By Chuck Kirkpatrick

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENTS IN THE STUDIO

I wish I had kept a logbook or diary of every session I ever did. It would have been fun now to go back and read and reflect on what was a great career for me while it lasted. I feel so crappy when people come up to me now and say, "remember that session you did with my band.....". And I don't. There's just been too many years gone by and too many brain cells gone now. But worst of all is is that for far too long, my heart really wasn't in it. Recording engineering had become a job while my dream was to be a rock star. Things worked out as they always do....

There were however, moments in my career at Criteria Studios (now Hit Factory South) that are burned forever in my brain which I will share........in no particular order or time-line; some good...some not so good. The not-so-goods are either relative to very difficult clients, or to my royally fucking up something.

GODFREY'S UKELE Arthur spent a great deal of time in Miami back in the 50's - 60's. He was I believe, the owner of the Kenilworth Hotel on Miami Beach. I remember a session he came in to do with a full orchestra, with Mack Emerman engineering and me assisting. Everything was set up in studio A, the musicians were seated and ready with charts on stands, and in walks Arthur. As he makes his way towards the vocal booth, he stumbles and drops his prized ukelele on the polished concrete floor. The neck breaks off the body with a sickening sound, followed by dead silence for about 10 seconds while Arthur bends over to pick up what is left. We were all frozen in fear of what might come next. Would Arthur break down and cry, or going into a screaming profanity-laced rage? He held up the pieces, looked at them for a moment, then made some joke that cracked everybody up and broke the ice. The session went on successfully that day with Arthur just singing.

FAMILY FEUD

There were a few of these, but this one sticks out. A very well known local producer who at the time happened to be married to a very well known local singer was doing a jingle session with a very well known brother of a producer/engineering team. I was assisting the session and also out in the studio doing vocals with the producer's wife. It wasn't long before the trouble started with producer telling wife that she was a little flat on one note. "No I am NOT", says she. Engineer chimes in, "Yes you WERE". After about three minutes of this, producer's wife slams her fist down on the piano lid and then walks out of the studio. Producer gathers up charts, and HE walks out of the studio (hate to imagine the dinner conversation at home that evening), followed by engineer who walks out of control room leaving just me and the client! Needless to say, the session was scrapped.

The other incident could have been a bit more serious. A Bahamian group were in studio B doing a session with same local producer and me engineering. I could see some obvious tension even when these folks walked in - a man and a woman having either some creative differences or personal problems. I couldn't understand a word either of them said. They finally got around to actually playing and singing, but not for long before the bickering and yelling started. You could see by the look on the producer's face that he was wishing he'd never taken this gig. The last thing I remember seeing was the woman picking up one of those metal canister-type floor-standing ash trays, raising it over her head and lunging at the man. I believe the producer grabbed the ash-tray before she was able to throw it. That was when I left the control room.

ZAPPA

I was assistant engineer on the "Uncle Meat" album sessions at Criteria. Frank had brought his own long-time engineer. The band had just finished an awesome 10 minute long jam and the tape was about to run out. The engineer removed the full take up reel with the recorded performance on it and set it atop the tape machine. Somehow we all got distracted. Another reel of what we thought was blank tape was loaded on to the machine for the next tune. An hour or so went by before Frank asked to hear the previous jam. The engineer reached for the tape only to realize he'd loaded that reel to the supply side of the machine thinking it was a new piece of fresh blank tape. I suppose it was partially my fault for not managing the tapes better, but the damage was done. We'd mistakenly recorded over the 10 minute jam and our fears were realized when we hit "play" and heard what was left of the jam playing backwards. Now to break the news to Frank, who had stepped out of the control room for a moment. I expected the worst....the screaming...possibly even bad physical things happening...breakage of gear or my bones. I trembled in fear as his engineer said, "Frank, most of it got erased". Frank stood there and as calm as could be and quietly said, "Well....lets' just go out there and do it again...."

JERRY WEXLER ("You WHAT?")

This may have been my worst moment in history. Now, it's one thing to get yelled at in front of a bunch of people for screwing up. But when one of the most famous record producers in history lowers his head, leans towards you looking over the tops of his glasses, and says in a voice barely above a whisper, "You WHAT?" It was on the Delaney and Bonnie "blue album" session with Tom Dowd and Jerry Wexler producing. We were overdubbing a brass quartet on a song called "Free The People". Back then we had only 8 tracks, and you had to get very creative with overdubs. The main body of the song was finished but Jerry wanted to have a salvation army brass band intro. This meant punching in on the front of the song on some of the master tape's tracks, and punching out at precisely the right moment so as not to erase anything else. I thought I had the right punch-out point after a few dry runs, but during the actual recording, I missed it by a bar or two, erasing over the original instruments. In a sickening few seconds, I realized what I had done. Then Jerry asks for the playback. When I told him what had happened....well, needless to say, I nearly pissed myself with fear. I still have flash-backs......"You WHAT?"

THE ARETHA SESSIONS If I could relive any 30 minutes of my entire career as an engineer, it would be on one of the Aretha Franklin sessions. I know many will scratch their heads in disbelief thinking it would be the "Layla" sessions. But what sets these sessions apart from any others was the combination of a ridiculous amount of talent (all in the room playing and singing at the same time), the most powerful trio of producers on the planet; Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd, and Arif Mardin, and great SONGS. The energy was ridiculous. Nothing in my experience behind the board will ever top that. When you see and hear 9 or 10 of the best musicians in the business all 'cooking' behind one of the greatest singers in history doing it live in the room (and with 3 backup singers too)....well, I still get the chills thinking about it. And it got me one of the few gold records I was ever awarded for "Don't Play That Song".

MY ONE BRILLIANT DESIGN IDEA

It wasn't long after Criteria took delivery of a brand new console custom built by Jeep Harned that we moved up from 4 track to 8 track recording. Unfortunately, the console had been designed over a year prior to it's completion and delivery, and its design was now obsolete. It would only provide 4 main output channels or "busses" of output to a 4 track machine. Each of 16 input channels had a 4-pushbutton select switch panel that allowed you to route the signal to any one of four tracks on the tape machine. What was needed now was an 8 button panel to allow selection of 8 tape tracks, and retro-fitting the console for that would have cost thousands of dollars and a hundred hours of down-time. On the existing 4 button panel, there was a 5th button marked "pan" which would allow two tracks to be chosen and have panning between them for a stereo effect. During the design this button seemed like a good idea, but it proved to be useless in our every day application. As Mack Emerman stared at his new and now-obsolete console, wondering what to do, that magic light-bulb went off in my brain. "Mack, what if we use that 'pan' button to make the busses 1 through 4 all switch over from 5 to 8?" "Oh my God!", he exclaimed....."That's it. That's brilliant!" And after several evenings of wiring well into the wee hours of the night, we had an 8 track console.

ABBEY ROAD

Strangely enough, one of the last sessions I did as a Criteria employee was at Abbey Road in London. Producer Russ Ballard had been asked by Capitol Records to step in and help the group "America" revive their sagging sales with some fresh material and approach. Ballard had a major track record and could pretty much call the shots for his services. He insisted on working in England where he lived, but he demanded an American recording engineer. Somehow the call came through to Criteria, and I was the first one asked if I wanted to go. I was a bit hesitant at first. There were some steady local gigs that I would have to dump for the three weeks I'd be away. And there was an impending audition for the group "Firefall". My better judgement prevailed, and across the pond I went. I was to work 6 days a week in Abbey Studio 2 (you all know the history of THAT room!) and stay with some friends of Ballard's out in Hoddeston-Hertz. At first, I was a little concerned about not having my own hotel room and privacy, but my stay with the Andersons was a wonderful and cultural experience. Tony and Carol were a young couple with two adorable daughters ages 5 and 7. I got to experience the life-style of a typical English family, and they could not have been more hospitable. Carol fixed dinner for me every night, and we would all watch either BBC 1 or BBC 2 on the "telly" until bedtime. I commuted daily with Ballard in his Rolls Royce to St. John's Wood, about a 45 minute drive each way. It's pretty hard to put into words the experience of going to EMI / Abbey Road Studios. We were met at the iron gates by the same gatekeeper who had been there for over 20 years. Studio 2's control room as you've all seen from the pictures is upstairs.

The studio itself is quite large with very high ceilings. You have to go down a stairway to get from control room to studio. The first thing I noticed out in the studio were these industrial flourescent light fixtures mounted vertically on roll-around stands. The light-tubes in the fixtures were red - something I'd never seen before - instead of the usual white. I asked my assistant Danny about those. The Beatles had requested mood lighting for their sessions instead of the overhead industrial white flourescents that normally lit the studio, and that's what EMI gave them.

The tape machine was a gigantic Studer MK-80 24 track. The console was an EMI in-house design with Painton faders and the buss select switches were rotary - very strange! Most unusual was the patch bay. The cable connectors were unlike any I'd ever seen.....huge, clunky things the size of a cigarette pack. My assistant Danny was a very sharp young kid of 20 who helped me out a lot. I didn't even have to touch the tape machine or the transport controls. Danny was the "tape-op". The sessions began with Russ Ballard recording the tracks by himself, playing guitars, bass, keyboards, and programming the Lynn drum machine. After the first week and a half, Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley came in to do vocals on the three songs. During the recording of the vocals for "You Can Do Magic", Russ asked me to go out and sing a high part on the chorus. He'd done most of the backrounds himself and wanted a slightly different vocal texture. So, next time you hear that song on the radio, listen for me singing the high part in "You know darn well when you cast your spell.....you will hypnotize......". That's me....and I'm still getting performance-rights checks for that!! One thing I really enjoyed working at Abbey was Tea Time. You've all heard the expression, and believe me, the Brits take it very seriously. At 4 pm sharp, EVERYTHING comes to a halt - even in the middle of a take - and everyone heads for the restaurant downstairs. I would usually have a 'pint' instead of the usual tea. What's consumed doesn't matter. It's the simple ritual of the entire nation taking a collective afternoon break.

After about 30 minutes, everyone heads back to work. I remember seeing in one of Abbey's hallways, a large, one inch tape machine. It appeared to have only four channels / tracks. Then I realized that it was one of the older machines that had been used by the Beatles! We never had any 1" four-track machines in the U.S. One microphone I was introduced to there was the infamous "hamburger" mic, so named for its shape, the Coles 4038. We used those on grand piano. Vocals were done with either a U-67 or U-87. One of the high points of my time at Abbey was the day Danny and I got to hear some unreleased Beatles outtakes. We were walking down a hallway when we heard this unmistakeable sound coming from behind a closed control room door. Danny quietly opened the door. Then engineer turned around and when he saw me he immediately stopped the tape. "It's okay, he's working here", said Danny. We stayed for a few moments and got to hear the Beatles running down one of their well-known songs in a different key and talking between takes. Biggest bummer of the trip was me catching pneumonia after running around in the freezing rain on my day off. In closing, I have to say that standing in that studio where the course of pop music history was changed forever, was truly the highlight of my entire career.

AND NOW A GOODBYE

I'm sad to say that this will be my last column of "Engineer's Corner" for Metro Music Mayhem. A combination of the fact that I have pretty much exhausted my knowledge base which I have shared with you, and my serious lack of education where the newer technology is concerned is my reason for saying goodbye. I do hope someone - perhaps younger and with a brighter vision of the future of the industry - will pick up the reigns here and 'further the cause'. I want to thank David Jacobs for giving me this opportunity. It's been a great experience for me, digging back through the memories and reminiscing....even better being able to share them with you all. Happy recording!!

Chuck Kirkpatrick