Re: questions, news and a rave
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jesse Dayton has signed to Columbia and is also expecting to release a record in July. Is there still a label called Columbia? -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Jon Emery on KUT Radio
Bill Gribble wrote: Actually, any KUT DJ can host Live Set. They sort of rotate. Overnight DJ Jeff Johnston asked the Barkers to do a Live Set on May 30, which we're pretty excited about. Another show to listen to is Folkways, on Saturday morning. Great show. There is also a great show on Sunday nights right after "Live Set" by my old compadre Larry Monroe that features Texas artists. Larry also does a blues show on Monday night and a show on Thursday night. Saturday night is Paul Ray's great oldies RB show. KUT is one of the best NPR stations around. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Floyd Tillman comp/ Jimmy Wakely
John Flippo wrote: Don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet but there is a new cd that just came out on Glad called Herb Remington Instrumentally Salutes Floyd Tillman. I believe Remington was in the Texas Playboys. I haven't heard it yet but it sounds awful interesting. Flippo Herb was one of Will's greatest steel players. He was in the same band as a very young Johnny Gimble, and you can hear him on the MGM (?) stuff playing "Remington's Ride". He uses only a couple of pedals and plays more in a pedal-less style. He's one of the great ones. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: single most influential, cont.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Joe Gracey writes: .One example I have always found particularly grating was the Dead's vocals, which are like fingernails on chalkboards to me, but which apparently don't bother their fans. I find Dylan's early stuff to be engaging, his later stuff to be almost painful, vocally... Harrumph. Shoulda known that. This is the guy who gets to hear Kimmie Rhodes sing in the shower every morning. g Joe X. I love singer's voices. Marcia Ball has one of the nicest speaking voices. In fact, I think if I were forced to admit what it was I actually do well, I would say record singer's voices, because I understand them. I sort of take aural showers in them. Recording The Willie was monumental for me because his voice goes to tape so spectacularly. I think that was one reason I loved Jimmy Day's steel so much- he played the steel like a voice, singing. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Dixie Chicks Article in Dallas Observer
"There was just something endearing about women honoring Patsy Montana and Bill Monroe like anyone still gave a damn." (Robert Wilonsky) I only got about a third of the way through this guy's ridiculous diatribe, so I missed this. These are fightin' words. Kimmie and I just produced a play with Joe Sears (of Greater Tuna) which was based on the great Tex Ritter song "Hillbilly Heaven". We had a scene featuring "Patsy Montana" (played by Maryann Price.) I sure as hell do assume there are people who give a damn, and if they don't then they damn sure should. I also assumed that it was a very worthwhile experience for all the kids in the show, who were exposed firsthand to live (and very convincing) versions of songs by Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, et al. If the kids had never heard of any of these people or their music, then they have now. This is worthwhile. I'd like to roll up a copy of our play and shove it up this guy's ass. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Floyd Tillman comp
Jon Weisberger wrote: The talk about Willie Nelson's singing style reminds me that I had meant to mention that the Collector's Choice Tillman CD that has a couple dozen of Floyd's Columbia records,including "Slipping Around," "This Cold War With You," "It Had To Be That Way," "I Gotta Have My Baby Back," etc. is now available through regular retail channels. Oh, baby. Floyd Tillman is one of the least appreciated great American songwriters. His chord structures just floor me every time I hear or play one. He literally had the first cheatin' song hit. His melodies are beautiful. Get him. He is still very much alive and plays occasionally in Texas. He was big in Houston and was the resident influence there on a whole generation of young guys, including Willie. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Earle and Country music sales
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Earle earned his "GOLD" status for Guitar Town!! That came out in 1986 and has only sold 500,000 copies. What the heck is goin' on Especially since Guitar Town was a #1 country album. What gives? #1 for how long? is probably the operative question. If it shot up and fell back off in a hurry, it might have never sold a lot of copies. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: single most influential, cont.
Tom Ekeberg wrote: Carl W.: As a footnote to our discussion, see the new issue of the Atlantic, including an article arguing that Dylan changed pop music more than any other single figure, "including Sinatra, Elvis or the Beatles." Of course. He single handedly made it all right not to know how to sing, not to know how to play and still be a big star. Ah, ha! I laughed my ass off at this one. Ekeberg rises from the mists to denigrate His Bobness! My feeling on this observation is that Dylan is much like other stars who overcame vocal limitations, even used them to advantage. Offhand I am thinking of Ernest Tubb, who actually used his flat, weird vocals as a way to become famous. "Can't sing" means "can't sing as well as the typical good singer" but doesn't really hurt anybody in this context. Bill Anderson was another guy who "couldn't sing" but turned it into an asset by calling himself "Whispering Bill". One example I have always found particularly grating was the Dead's vocals, which are like fingernails on chalkboards to me, but which apparently don't bother their fans. I find Dylan's early stuff to be engaging, his later stuff to be almost painful, vocally. It is true that he opened the door to a lot of terrible singing in the rock bizniss. I actually think he was a pretty good acoustic and rhythm electric guitar player, if that was in fact him on the early records. I like the jangly out-of-tune strat he plays on Hiway 61, etc. Its cool. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: single most influential, cont.
Tom Ekeberg wrote: Seeing the sense in which Bob Dylan don't know how to sing shouldn't be too hard. This is what I actually disagree with. Not being able to sing very well and not knowing how to sing are two different things. I think Dylan made amazingly effective use of a very indifferent vocal apparatus, thus I think that he knows very well how to sing, he just doesn't have the larynx to pull it off very well. In fact, in my experience producing and engineering, the most interesting performers are not the ones with the best pipes. They are usually the ones with an odd voice that they were forced to deal with in order to be effective. I would cite Townes, Willie, and Waylon as three artists I have recorded who developed strategies for working around whatever deficiencies they may have had, and in the process became very interesting to the ear, much moreso than a so-called "good" singer. Most "good" singers end up doing commercials or being backup chorus singers because they are not very interesting to listen to. The exceptions to this would be people like KD lang whose pipes are so extraordinary (coupled with powerful charisma) that they are mesmerizing. (We saw her at the Roy Orbison Tribute thing out in LA and she stunned me with her power over the audience. Seeing her live made me a believer.) Another example of the previous point would be Elvis. Our daughter has been having an Elvis sleepover party (she's 14 and she heard "Love Me Tender on the radio and said "Mama, Elvis is HOT!"), playing his movies continously for the past two days. I noticed after listening to him sing for a few hours that he had a tendency to go sharp all the time. Not violently so, just a shade sharp. I also noticed that he didn't have the strongest voice in the world. However, he figured out strategies for evading those problems and became a great singer. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: POSTCARD2 digest 1381
M Rubin wrote: I think Anon's beef is much more with the organizers, promoters, and marketers of SXSW, but all the ire falls on the bands. Nah, I'd say he's disturbed most by the infrastructure attached to that particular scene that can't seem to diferentiate between the wheat and the chaff, as it were. See http://dannybarnes.com/trends.html for a similar perspective . ___ Mark Rubin wow, this is very neatly said. check this out.
Re: single most influential, cont.
John Kinnamon wrote: I'm sort of surprised by Joe's reference to Willie and Waylon as examples of singers with deficient voices. Townes I'll buy, but to my ears, both Waylon and Willie have great instruments. Willie doesn't have a "big" voice, although it can be loud if he wants to. he's a softspoken guy, and his singing voice is relatively subdued also. Waylon comes very close to having a "great voice" but he's so much himself that you could never mistake him for anybody else, no matter how hard he tried, and I guess what I was trying to convey was that none of these guys could ever sing anonymously like a typical "good singer" can. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Updates
M Rubin wrote: Yates opines: Anyway, it's too bad the person who wrote that essay spent so much time with the cartoon crowd down there -- he/she must've missed James Hand, Justin Trevino, Don Walser, Paul Burch, Dale Watson and all the other hardcore traditionalists types that played this year.--don Ah, but that's the point. Those artists aren't "alt." anything. They are country and western artists, period. Let's get that established once and for all. Yeah, see, as far as I concerned, what we do and what I like to produce is not alt anything, it is in fact where country music would have gone if it had been allowed to progress naturally. Lots of us have taken our art to the powers that be and been rebuffed in favor of kids in hats and little girls straight off the cover of Cosmo. Also, we ain't traditionalists, either, we are doing something new but with an understanding of where we come from. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Wilco @ Pearl Street
Tweedy actually stopped the song completely: "You know, I don't care how
fucking far you drove to see us. You don't give the band directions."
And really, for me, that sort of sums it up. Abstaining Tom caught these
details about these guys, and I wonder how much patience on-the-wagon Tweedy
needed to have with these obnoxious idiots. If the club can't take steps to
quiet, or remove drunken-stupid patrons who are disrupting the performance, I
can't blame the performer for getting pissed-off enough about it to "break
character", so to speak.
b.s.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that hecklers can really screw up your
groove and take the steam out of the act of performing. I've always been
in bands that would either have come down off the stage and whipped the
guy's ass and then gone back and resumed playing, or acoustic songwriter
stuff like Kimmie does where the people who are there are generally
there to listen to her, and if they are not they are quickly escorted
elsewhere.
Kimmie handles them well when she does get them, however, because she is
so much more verbally facile than most people; she always manages to
shut them up by turning it around on them and embarrassing them in about
two seconds.
I do think that if you are an act that tends to attract noxious drunks
then it would be good to develop a strategy other than letting it ruin
the show for everybody. That's what bouncers are for, if you can't
handle it from the stage pretty fast. The problem is that if the act
comes across as the heavy ("get this asshole out of here") then the
crowd can turn on you. The solution is to talk to the bouncers before
the show and ask them to remove people once they get to the point that
they have caused you to stop what you are doing more than one time.
--
Joe Gracey
President-For-Life, Jackalope Records
http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Ray's tenor harmony man....
"Ph. Barnard" wrote: Joe: I think it's Ray Price, doing the old (pre-multitrack) overdub technique whereby you sing as the original master rolls and record the mixed result onto a new master. While I'm the last person to be differing with Joe, I honestly think it's not just Ray overdubbing with himself but another fiddle player or someone. I've seen footage of the guy, in fact. A heavyset guy whose name I can't remember. I haven't listened closely to the harmony singer, so I'm just guessing (read "bullshitting") as usual. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Single Most Influential 20th Century Pop Musician
David Cantwell wrote: The most influential pop musicians of the 20th century are, in order: 1) Louis Armstrong 2) Elvis Presley 3) James Brown 4) Bing Crosby Armstrong and Crosby loom over the first half of the century the way Elvis and JB do the second. Who's #5? Mahalia? Ellington? The Beatles or Dylan? Hank? I don't know, but those first four, man, no one can touch them. --david cantwell I would tend to agree with this if you stick with the word "influential" and don't muck up the argument with other criteria. The 20th Century is too big of a tent to stick Dylan up there at the top of the list, methinks. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Single Most Influential 20th Century Pop Musician
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, in order to reel in this madness, let's focus on rock, instead of pop. Who then? Elvis, Dylan or Cash or... ? I still stand by Dylan over Cash easily, but there's a good argument to be made that Elvis wins over Dylan. After all, he did define the sound, and he gets props for being maybe the first punk rocker by virture of swiveling his hips and all. Yeah, it seems to me that Dylan falls into the area "shaded" by Elvis' influence. To me Cash had little or nothing to do with rock music, either as co-founder or anything else. He was an outlaw, but always within the context of country. He had pop hits, but they were still overtly country records. (Sam Phillips (the Sun owner/producer of Elvis) always maintains that had it not been for his car wreck on the way to his Ed Sullivan appearance, Carl Perkins would have been the rock roll idol king Elvis became.) -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Single Most Influential 20th Century Pop Musician
Carl Abraham Zimring wrote: I'm sticking with Bing, but I'm a little surprised that none of the rock advocates have mentioned Chuck Berry. Carl Z. If you say Chuck Berry, you have to go one step back and say T-bone Walker, who spawned not only CB but all of them guitar heroes like BB King and Albert and Freddie. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: My Bing-a-Ling
David Cantwell wrote: I know there's a collection of his 1940s country-cowboy stuff--Pistol Packin' Mama, Don't Fence Me In, New San Antonio Rose, Deep In The Heart Of Texas, etc--but I don't know the name of it. But I highly recommend it, whatever it's called. The Bob Wills guys all told a story about Crosby coming to some bash in Tulsa in his honor and getting off the train and when somebody said something about the orchestra, he supposedly said "Orchestra-Smorchestra, where is Bob Wills? His band is who I want to sing with. Those guys cook." I'm inventing his lines, of course, but that was the gist, and supposedly they did in fact back him up and he did the whole show with them. Love to hear a bootleg of that baby g... -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: My Bing-a-Ling
Tom Smith wrote: Dave Purcell wrote: I honestly had no idea about Bing Crosby's importance in popular music Johnny Shines told Peter Guralnick that Robert Johnson was as likely to play Bing's hits as one of his own blues tunes if requested. Dunno if that constitutes an influence, but when it comes to paying the bills, even Johnson apparently did what a guy's gotta do. Bob Wills made his guys learn the hit songs on the charts no matter what genre they came from. They had to, even though he had hits of his own. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Remember, its Denver
Todd Larson wrote: On another subject, a couple of month ago I picked up the essential Ray Price disc after hearing the raves from others on list. Question: who is the high harmony singer on those amazing shuffles on the second half of the disc? Wow, does he sound frickin great singing along with Ray's big baritone... I think it's Ray Price, doing the old (pre-multitrack) overdub technique whereby you sing as the original master rolls and record the mixed result onto a new master. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
Barry Mazor wrote: ...but a Perfect Single has a sort of obvious definition: It has to explode at you and grab your attention in low fidelity from AM radio while wind is blowing past your convertible. It does it a lot of times. It has to open up a new world in 3 notes. So the beginning, and sometimes the ending, is very important. Like a Rolling Stone Kimmie and I needed a car beside the Band Van so we stumbled across a used Mazda Miata. I had driven MG Midgets and Austin Healey Sprites and Triumph Spitfires in my 20s so I am obviously a candidate in my old age for a two-seater, and this Miata was a low-miles $13,000 steal, so we got it. One day I'm driving along in the Austin sunshine, top down, radio on loud, and the first splash of "Like A Rolling Stone" comes on the radio and I crank it up to speaker-cone shred volume, jam the car a gear lower, stomp it up to 85 and hold it way up there close to the redline and it feels like musical sex. This is what music is supposed to do to you. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Lessons Learned
Matt Benz wrote: And guess who just got one of the few original copies of the Texas Declaration on Independence? That's right, the OHIO Historical Society. Came in a collection from a family who lived in OH forever and TX. Pretty cool. I think, anyway... Matt "rock you like a hurricane" Benz We demand it back at once. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: weird Muzak experiences - IRS
Tom Stoodley wrote: Geff wrote: I think we should take a P2 poll - find out a.) who's paying this year; and b.) who got or is getting a refund. People in Category b.) can buy the drinks tonight. It's horrible when you are self-employed and you have to write them checks every quarter OUT OF YOUR OWN BANK ACCOUNT. However, our CPA says there are worse problems than having to pay taxes- it just means you made some money this year. I'll buy. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: weird Muzak experiences
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was in the HEB supermarket too.. many... jokes... NW, whose wife's uncle once called me "the 'brew" as in "Hebrew." "HEB" is a chain of stores here in South Texas. Means "H.E.Butts" and they have soulful stuff because a lot of their customers are cedar choppers and Hispanics. They also have the greatest food store in the world, Austin's Central Market. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: weird Muzak experiences
We have a pal named Beth Neilson Chapman who has some really great albums out on WBs and for some reason every single time I go to the grocery store here in Austin I hear Beth on the dang Muzak. It never fails. It is a very odd experience to be buying Shiner Premium with a buddy's voice wafting out into the supermarket aisles. Sadly, though, Muzak doesn't pay anything resembling a decent performance royalty rate. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Western Swing book
Barry Mazor wrote: The further I've gotten into the Jean Boyd "Southwestern Jazz" book, the more the attitude of the thing has made it unpleasantsometimes it does look simply like a "sticking to my thesis no matter what" problem, which was what I'd called it being charitable, but by the 38th time she praises musicians for wanting not to play "screechy" country fiddle or being "that" sort of musician but playing "real jazz, " you kind of have to get the prejudice! My own limited experience in talking to Will's sidemen is that he didn't consider what he was doing to be purely either jazz or country, but a new hybrid form derived from all kinds of influences. Wills was certainly not foolish enough to think that he was doing exactly the same thing that Basie was doing, or Roy Acuff either. However, I think he would take offense at the notion that there was anything to be ashamed of in the country roots of his music. Wills was very country, almost a primitive in the sense that he was unable to improvise a fiddle solo (he had to stick to the melody) and that he was unable to grasp the concept of equal numbers of bars in blues songs. He hired Jesse Ashlock to play improvised solos for him and he let the band figure out where he hell he was going next, bars be damned. (You have heard black blues guys do this; they'll jump from the 1 chord to the 4 chord real "early", especially if they are playing solo, rather than just sit there on the 1 being boring. It was characteristic of 20's and 30s blues especially, I believe because the form had not been cemented yet) However, his major influences were Bessie Smith (he sang just like her) and Emmit Miller, the blackface pop musician and writer. In the 40's he had a gigantic big swing band with full horns as well as stringed instruments and he sounds like a big jazz dance band to me. How the hell anybody could have gone to Spade Cooley to be "less country" is beyond me. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Lessons Learned
Jerry Curry wrote: Midwesterners are smart-asses and Texans are hot-blooded. No wonder there was a Civil War. g Remember who won though. Signed, A FORMER midwesterner..even bigger G! Jerry Speaking of which, I just read a great bio of Sam Houston which I think non-Texans would enjoy if you like American History atall. It is called Sword of San Jacinto by Marshall De Bruhl, who apparently is a long-standing senior editor in New York publishing circles. Because Sam Houston's story is really more the story of the Jacksonian era and the Western push, as well as all of the pre-war North-South issues, than it is of Texas, ya'll would probably like it. Twang Content: 1)"Yellow Rose of Texas" was according to legend a beautiful African-American woman who kept Santa Ana occupied while the Texian Army attacked his camp during siesta. 2)My great-great-great Grandfather was Sam Houston's chief of staff, later founded the Austin American Statesman, where I was the Rock Music Editor at one time. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: weird Muzak experiences
Jerry Curry wrote: On Wed, 14 Apr 1999, Joe Gracey wrote: She and Kimmie co-wrote "Shine All Your Light" which was sung by Amy Grant on the "Touched By An Angel" soundtrack CD and which is now certified double platinum. Many many congratulations Joe. By the way, you all have a spare $100 you could lend me? You know, with taxes and all, I'm a bit short... Kimmie works her butt off songwriting and every so often she rings the bell with one. I would gladly lend you $100 except that I just sent every penny I had to the IRS, plus a IOU which I hope they will accept in good humour. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Warning: Bass Guitar question!
Ok, I have this great old Gibson EBO short-scale bass that I am very comfortable with, played for years, except the dang thing doesn't tune very well and it has that short-scale kind of "thump" sound instead of a long sustain and high end like a P-Bass. Has anybody ever successfully fixed a short scale Gibson so it will tune? And secondly, if I do decide to get a P-Bass or copy thereof, which ones are good and which ones suck? Mexican P-Basses any good? Peavey? Yamaha? Might as well do this off-list, I'm sure this is ultra boring to non-players. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Warning: Bass Guitar question!
Jon Weisberger wrote: Anyhow, I'm not one of those "gotta be a Fender" types, especially once you get more exotic than a Precision, but for a basic bass, the P is awfully hard to beat, and you really can spend about as little - or as much - as you want. Thanks, Jon, sounds real to me. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: sachja productions
Mike Hays wrote: Curious, anyone ever hear of sachja productions? Sachja Productions Attn: Reviewing Dept. P.O. Box 701231 Dallas, Texas 75370 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Supposed label/production co. who sent me unsolicited email "looking for artists" then got pissed when I asked them to fwd info about their company. They claim to be in Dallas. Never heard of them, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. However, getting pissed when asked for info doesn't sound very good, now, does it? -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Warning: Bass Guitar question!
Brad Bechtel wrote: Blah blah Yeah, right, it's not of general interest, like vintage cereals g. I daresay more of us have tasted Quisp than played bass. Otherwise an excellent post, Jon. I doubt it g. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Warning: Bass Guitar question!
BARNARD wrote: And as you probably know, SGs won't stay in tune worth a damn either. Must be a cursed body shape or something g. I think it has to do with the EBO necks being not very precisely made. If I'm in tune in open E, then almost nothing else is. Those Danelectro-style basses always sound nice to me, although they obviously don't have the all-purpose overall quality of a P-bass. I played one of those today and I liked it pretty good, but it still doesn't have that long, unctuous sustain that I need for KRhodes new stuff. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Warning: Bass Guitar question!
"George L. Figgs" wrote: I don't how similar the workmanship in P's and Jazz basses are, but for what it's worth, I've got a mexican std jazz bass. Thanks, George, and Jerry, and all you poor bass playing bastards out there. It is a tool of ignorance. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Terry Allen
From the Fred Eaglesmith mailing list, a serious(?) religious take on Terry Allen's "Salivation": As for me, I'd never let this guy babysit my young'uns. My God, no. Terry Allen is crazier than Guy Clark. I won't even let him talk to my duaghter. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Sir Doug Sahm:
Matt Benz wrote: So I was listening to a oldies station which digs a little deeper, it seems, than Leader of the Pack: They played a Sir Douglas Quintet song (Not "She's About A Mover") I'd never heard before, to my recollection, which is growing dimmer. Something about "rain rain rain." ANy ideas? Did they have more than one hit? And is there a best of collection out there anywhere? And I mean of the SDQ, not DS. Matt "I gave love a bad name" Seems like the title was "Rain Keeps Fallin'" or something, but it was one of their followup hits after "Mover". They also had a hit with "Mendocino" (which I have heard played by an orchestra on Muzak.) -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Sir Doug Sahm:
Joe Gracey wrote: They also had a hit with "Mendocino" (which I have heard played by an orchestra on Muzak.) As opposed to an orchestra on Prozak... -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Crazy Cajun (was Sir Doug Sahm: Alt.)
Jon Weisberger wrote: ...the guy in Cincinnati who had James Brown et al. Syd Nathan, inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame not too long ago. "You know, everybody told us he was really a bear cat, but we never had anybody to treat us any better than Syd Nathan." - Ralph Stanley Thanks, Jon, I drew a blank. I have a tape around here somewhere of him ranting and raving at a staff meeting one day that is just astounding. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Crazy Cajun (was Sir Doug Sahm: Alt.)
Will Miner wrote: I'll vote for that (not knowing whether a Gracey rampage might be too dangerous to the locals). Sigh. I try not to get too sentimental for olden days but it's hard not to wish for such things. Too many of my favorite records are from those days when music was locally owned and made as were the records and the radio, when saying "that's a band from Memphis" would have meant something. And too many of my other favorite records seem to be trying to recapture the feel of the music of those times. Ah well. I'm in the process of writing some things down, and I remembered an "old days" situation that relates to this. When I was in Jr. High I used to hang out at the local recording studio in Ft. Worth where Maj. Bill Smith had his headquarters (I got to watch some of them records being made) and the thing was, he would cut a single, make an acetate of it on the studio lathe, and walk upstairs with it to KXOL radio (where I eventually was a kid DJ) and if the PD liked it, he'd stick it into the night rotation to see how the kids responded to it. If it did anything, Major Bill would press it up and put it in the stores and the rest would be history. Sam Phillips used to do the same thing in Memphis with Dewey Phillips. These were major, mass-market radio outlets. I daresay you could not walk into your local A3 outlet with a DAT of your latest single and be taken very seriously, and HNC would look at you like you were a dangerous lunatic. The practical effect of this was to remove the layers and layers of bullshit a record has to go through now in order to even make it to a programmer's hands. It really is no wonder that records sound so watery and wimpy- there are about 500 non-musical opinions between it and the air. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Radio
Please don't misunderstand my ranting about radio- I appreciate Mike Hays and everybody else here who does good radio. Some local radio still can make a difference, thank God. I'm speaking generically about corporate numbthink radio as it exists for the most part these days. We actually have a building here in Austin which houses a bunch of little DJ studios with the whole setup and a DAT machine, and there are a whole bunch of DJs in there taping radio shows to be sent out to a whole bunch of radio stations all over the country. They try to simulate the sound of a live DJ who is actually in that town, so they say things like "we're having a great day here in Lompoc" and horrible lame horseshit like that. Can it get any worse than this? Every time I think it has hit rock bottom, somebody comes up with a big drill and takes us farther toward Hell. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Sir Doug Sahm: Alt.country Crazy Cajun
Barry Mazor wrote: I want to strongly recommend the recent 2-CD release of the earliest Sir Douglas Quintet recordings, as part of the general release of a bunch of anthologies from wonderfully motley artists on Huey P. Meaux's lil Crazy Cajun label. (Sir Douglas Quinet: The Crazy Cajun Recordings)...This is an important and enjoyable alt.country re-release. (snip of all-great stuff) I think this band doesn't always get its full due when looking at the histiry of this music we talk about, maybe cause Doug Sahm never died tragically but chooses to live--apparently quite happily--but with so many of these amazing cuts unavailable so long, I'd cerytainly suggest adding this one to any P2er collection. Barry M. Doug Sahm (the name is Texas German, probably not spelled the "right" way) was a child radio star at 6 on San Antonio radio, before radio was relegated to the back seat by TV. He has had so many extraordinary experiences and participated in so many watershed Americana musical events (Brit Invasion, 60's exodus of Texas artists to San Francisco, Progressive Country resurgence in Austin in early 70s, country hits, rock hits, free-form FM hits) that he is literally a walking encyclopedia of American musical history. He both loves and appreciates his roots and loves to pass on what he knows to the people coming up behind him. He and I became friends in Austin and he was a frequent visitor to my radio show, and I am indebted to him for many things. I think one reason he doesn't get as much ink, or credit as he deserves is that he is the quintessential Texas artist, so peripatetic that he never stays in one area long enough to become completely huge there, and because he never quite broke out into superstardom on his own after he left the Quintet. He is a force of nature. See him if you get a chance. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Why I Love Austin #, um, I forget
Barry Mazor wrote: Dropped into Threadgill's last night to see Cornell Hurd and his fine band (for free, BTW). And guess who's sitting in with them on pedal steel... Doug Sahm. Didn't know he played that instrument, but Doug fit in with that bunch of musical lunatics just fine. Jim, smilin' Not only was doug a child radio star at 6, but guess why? He played the steel guitar. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Sir Doug Sahm: Alt.country Crazy Cajun
Barry Mazor wrote: Mr. Gracey, you have the most interetsing friends--but then, so do they. Barry Goes to show that if you stand around long enough in one spot, the whole world eventually comes by. try this at a party. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Jerry Byrd, was: Boudin Barndance
Jon Weisberger wrote: He and Atkins worked awfully well together, in my opinion; you can hear it on that Country All-Stars stuff. One of the things that I find interesting is that so many of the guys who played on a lot of hillbilly music records made in Nashville were interested in jazz; Byrd, Atkins, Dale Potter, but it was a different kind of jazz, That is something that I found intriguing as well. Here in Texas, it was almost a pride thing, a mark of "we're not hicks, we play country because we love it and we can also play jazz if you ask us to". Also, here it was never considered to be odd to mix jazz and country because of the deep western swing roots. Most old-time steel players had a strong dollop g of jazz in their playing simply because of that jazz-chord neck they all had on there, what is it, a C9 tuning? In nearly every dance band I have ever been in, it has been standard practice to throw in jazz instrumentals like "Home in Indiana" as break songs, as a way to blow out the cobwebs and leave them with a nice sparkly fresh feeling in their ears. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: ASCAP vs BMI (long, and angry!)
Richard Flohil wrote: Two other notes on the above. Erica wrote to tell me that rates for performing right organizations are set in the US by the LIbrary of Congress (which I didn't know) - but presumably after submissions from both the societies and the music users. And Jon wrote me offline to suggest the chances of ever having a single society in the US (as every other territory does) are about the same as a snowball freezing in hell; he's probably right, but if songwriters really understood hopw they are getting screwed, they'd raise hell! Richard, ole buddy, I have considered this (difference in the amounts paid to US writers here vs what foriegn writers get) long and hard over the years and I have come to the conclusion that this is a matter of scale. If the writers in Europe got what we get here, they'd all starve to death, even the biggest ones, and yes they would be raising hell. However, if the writers in the US got what writers in Europe got it would be extraordinarily generous when you added up everything from a country this big. I think this makes perfect sense. Think about it: if you are a French writer, for instance, a gold record is 100,000 copies sold (as it is in many other countries around the world, as opposed to 500,000 in the US) and this makes you a tidy amount of money in France. However, if you awarded that same amount of money in the US, writers here would be richer than the Sultan of Brunei. It is impossible. How many radio stations are there in France? In the US? There is no way they can pay the same amount of money to the writers. What this really means is that at some point the governments of smaller nations who controlled royalty payments were persuaded that keeping artists decently paid was a necessity. Here it pays equally well if you have a hit song, but because there are so many stations it was not possible (until now, let us pray) to pay every single writer for every single spin, so a survey system was developed. This leaves out marginal writers like me who never get any money even though I get my songs played, but it makes hit songwriters wealthy. jg -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Masochism, Part II
"Ph. Barnard" wrote: You know, Cheryl, I resisted the anti-Christgau wave for a while, but he really does have his head up his arse these days. Might as well admit it and be done with it. The Voice at its best, moreover g. Maybe a motto for next year's P2 Tshirt would be "Screw You, Christgau," or some witty equivalent. --junior Whilst this little thread is rocking along, I would like to announce that I have posted a rather interesting article by Dallas music writer Tom Geddie on our website concerning music critics. this is an interview with a gaggle of some of Texas' best writers, including the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle and Austin Statesman, et al. It asks them some rather good questions about how, what, when, where why they do what they do. A 1500 word condensation of it appears in this month's Buddy mag, but I have the whole 10,000 word thing on our site for awhile. The URL is http://www.kimmierhodes.com/welcome.html Or I could just post it here g -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Rusty Wier
Christopher Adams wrote: "Stoned Slow and Rugged" from 1975 was one of the decade's best "outlaw country" LPs. It had great songwriting and good musical support, including Chris Hillman, Richie Furay, Herb Pedersen, and Rusty Young. One of the recordings that should be released on CD. Ole Rusty also wrote "Don't It Make You Want to Dance" which her majesty Bonnie Raitt made into a smash hit. I've knowed him since 1969 and we've had some memorable times together. I just wish somebody would help me remember what they were. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Note-for-note
well, hell, what is orchestral music except an attempt to recreate a piece of music note-for-note? I find it interesting, even exhilarating, to try to recreate old styles of playing in a live situation. We just did a new Kimmie Rhodes/Joe Sears play called "Hillbilly Heaven" in which we used a bunch of old country songs, and I was the acoustic rhythm player in the band, and doing old Hank Williams and Lefty and Bob Wills and Cline stuff is truly a gas when you try to do it the real way. It can also be very instructive to try to recreate a style of playing, like Western Swing or Ray Price Shuffle, because it is usually a humbling experience. (There is nothing more terrible than a badly played shuffle. Bands who play them badly should be executed.) However, if I were making a record and using old material I think I would be forced to do something new with it for the simple reason that it has already been done that way once, well, and I just don't understand parroting old stuff. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Brother Ray info requested
Nicholas Petti wrote: Ray Charles will be playing relatively nearby. Has anyone seen him recently and is the show worth going to. Bear in mind that going would mean major hardship for me as it's on a Friday night a few hours away and as a new restaurant owner that's no kind of recipe for success. I do however fucking love Ray Charles. Nicholas I'd say it doesn't matter what he did the last time anybody saw him because a)he is erratic and grouchy, tending to do a show only as good as the mood he is in will allow him to do and b)because he is Ray Charles and you better catch him whenever you can. I have seen him at least twice and one time he was brilliant and had people diving out of the balcony in ecstasy and the other time he got mad at the sound man for screwing with his monitors and he became so cranky about it that it ruined the show, becoming a contest of wills to see if he could destroy the poor guy. He is much like Jerry Lee in that respect; you never really know what you'll get, but who cares? -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Swingin' Doors 4/1/99
"Ph. Barnard" wrote: Dwight's cut is indeed outstanding, but I kinda like Willie's as well. Even though Joe Gracey's engineering credit was somehow wrongly eliminated from the booklet notes, etc. --junior You're kidding me! The bastards! Bring me the head of Kinky Friedman! I did do that session in fact, and Gabe helped me and played some guitar on it, too. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Swingin' Doors 4/1/99
Jamie Hoover wrote: Well, my copy says: Recorded by Joe Gracey at Pedernales Studio, Austin, Tx Assisted by Gabe Rhodes. Jamie Joe Gracey wrote: "Ph. Barnard" wrote: Dwight's cut is indeed outstanding, but I kinda like Willie's as well. Even though Joe Gracey's engineering credit was somehow wrongly eliminated from the booklet notes, etc. --junior You're kidding me! The bastards! Bring me the head of Kinky Friedman! I did do that session in fact, and Gabe helped me and played some guitar on it, too. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com See? yelling does get results, quick, too. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: BMI vs. ASCAP?
Dave Purcell wrote: I seem to remember reading that it's hard to get into ASCAP unless you're a little more established, whereas BMI takes anyone. I don't think that is true. They both take anybody with the dough to sign up. The history of the two is this: ASCAP was the original New York group, Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, etc. In the old days (40s) they had become snooty and Establishment. This is no longer in any sense true, and they now actively recruit all comers. BMI arose as a response to this elitism, formed by the Nashville and rock roll cadre, who found working with ASCAP a pain because they were looked down upon. As I recall, perhaps wrongly, BMI was also the first rights org. to collect radio airplay royalties. SESAC I know nothing about. Each of them will tell you they pay the best, most promptly, etc, but as far as I can tell there is very little, if any, difference between them, results-wise. (BTW, none of this has anything whatsoever to do with publishing. Bug Music is a publisher. BMI and ASCAP are "performing rights societies" which serve as collection agencies for performance royalties only, send them to the publishers and writers, and deduct 1% of your royalties to pay their overhead. In order to collect "mechanical royalties", or money from record sales, you either have to have a publisher, be your own publisher, or at least register yourself with the Harry Fox Agency (they have a website) in order to collect your mechanicals.) -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: more info Re: BMI vs. ASCAP?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Joe writes: (BTW, none of this has anything whatsoever to do with publishing. Bug Music is a publisher. BMI and ASCAP are "performing rights societies" which serve as collection agencies for performance royalties only, send them to the publishers and writers, and deduct 1% of your royalties to pay their overhead. In order to collect "mechanical royalties", or money from record sales, you either have to have a publisher, be your own publisher, or at least register yourself with the Harry Fox Agency (they have a website) in order to collect your mechanicals.) ...which is why BUG is so cool, they do BOTH! All publishers do both. However, you still have to register your songs with BMI or ASCAP. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: BMI vs. ASCAP?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BMI is free to join, but may pay a little less in royalties. I believe they deduct 3.6% for administrative fees. 1% -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: SXSW finally
Cherilyn diMond wrote: c) could someone please for the love of christ send me an album title suggestion that will beat Jo's "When Chickens Cry." Please please please "When Chickens Lip" "Chicken Teeth On A Hardwood Floor" "When Chickens Hurl" You can use any of those for free. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Clip: More G*rthball
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brooks' impact comes off field The Arizona Republic March 28, 1999 In the world of music, he has recorded a bunch of hit singles. snip I asked what he would like the Padres to tell him when spring training ends. "What would I like to hear?" he asked. After a thoughtful pause, he said, wishfully, "I would love to be told that if I had invested the last 17 years playing the game, I would be playing major league baseball." This is the closest chance he will have. So he took it, ignoring critics and cynics and fighting down his fears. "I'm scared to death of embarrassment and failure," Brooks said. But he made a commitment. He would try. "If you don't, you might as well stay in the house all day. . . . You're the only one who can see your dreams." You know, I actually admire the guy for doing this. He ain't hurting anybody, he's giving money to charity, signing autographs like he was Willie, and being real, when he could just turn into another rich fool artist and get totally crazy and disassociated from reality. Aside from the fact that I think his fame is out of proportion to his ability (but what fame that size isn't?) I fail to see why people demonize him. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Clip: More G*rthball
James Gerard Roll wrote: It was reported last night that Garth's next desire is to tour with Kiss. I AM NOT kidding. Stay tuned . . . -jim I take it back. He is a idiot. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Ranchera?
"Robin D. Laws" wrote: Anybody out there know anything about ranchera, or other styles of traditional Mexican music? Key figures? Recommended recordings? Take care Robin Laws Look for Arhoolie releases. Los Tigres Del Norte. Flaco's dad, Santiago Sr. who almost singlehandedly defined the genre. Look for Les Blank's great film documentaries about the border scene. Alegres De Teran. Lydia Mendoza. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Better Live?
Jeff Wall wrote: How come some acts, usually the Alt Country, Bluegrass, etc, etc, sound so much better live than they do on disc, and others, Big name rock, Country, etc sound so much better on disc than they do live. If it is a relatively unknown act live, you tend to overlook slop. On record, slop is disturbing unless it is part of the act. Live, you get this big undifferentiated sound in which almost anything can be put across if enough energy goes into it. A record is a much smaller sound (unless you have a massive system cranked, and even then the dynamic range of a record is about half that of the human ear) and the instruments are separated from each other sonically, more distinct. Bad stuff is more apparent. Bad singing is less forgiveable. Bad playing grates. In person, you may be sucked into the magic of live music (literally) but a record requires you to focus, pay attention, and you hear everything. Big name acts may sound better on CD because they actually cram more energy into their recordings than they muster onstage. Also I think when you go to see a big name act, you already have this expectation based on how great the record sounded, and no live band can ever sound as "good" as a well-produced hit record. Live mixes are not usually as good as studio mixes. think of the stones- their live shows usually more or less sucked compared to the best of their records. Is it that difficult to capture the spirit or energy of a live gig? I think it is extremely difficult, one of the hardest things to try to do. Really, making a record is in a way a "trick" in the same way that making a film is a "trick"- you are going all around the block in order to arrive at something that sounds and feels real, but never was except for the moment of transcription itself. The whole is an assembly of parts, and it is the producer's and engineer's job to be expert enough to fool your ear into believing it is real. It almost never is. I happen to love live studio recording- the kind where the band assembles in the studio and plays the song together, like all the greatest country songs were cut, and all 50s and 60s rock was cut (up to about 67), but even then if you walked into the studio during the session it would not sound like a band in there, only in the control room monitors does the final magic take place. Do the artists even make money on recordings anymore? Most artists at most levels use the whole recording budget to make the record, but if they are lucky they also pay themselves during the process, so they at least don't lose money. Traditionally, the money is in touring once you reach the $5,000-$10,000 and above level. You only make money on record sales if you have massive hits. Touring at the $500-$1000 a night level is not very much fun unless you are in your twenties, single-ish, and ready for anything. On the other hand, this is why I am 48 and look 84. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Touring/Live
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now all of this is my experience in the United States. I really like touring overseas. Nice big van or bus provided by booker, good guarantee on money, dinner at the club each night, most of the gear provided. One could easily get spoiled. Truly, it is amazing how much better the European promoters treat the acts (on the whole) than you get here. Food, rooms, standard. Decent guarantees, great royalties from live performance (gasp!). We toured Europe for years and had great times. I hasten to add that the good guys here do go out of their way to provide whatever they can, but the norm in Europe is better to start with, so it is a pleasant suprise to Americans who go there. Plus, there is the added compensation of being in Paris as opposed to Somewhere With A Denny's. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Apartment #9
mitchell moore wrote: Need a little help with some research here, please. I'd thought that Tammy Wynette's debut single, Apartment #9, was written by Johnny Paycheck and Billy Austin. Yet I recently saw it credited to Fuzzy Owen and Fern Foley, and to Owen/Foley/Paycheck. Anyone know what gives here? I just want to get it right for something I'm working on. Thanking the collective wisdom in advance. M. Moore look it up in the BMI website. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Better Live?
Jon Weisberger wrote: Nashville studios rarely spend an hour trying to get one lick from anybody, never mind the rhythm guitarist; the guys who do most of the work there don't *need* an hour to get a lick right, which is why they're in such demand. A lot more of that stuff than you'd think is cut in pretty short order, which is how they're able to work multiple sessions in a day. If any session person had to spend an hour trying to get a lick right, he'd have to spend 49 minutes of it out on the street by himself. In spite of the often weirdly lame commercial cuts coming out of Nashville these days, it is not the pickers' fault. Them boys are hot shit, and having a roomfull of those guys is like getting into a Porsche and stepping on the gas- it goes as fast as you ask it to, and quickly too. We have a group of them that we have learned to know and love through demo sessions and we brought them down to Willie's studio here by our house to do a Kimmie record, and it was pure joy. It is such pleasure to get a group of creative, competitive, exquisitely able players assembled and then make a fun, loose record with them. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: boot me baby, but don't sell it
e part of their anatomies. (And after years of not participating in discussions because of the digest factor, and having posts ignored, it's an honor to be debated by Joe Gracey. And I'm not being facetious.) Well, since you put it that way, you can tape the show. JEG -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: boot me baby, but don't sell it
Larry Slavens wrote: What's got me about this discussion is the doublethink. I'm not supposed to have this live music that I didn't "pay" the artist for-- This was not my, at least, point. Whether a live tape is free or not is not the issue with me. All I ask is the courtesy of a veto over a bad show, or for that matter for any reason whatsoever, since I insist on my right as an artist to control what happens with my art. Pretty simple concept. While I don't have any passionate feeling about tapes floating around out there and consider them mostly harmless in practical terms, I do have an uneasiness about them insofar as they may violate my right to control how my art is exposed to the public. this is such an important and fundamental concept that it almost takes on a kind of holy aura with me, like the right of free speech, etc. It seems to me that it's pretty easy for industry weasels g who enjoy lots of free music to cast stones at a music exchange medium that they don't participate in. I don't really see how promo music relates to tape trading. Promos fall entirely within the confines of what I am talking about, the artist's right to control how his music is presented. (And I'll join the musicians in their everyone-should-pay-for-every- note-they-hear argument if they join me in my campaign, as a writer, to close down every library, used book store store, copying machine, scanner, and the like, so that every person who reads my work has to pay for it. It's only fair.) I have often wrestled with this similarity. How is a used book store any different than a used CD store? It seems to me that to be entirely fair there should be some way of assessing a royalty at the point of sale of all books/CDs/art. One last thought. Even though tape trading may be harmless and not for profit, there is still something there that bugs me. All I have to sell is my music. If my music goes around endlessly for free, am I not being deprived of compensation for what I do? I am not angry or blustering about this, just slightly confused by it. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Ray's Tokin, obviously For the Good Times
Mike Hays wrote:
Oh dear! From "People Online" 3/24/99:
* ARRESTED: Grammy Award-winning country singer Ray Price ("For the
Good
Times"), on a marijuana charge, near his Texas ranch. He was charged
with
possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia and fined $700.
yeah boy, they got 'em another criminal that time. I can't believe I am
reading this in 1999.
--
Joe E. Gracey
President-For-Life, Jackalope Records
http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: glass houses:(was Re: boot me baby, but don't sell it)
Bob Soron wrote: At 5:19 PM -0500 on 3/24/99, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: so now that i've been beaten up for my views on bootlegging, am i to assume that all those that have had a dissenting view point in one form or another have never purchased, or even traded for, such an item? just curious... Let me try to explain my vehemence regarding this subject... I produced an album with Stevie Ray Vaughn and Lou Ann Barton- two, actually, in 1979. Stevie and I parted ways when he went to Epic and I handed over every single one of my tapes to his manager. I didn't keep dubs or copies or nuthin' because I loved Stevie and I didn't want the bad karma of the temptation of a bootleg hanging over me. Now some dick-weed has bootlegged MY stevie sessions and pressed them and is selling them, apparently using a copy of MY mastering that I had given to Stevie and the band to approve. I cannot tell you how angry this makes me. I have no tolerance for this. Not only is Stevie's estate being robbed here, but I and the band are being screwed as well. Trading of concert tapes is a different thing, although as an artist I feel that I should have control over whether sub-par performances get out. Kimmie and I never sign releases prior to a show, only after we view the results, and if anybody were to ask about taping I just say "send me a copy of it and we'll talk about it" because in truth, an artist deserves and in fact owns the right to all performances. Because music or spoken word are ephemeral rather than concrete, there is an underlying feeling that they are less "owned" by the artist. This leads to all sorts of abuse, ranging from terrible shows passed around to laws passed by Congress taking away royalties for commercial use of copyrighted music. I view it as a matter of degree and intent- if you love somebody enough to want to tape them and trade tapes with other fans, great, but give the artist the courtesy of saying yes or no. If you are selling the artist's image or work without consent or royalty agreements, then you are stealing property. thankyouverymuch, JG -- Joe E. Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Ray Price
Bob Burns/Big In Iowa wrote: My great uncle was a horse trainer for Ray. I wonder if he smoked dope to? I hope so. Bob no, but his horses all did. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: P2 Thanks and SXSW Highlights
James Gerard Roll wrote: My personal highlights were 1.) the Billy Joe Shaver Son show. I was a Shaver virgin and was not expecting the amazing Charisma and lyrical power that he posessed. Every word shook the earth as far as I could tell. That guy is a true poet and his band was so amazing they withstood a 10 minute drum solo!! By far my favorite set of music. I am sure there was more. But Shaver rules . . . let it be known. -jim Yeah, billy joe is the real deal. He is one of those poets who managed to slip through the commercial wall and get big cuts, but he is the farthest thing from a hack you could imagine. He is one of those cats who is so much himself that he sort of radiates his own wattage, on and offstage. My first brush with him was when he showed up to do an interview on my radio show in '73, pretty well drunk on tequila at 2pm (he has since stopped drinking) and wowed us all. Later on I noticed that he spent several days up on the roof of Kandy Kicker's house, clutching the chimney and being high on peyote or some shit like that, having himself a big ole time. BTW, I'm sorry I missed the dang barbecue and the fabulous Jim Roll set but I was unable to attend them items, to my chagrin. -- Joe e. Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: glass houses:(was Re: boot me baby, but don't sell it)
Bob Soron wrote: But I do want to suggest, and this isn't to contradict a single thing you say, that there can be a disparity between what the performer and the fan considers a terrible show. Most artists are perfectionists of one kind or another (it is one of the qualities that helps them get anywhere) so what they consider bad may not seem so to a normal human. This is impossible to draw a solid line about. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Wilco's summerteeth (fans drifting away)
Lowell Kaufman wrote: I like Wilco, particularly live. I like Summer Teeth a little, but I'm not that enamored by it because while he's being more poppy, perhaps more accessible to sell more records (Wilco may sell alot for an "alt-country" band, but they don't sell that many records in the giant picture) BTW, this Cd just entered the Billboard Top 200 album charts this week. This is a major accomplishment, especially for a cult band, and it entered in the bottom of the top 100, at something like 78 I think. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: glass houses:(was Re: boot me baby, but don't sell it)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 3/25/99 1:10:35 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Now some dick-weed has bootlegged MY stevie sessions and pressed them and is selling them, apparently using a copy of MY mastering that I had given to Stevie and the band to approve. I believe the culprit is Home Cookin' Records out of Houston. Actually, I think this is a different session they are pressing. I can't recall the name on the boot I saw of my sessions. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: boot me baby, but don't sell it
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 3/24/99 2:10:55 PM EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Someone right now is selling t-shirts for $20 plus postage of a live concert shot of Todd. They are calling it the "unofficial Todd Snider T-shirt"... they also have tapes, bootleg CDs and videos for sale. Meanwhile, Todd ain't getting any richer, these guys are. look, sorry to have to be the one to break this to you, but this is life, and it ain't going away. maybe its not fair, but it goes along with the territory of being a performer for the public. and if you're lucky enough, as todd seems to be, to have a hard core following who will buy t-shirts of him for 20 bucks, then he should be happy about it. if todd really has a problem with people buying this stuff, and others making dough off of him, than maybe he oughta get busy and throw out some stuff on his own, and then he can prosper as well. course, he can always choose another career. this is an insulting and outrageous thing to say. He has every right and duty to find this bastard and prosecute him for theft. "Life" my ass. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: ProTools illumination
Will Miner wrote: No, but 30 years ago you had all kinds of records coming out with mistakes in them and who cared? -- because they were damned fine records. Off the top of my head I'm thinking of old blues or rock and roll examples -- like early Beatles records or Creedence Clearwater Revival records or Howlin Wolf records -- so maybe this is one of those things that was once forgiven in rock or blues but would never have been tolerated in country, for example. But it may also be because those Floyd Tillman or Lefty Frizzell or whichever records arent coming to mind. Mistakes were left in those old records for various reasons, some artistic, some because of budget or time contraints, some because the people involved were all primitive enough to not know or care. I personally love stuff on records that is out of tune or not perfect, but we are now faced with that as a conscious artistic decision to be made rather than an accident or not knowing any better, etc. The advent of guitar tuners, multitrack gear, hard drive digital music, have all given more control over the music to the artists and producers than we have ever had before. Sometimes this is a good thing, but usually stuff gets polished to death, in my opinion. This is probably why, when I reach for a CD to play, my hand swerves toward Jimmy Reed or Bob Wills or T-Bone Walker, stuff from an era when records were literal transcriptions of an event rather than creations resulting from many weeks in a studio. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Fix-it-in-the-mix price drop
Will Miner wrote: On Mon, 15 Mar 1999, Jon Weisberger wrote: Now you, too, can "correct the pitch of the most tone-deaf singers and build lush multi-voice harmonies with a click of the mouse" for less than $400. I hadnt heard of this technology, although it isnt surprising. So, is this something that's regularly used commercially? Are we approaching the days when everyone is going to be Milli Vanilli? Will we swoon over gorgeous voices like those of Lucinda Williams or Kelly Willis only to find out, when we see them live, that they cant sing anything like they sound on their records? Will Miner Denver, CO This is a part of the industry standard, "ProTools", and has already been used on almost any artist you can think of who records for a major label. Get used to it, it is here to stay. There is only one argument in favor of it and here it is: When you record a typical vocal these days, the general idea is to record three or four tracks of the vocal and then go through them and pick out the best phrases and notes and put together a "comp" vocal out of the best of all of them. This makes a nice vocal but can sound sort of odd, since it was literally done at four different times, no matter how close together they may have been. Also, as you do it over again, you tend to lose the fresh, innocent quality of the first take. This is analogous to the old days of mono, when they used to record a song many times and splice together the best segments of the song into a good complete take. This was common practice and done on almost all hit records. Or, you can do the vocal over and over and over again until you get it perfect but you have sung the life out of it. Now, with ProTools a competent singer like Kimmie can step up to the mic, sing the hell out of the song, and stop when the vocal is at its most fresh and believable and heartfelt. Then, if there is one note she missed and it will be a horrible moment for everybody until the end of time, you simply go in and tune that one note and you have a vocal that is virtually a first, single, take. This is in fact an improvement over every other option. The only thing better than this would be to just go in and sing the song and take what you get, but frankly, very very few records have ever been done that way and most of them were folk efforts where flaws are not only tolerated but admired. No modern artist will allow lousy performances out of the studio unless being perverse. I hope this is illuminating and not merely dense. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Boot recommendations?
I get mine custom-made from M.L. Leddy Sons on N. Main in Fort Worth, Texas. They do not hurt. I always have worn them, and always will, and will be buried in my best pair. Bad boots are not real boots. "Terry A. Smith" wrote: Cowboy boots hurt, there's no getting around it. A slave to fashion in the jurassa-alt.country days, I wore the damn things for years, and the only use I ever found for them was... -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: twanglife after 50, 60, 70 ...
Jeff Wall wrote: At 06:53 AM 3/11/99 EST, you wrote: T I've got to write a short article about what the lives of famous or historical people looked like at later key ages, particularly after 50 (examples include: Frank Lloyd Wright, Sidney Greenstreet - even Philip Glass, who apparently was a plumber until he hit 40). What about Joe Gracey? He's so old he was telling me about standing on the beach down there in Texas waiting for the Gulf of Mexico to finish filling up. He knows a lot of them really old people too. Billy joe, Willie, Waylon, Cowboy Jack, Moses, Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo, etc God-dammit, I'm only 48. However, I look and feel much older so I am able to lie like a much older man. This is useful. I do know many elderly persons in music, however. Did I ever tell you about the time I produced David... -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: twanglife after 50, 60, 70 ...
Tom Smith wrote: Brad Bechtel wrote: Clarification needed. Are you talking about folks who hit it big in a later key age (such as Don Walser) or someone who hit it big early, but have continued to make vital contributions to their area of expertise (such as Bill Monroe)? I think they're most interested in folks whose careers either took off or changed radically later in life (e.g. Walser). TS Willie. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Shania Spam / and gossip
BARNARD wrote: Joe: Asinine as it may be (and I hate it with great passion), that has been going on for many years now with touring acts. Screwing up would be nearly impossible now with backup systems in place. You'd be suprised and horrified to learn how many arena acts are doing this. Are a majority of arena acts, say, doing this? Just wondering. I don't know how many, I just know that the practice is probably more common than we suspect simply because it has been around for so many years, unless it became passé because it wasn't really an improvement. I do know that things like loops and triggered stuff are in common use. Second, Joe, please let us know, when you can, who else will be playing at that Saturday night Donald Lindley benefit at the Texas Union Ballroom. You mentioned Jimmy Dale and Kimmie. I do believe I'll be there. As of now, the only acts I am aware of are Jimmie Dale, Kimmie, and Hal Ketchum. However, I think there are more and I will know that this week when we rehearse. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Shania Spam / and gossip
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 3/9/99 9:47:00 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You'd be suprised and horrified to learn how many arena acts are doing this. AHA!!! Now we know why Kimmie always sounds so good at the Cactus Cafe. G Slim exactly. In fact, our whole three-piece act is a giant loop that I have burned onto a CD hidden in my amp. None of us play a note and all of Kimmie's vocals are lipsynched. this takes away any chance of a nasty little error intruding into the perfection, and saves her voice for talking on the phone. Actually, if I could get Dave Pomeroy to do all of my bass parts and put them into a loop it would be a great improvement to the act. I shall act upon that at once. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Lindley benfit SXSW (was: Shania Spam )
Barry Mazor wrote: Jerald had said: There is a benefit for Donald Lindley's family Sunday night, March 21 at Stubbs with Lucinda, Joe Ely, Terry Allen, Rosie Flores, Will and Charlie Sexton and more. You will have to pay for this event, no badges or wristbands get you in. I'll hold Gilmore down until I get the correct info from him. He can be pretty damn vague. We rehearse with him tomorrow. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Fw: HOOPS
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Since my return to P2, I keep seeing reference to a "fluff list". Is this for real? Beware Joe, you don't deserve it. You're too good for it. You won't respect yourself in the morningg beware the fluff! dan this sounds like what my mother tried to tell me about sex. I think I need this. As for music content, it appears that the gig Saturday March 20 will be Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Hal Ketchum, and Kimmie Rhodes at the Texas Union Ballroom on the UT campus. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Lindley benefit / was HOOPS
"Ph. Barnard" wrote: Joe sez: As for music content, it appears that the gig Saturday March 20 will be Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Hal Ketchum, and Kimmie Rhodes at the Texas Union Ballroom on the UT campus. What time will the show be starting? --junior I'll post that when I find it out. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Fw: HOOPS
Christopher M Knaus wrote: Hey there, I posted this over on the Fluff list so I figured I'd send it here too. All trash talking, gloating, sulking, etc. will take place on the Fluff list. Later... CK Since my return to P2, I keep seeing reference to a "fluff list". Is this for real? -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: A Question [Extremely LONG]
Cheryl Cline wrote: Bob "Ask Joe" Soron wrote: I remember the Name Problem, but I didn't much pay attention at the time. I use pretty tightly defined nomenclatures, so that no matter what people might think I'm saying, I always know. And as a non-Big Tent-er, I don't use alt.country, No Depression, Americana, and other titles synonymously. So I'm probably much less help than you'd hoped. (I haven't got a clue as to chronology, either.) Well, YOU'RE no help! I'm still curious about how far back this "we gotta get a name for this stuff" goes. Anyone else remember? Uh, Joe? g In 1971 we started looking for a name for it and the best we could do was "Progressive Country", which was decent enough but somehow unsatisfying. There was, and still is, no perfect name for something this diverse. I mean, how do you describe country music played by hippies? How about "Badly Played Country That Sounds Really Cool If You Are Stoned"? How about "Singing About Whiskey While High on LSD"? -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Roseanne, Rosannadanna?
vgs399 wrote: Who wrote that? Actually, it was funny in a "poignant" sort of way g Well, whoever it was you should be happy to know that Lance and I duked it out with Dan as referree. I got a black eye and have to buy both guys a beer. Sorry for all that. It really was a misunderstanding, not meant in any part for the list. Tera I thought it was hilarious. No harm done. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: New Lou Ann Barton (sorta)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lowell writes: Anyway - I saw this record called Sugar Coated Love - copyeight 1999 so it is very new. It's a very poorly recorded selection of songs from 1977 with her band called Rockola, but the second half has Stevie Ray Vaughan playing lead - early in his career I reckon. What label is this on? It sounds like a bootleg to me. I understand that Lou Ann has a new record coming out on Antone's later this year. I don't think this is it. And YES! the woman can SING! Jim, smilin' It's a boot. Somebody has done it and my Stevie/Lou Ann sessions too. Bastards. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Damn This Old LA Town
vgs399 wrote: Er, what he said. And it sure is ironic to see a post viciously insulting a fellow P2er for an imaginary insult.g Please read more carefully folks, lest you read something into a message that simply isn't there.--don Where I come from using the term "cakehole" as in and I quote here, "...much more creative than whatever spills out of your cakehole" as a "colorful" term to refer to that which someone says or wishes to express is a sarcastic putdown. Also, the foul language is not necessary. It is a posturing attempt to appear "tough" and "cool". Please, let's not degrade this list to the kind of postings which r.m.c.w. is so full of. Tera This is comedy, right? This is a Roseann Roseannadanna routine, right? If Lance hadn't been so grossly insulted, I would have thought it was funnier, but he handled himself like a gentleman. This is bizarre. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Covers and a defense of irony (long)
Anyway, I got through this whole post without using the word fuck. Maybe I am growing up. : ) Lance . . . Grow up, Lance, please. You cakehole. Anyway, around here they say "piehole". -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Is It or Is It Not?
"Ferguson, Dan" wrote: Jon wrote: Oh, and finally, one thing that's bugging me half to death... Earle's mentioned a number of times that Del and the guys brought back the use of one mike, but speaking in terms of national acts, that honor (such as it is) really belongs to Doyle Lawson. And if I remember correctly, Hot Rize made pretty good use of the single mike when they were a bluegrass entity. Boudin Dan One mic is cool because the singers mix themselves into a coherent, single sound. This is a far superior sound than when a soundperson tries to take 3 or 4 mics and mix it and the monitors into a fake blend. People sing more in tune, they sing together, and they sing better. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Damn This Old LA Town
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tireless defender of my hometown that I am, I must bitch for a moment about last night's Damnations gig. That poor band was subjugated to everything I hate about LA. Yeah, we had one of those when WTH came out. the front of the room was friends and supporters but the back of the room and the bar were full of loud, drunk, idiots who basically drowned our acoustic set out. A bunch of them were from the opening act, too, who had earlier played a full horn-section rock set, and who apparently thought we sucked, or so they kept saying. Can't wait to get back.. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Damn This Old LA Town
Interesting that this seems to be a fairly common problem around the country. We have great gigs where people actually listen and we have this one gig where people literally scream over us the whole set. The last time we played it I almost went nuts but contained myself, since I'm just the bass player. I can't figure out why people pay money to see Kimmie, then ignore her and act like we are a copy band. The best places for us are the ones where it is understood that the room is a listening room for songwriters and anybody who ignores that pretty much gets quietly stifled and shot out back, or at least ones where there is a massive sound system that can get twice as loud as the crowd. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Barry wrote; The worst mistake is supposed to be to say anything about this rudeness or to try to hush it..Yoiu become an instant heavy. I'm afraid you're right Barry, but it is getting out of hand, I mean it's really getting bad. I was within oh, 15 feet last night of Richard Buckner as he played an abolutely riveting set and was surrounded on each side by groups of folks who could not shut up (or recognize the damn-near genius occurring right in front of them, YMMV on that g). If nothing else, why someone would want to be that close to a singer-songwriter as talented as Buckner while she's tearing his way through "22" and be laughing and carrying on about some irrelevant bullsh*t is just mind-blowing to me. Take it to the back of the room. I mean would these folks go to a book reading by a great author or a painting class with some leading painter and balance their checkbooks??? Somehow I said nothing, fearing that if I did I would just explode and end up getting kicked out-I was that near physically losing it. I mean it's getting bad, and I don't know what to do. Maybe just wait til the end of the entire show and politely ask them not to do it next time? Plead? Bribe them to can it? Start packing heat??? I hear your pain, Neal, dan bentele "If you don't shut the fuck up, I'm gonna have them turn the lights on here so everyone can see who the asshole is." (Steve Earle to persistent heckler, Amsterdam, 1996) -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: The Eradication Game (Re: Grammyszzzzzzzzz....)
Carl Abraham Zimring wrote: Seriously, it seems to me the point of this exercise is to throw out an artist one despises and dare anyone to find artistic merit in it. Granted Ray Stevens is eons above, say Journey on the artistic scale. I however, have never liked him, and I particularly hate his novelty songs like Ahab the Arab and the Streak. By throwing his name out, I *want* to hear defenses of his work. Give me a reason to appreciate him, as I haven't found one yet Carl Z. How old were you when "Ahab the Arab" came out? I was a kid/teen and it was cooler than shit to us. Lots more goofy novelty stuff was on radio then and it was just more of the same silly but fun era. 'Course it also paved the way for the return of good rock roll too, by ultimately being unsatisfying. "The Streak" was just a late, boring attempt to make that dog hunt one more time, which was futile and demeaned the earlier stuff, which at the time was rather inventive and fresh, if you can believe that. In his earliest incarnation, he was much like Roger Miller would be thought of later. It is a distortion to lump his later junk in with his earlier hits because he eventually ran out of gas and began to repeat himself and become tiresome and clownish. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: The Eradication Game (Re: Grammyszzzzzzzzz....)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Plus: Stevie Ray Vaughn, who while inoffensive and sometimes soulful in himself has inspired the worst teenage guitar boy fantasies since Jim Morrison. What does this mean? That stevie was a teenager? That he was a teenage guitar? -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: George Jones' voice
"[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark Wyatt)" wrote: Next up for discussion--honky-tonk diction. Why the heck do singers like Buck Owens and early Paycheck add an "ell" to words that don't have them? Like, "I ain't nell-ver..." They don't talk like that in southern Ohio (Paycheck's stomping grounds), and I bet they don't in Bakersfield, either. because it is more euphonius. My grandfather (a central Texas farm boy) always said "milnk" for the same reason. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: George Jones' phrasing (was Gag reflex)
Jon Weisberger wrote: An interesting comment. I'd say that the *technique* isn't especially a bluegrass one - Monroe and most of the other major bluegrass singers of Jones' younger days don't clench their jaws - but the emotional content of that, the physical restraint/emotional outpouring dialectic, if you will g, is a prominent feature of the style. I always feel like bluegrass tenors are singing more up in their heads, with their noses, rather than their mouths. To me, not a bluegrass expert by any means, it almost defines the style. No vibrato, either. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Production-- Ralph Emery's take on this thread
"Shane S. Rhyne" wrote: I suppose I always assumed that production was a more collaborative effort than what it sounds like. Sometimes the producer is the de facto artist, like Phil Spector, whose artists were pretty much nameless and interchangeable (except perhaps the Righteous Bros) and who really was the star of the show. Some producers are very hands-off and just interject an opinion when needed to steer things in the right direction. some of them are overpaid airheads who sleep through the session (I have personally engineered sessions with a famous-name producer who slept through the whole damn thing). There is no definition of what a record producer is or does. Some of them are people who put the money up for the session and appropriate the "producer" title just because they can, not having a clue. There are musician-producers, engineer-producers, financier-producers, label owner-producers, and increasingly now there are songwriter-producers who have very definite ideas about how they want their songs done. I swear fifty percent of the job lies in knowing when to say "that's the one. Stop now", since most musicians are perfectionists and will play something to death and go 'way past it. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Skinning the Cat (Was: Re: Lucinda)
"Shane S. Rhyne" wrote: I enjoying mixing metaphors as much as the next bartender, but, ahem, the "cat" in question when "skinning a cat" is a fish and not a feline. says who? I'm serious. Around these parts it has always been held to be a feline. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Production-- Ralph Emery's take on this thread
"Terry A. Smith" wrote: As for Chet Atkins, since most of the artists he worked with wound up receiving similar arrangements for their tunes, I'd say that's fairly good evidence that he was calling the shots. That doesn't mean the artists had a problem with his choices (though I don't know that you can assume perfect harmony on those choices either). There is no question that Chet was making the conscious attempt to popularize country music by using pop elements the the RCA records he was making. I was a kid dj in Ft. Worth during this time, and my boss was the guy who wrote "Fraulein" and was on RCA and Chet and he talked the radio station into putting in what he called a "countrypolitan" format, which was in essence a non-twangy country format aimed at urban audiences. We played all the new Ray Price and all the RCA stuff and all of the rash of "Hank with Strings" and all that mess. However, I must say that in Atkins' defense (as if he needed it- he's a giant) that in the instances where the addition of pop elements would have been jarring, he didn't do it (like for Charley Pride and Johhny Bush.) (I still maintain that those Bare records were not jarring when we heard them for the first time- they fit perfectly with the era. Objecting to the Anita Kerr singers just would have seemed silly in the 60s.) He didn't just run from studio to studio cramming strings and singers onto country records, he used good sense to try to slick up what could be slicked up and left the rest alone. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Production-- Ralph Emery's take on this thread
Jon Weisberger wrote: Matt says: There are as many producer/musician relationships as there are musicians and producers. There's the Ken Nelson school, where he kept out of the way of creativity for the most part, letting Buck Owens run the show while he ran the technical end, listened for problems. Except that Nelson apparently wasn't nearly so hands-off when it came to the Louvin Brothers (it was his comments about the mandolin that got Ira into such a swivet). It really is hard to generalize about this stuff. I saw him produce a record one time. He did the weirdest thing: when it came time to mix, he got a pair of good headphones, set up a little table in front of a picture window out in the studio, opened up a good bottle of red wine, and sat there looking out over the Hill Country, sipping wine, and listening to the mix progress over the phones. It finally dawned on me what he was doing- he was removing himself from the process so that all he could be aware of was the mix itself. Brilliant, really. (Other guys do the same thing by leaving and just coming in from time to time to see how it's going.) -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Production-- Ralph Emery's take on this thread
Jon Weisberger wrote: I swear fifty percent of the job lies in knowing when to say "that's the one. Stop now"... And another twenty-five percent lies in knowing when to say "hey, have you got that tuner nearby?" you know, I'm speaking with forked tongue because I rely on them, but I hate tuners. Have a stated this rant before? Before tuners records sounded really cool, with the slight disonances created by individuals tuning the best they could and never perfectly. Imagine how much less cool Jimmy Reed or Dylan in the 60s would have been, perfectly in tune? I think it is something we are missing from modern records. And what with ProTools, you will never hear anything even approaching an off-key note from a vocalist again. Imagine what they would do to Sinatra now, tweaking every one of those little slightly-off notes to perfection? It is a sad thing. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
