn about recording music is that MOST of the time the process of recording imbues the music with something that it doesn’t have in person. As an obvious example a singer sounds better with a little reverb on his voice - reverb that may not be available in the room in which he is being recorded. Vinyl records imbue the music they carry with certain overtones and distortions that the ear finds pleasing. Now certainly digital recording and mastering has developed in such a way as to mimic these overtones, but very few digital recordings do this to the degree that a plastic record naturally does it. With some kinds of music that distortion is less helpful - a Mahler symphony for example, but with other kinds it is FUNDAMENTAL - The Faces, for example practically jump off the record, as does most kinds of rock and country music.
The Minor Reason #2 - Records need loving care
When I was a kid I had a stamp collection for about 10 minutes. One day I threw them out the window because you can’t DO ANYTHING WITH STAMPS. They just sit in a book. You look at them. With model cars…you paint and assemble the model. With records…you clean, file, organize, and replace into their sleeves endlessly. Digital music doesn’t give you anything to do. Yes, I’ve downloaded the “artwork” but it is usually just some boring photos that are a solid B- afterthought. With Digital music, I don’t even have anything to show for my purchase. I spend the money (which I don’t see either) and they tell me I have the music. I can see the file, but it feels like I bought air. Digital files never die. NEVER even degrade. Vinyl will become worthless without the constant attention and care that an avid music lover has to give.
The Major Reason #1 - You’re Forced to LISTEN to the Music
Apart from my band and the music I write, my typical music listening these days goes like this.Plug in my iPod as I drive around doing errands. Listen to iTunes as I write on my computer. Listen to the iPod while I travel and read. In each case, music is a) background to some activity b) a private experience. In some ways this is magnificent - I have more music running for more hours. I can get it easily, and even, gulp, share it easily. Hell I can have my entire music collection in my shirt pocket with my cigarettes.
But all this is costs something, and the tax is on my connection to the music. Vinyl records FORCE you to sit down and listen. Each side of the LP is 15-20 minutes. you could, I suppose, put on a record and do some housework, of course, you’ll be running back every 15 minutes to change the disc. But what it has forced me to do is to sit on my rear-end in a chair, with a drink and the LINER NOTES and listen to the music. I can’t take the music to my car, or my job, or my run, or my computer. It only lives in this little room in my house. I’ve put a nice leather chair in there. A cool old lamp so I can see who played B3 on track four and I LISTEN to the music. Astounding. The artwork and the detail it’s all part of the experience. You sit through the “album” tracks (Those are the cuts that aren’t designed to be radio hits.) because it makes no sense to get up and hop the needle around. The limitations of the medium actually contribute to the experience of the music.
And this idea has gotten me thinking about other missteps in the name of “progress.” For a while in the 70’s INSTANT coffee was the rage. “Taster’s Choice. It has to be better because it is so darn convenient.” Really? Instant coffee was convenient and modern and terrible. Now, we’ve gone 10 steps back the other way. People take more time and energy making coffee now than they did in 1950. Why? Because it is a better experience! There are many food examples - wonder bread and TV dinners spring to mind.
but let’s not forget the artwork. Big slabs of photographic and artistic statement. Propping up the music. Chrissie Hynde may not be the most attractive woman in the world, but staring into her eyes for hours while listening to Precious makes you her love slave. When music went digital it lost the art that helped define it.
The Major Reason #2 - You can SHARE
I mentioned earlier that music is now, for me, a personal and private experience. I listen in my car or in my ear buds. No one knows what I listen to. I don’t know what others like apart from the random, “You heard that new Lucinda record? It’s cool.” But vinyl is different. Vinyl is BEGGING for a house party. It’s begging for a “Hey man, come over let’s listen to the new Killers record.” My friend Dean Chamberlain has taken to throwing vinyl house parties where he plays DJ and kicks out the jams with old R&B records. It’s a hoot. You’re not taking this music into your iPod, man. This is PARTY music, for groups only. Loners need not apply.
So, do yourself a favor. Grab a turntable. They’re pretty cheap these days. Go down to your local indie record store (If you can find one.) I went to Amoeba here in LA and got 20 records for $30. Pull up a chair, and let there be ROCK!
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