Recording - February 2011 - 71

Continued from page 68 Did you study the work of other producers? Would you check out why a chord was voiced a certain way…? Yeah, but way beyond that. Who was the publisher, the color of the label, what was the B-side? Mike [Curb] and I used to drive along in the car and turn the radio on and turn it off real quick and say, “Now what’s that song and who wrote it? Who published it?” I went to some of the Beach Boys sessions, Beatle records that I used to listen to. I listened to that stuff over and over. That was my school—listening to records—and, of course, classical music. But listening to records and trying to understand them. I still try to understand. I hear great records today and I’m trying to understand. There’s something to learn every second in this business, which is another reason to learn here what you can, because there’s so much that changes and so much to learn. You’ve never ignored what’s going on currently in the market. So many times I’ve talked to you—it seems most of our conversations take place while you’re in the car—and in almost every conversation you’ll say to me, “I just heard the amazing song.” I can’t believe that you’re still interested—after six decades of making records—in what’s current. Most people would just rest on their laurels, and that’s that. You have an incredible drive to discover. What else would I do? I don’t really know. This is everything to me. The contradiction would be, “You’ve got to be appreciative and grateful for whatever happened. We’re all looking for that and are appreciative of it. But then you have to be hungry enough and passionate enough to want to do it again. And that’s, I think, a constant battle with anyone who is having success. I record Barry Manilow’s records, and Barry is the prime example of somebody that has been successful for so many years, has had so many hit records and so many fans. We were doing backgrounds the last three days on this new record of his, and it’s like it’s his followup to his first record. He is so into it and so concerned about it being exactly the right part, that the song is right, and that the background vocal part is just right. He is so into it and passionate about it. I said to him that it’s incredible how he’s not lackadaisical, or like, “Oh yeah, sure, it’s fine. Yeah, it sounds good. Let’s go.” Nothing like that. So I think that that’s a part of it, it keeps you vital, it keeps you connected and I’m just grateful to be still doing it.

How do you live up to your own expectations? You set your own bar so high; doesn’t it scare you to go into the studio every time? I guess you could see it as an opportunity—there’s that word again—but with the track record that you have, I’d be petrified every time that the next record would be a flop or a career ender or something. How do you make it over your own bar? I don’t know. But you did say something interesting about being scared. He played one Kimberly Locke Christmas record called Up on the Housetop—which was a #1 Christmas song for her—and at certain point… I guess it had to be before that, but every time I walked into the studio, I was—not scared so much— but it was like what’s gonna happen? And maybe that’s kind of what I said at the begin-

ning. I don’t really understand how some of these records came to be, and how when you listen to one after the other like that, really how that happened. I think I kind of approach that by going into the studio thinking, “Well, we’ve got good musicians and everything’s kind of prepared. I wonder what’s going to happen.” I think there is a certain amount of innocence that maybe is a good thing, and couple that with a certain amount of experience or something, I don’t know. What does it take to write a good song? What inspires you when you’re thinking about something? What inspires anybody? I think if you try to be available for the opportunity of inspiration, maybe it will be more available. So I don’t know, and I’m not trying to be cute, I just don’t know.

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Recording - February 2011

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