You originally started as a session bass player, right? How did you make that transition from being the bass player to the guy running the sessions and producing records?
I actually started with the intent of being the world's greatest jazz bass player, with the goal of playing with all my jazz heroes. I started playing bass when I was about twelve. Somewhat quickly, I discovered the genre that would give me more room to develop as a musician on bass was jazz. I started out listening to The Beatles and playing all of the pop music on electric bass that was afoot during the early '60s. Then I started studying with a couple of different teachers, discovered jazz, and became completely obsessed. I started playing upright bass and playing in community orchestras, as well as playing with jazz bands, and learning. I started the process of learning to play jazz, while also pursuing a formal classical education. By the time I was in college, at a certain point I finished all of my music requirements, and I started getting offers to go on the road with people that I had listened to in my bedroom and worshipped. I decided, "I don't really want to be a teacher in a university, so I'm going to go do this now." I started going on the road with Freddie Hubbard, Carmen McRae, Joe Henderson, and Willie Bobo – my first road gig. My path since then has been one of exploring and enjoying one facet, while also discovering that I needed to go elsewhere, or further, in a different direction. At a certain point I'd been on the road for nine or ten months of the year, for four or five years, and I started feeling like there was a narrowness in the jazz world that I wasn't crazy about. Also, I didn't like being on the road nine months a year, so I decided to stay in town and try to do studio work and learn about the studio. I wanted to really learn to use the studio as an instrument, and use it to get at what I was hearing musically. I stopped touring and started doing record dates. I had a whole set of studio heroes, too. Guys like Joe Osborne and Lee Sklar; the premier studio players at that time. I began to do more studio work. I did that for a few years, and then, at a certain point, I butted up against the limitations of that. When you're a studio player, you get called for a record and you go play on it, whether it's something you love, or some music that you're not crazy about. That's how you make a living. I also became frustrated with playing on records and then hearing the final product and thinking, "What happened?" Everything magical got buried. "It sounded great when we tracked, but there's nothing left!" That's when I really thought, "How am I going to be able to use everything that I know how to do and still learn something every day?" I decided that producing records was the way to unite all those interests, and do so in a way where I could really continue to develop in every area. Every project would be an expansion and a learning process for me. I started doing it for free, initially; for friends who were doing a few songs in the studio. I'd say, "Hey, I'll produce it. You don't have to pay me." Gradually, work opened up in that area. I met Joni [Mitchell] on a date that I got called for. I ended up working on that record of hers, Wild Things Run Fast, for about a year, on and off. During that year, I was doing other projects and continuing this path towards production work. Eventually, we started working together and producing her records.
Do you think starting off as a bass player, which is a more supportive role than playing guitar or being the lead vocalist, helped you become more aware of how a song works or doesn't work?
Yes; and I never knew this until I started playing bass, but even the first time I played bass in a group I realized that you're right at the fulcrum with this instrument. Of course, the focus, and most of the attention in the group, a lot of times goes to the guitar player or the singer. Maybe the drummer. Never the bass player, right? But the bass player is actually at the fulcrum of what is going on in the group, because you're meshed in with the drummer and controlling the way songs feel. If you're a good bass player, you're listening to the vocal and playing off of the vocal, while also working to offset what the guitar player is doing or the keyboard player. The role of the bass player is a very integral one, and compositionally at the center. I've talked with Don Was [Tape Op #113] and Marcus Miller, and we've done different panels about this. It's because you inherently, by your role, have to really be listening to everything and thinking in a compositional manner if you're going to do a good job.
Among the people I've worked with, as musicians who become producers and engineers, the bass players and drummers are usually better at making that transition, versus singers or guitar players, who tend to be focused on themselves. But, of course, that's a very broad generalization.
I agree, to an extent, and I'm sure there're tons of exceptions. Different people listen to music differently. For example, I remember having discussions with Joni where I was playing an Earth, Wind & Fire record for her and saying, "Listen to the way the rhythm section works on this." She tilted her head and said, "I don't know; it doesn't do anything for me." I said, "Well, what are you listening to when you're listening to it?" She said, "The vocals, lyrics, and what's going on up in the higher part of the song." I said, "No, listen to the lower part of the track. That's where the magic is on this record." It was a revelation for her. She said, "Yeah, I've always listened to the higher part. I listen from the top down, rather than from the bottom up." I remember us talking about that for several hours and realizing everybody hears songs from the middle, to the top and bottom, or from the top or the bottom. Bass players listen from the bottom up, but they listen through, because they have to integrate by the nature of their job in the band. I find that oftentimes the way that people listen to music affects how they produce and how they build songs.
You mentioned that you'd listen back to songs you tracked on and that everything magical got buried. Was it poorly mixed, or was it due to too many overdubs?
All of the above. I remember one record that I played on with Jim Keltner, who was playing drums. He's quite a poet himself, in a spontaneous way. I grew up listening to him, and he was a big figure in my musical development. We finished a take that was obviously the master take for the song. He came out of the drum area and said, "Give me a copy of that now. It's never going to sound like that again." That is, in essence, the encapsulation of the feeling. The mix would be terrible, in one way or another, or it got overthought; picked apart and dissected, until the whole vibe and groove was not there anymore. I'd be anticipating, "Oh, this record that I played on is coming out," and I'd hear it and go, "Awww!" Not all the time, but sometimes.
What era was that?
That was around 1980, or so.
So even before people used Pro Tools they managed to overthink records? [laughter]
Oh, god; yeah. I remember working one time at Record One, which was Val Garay's studio [Tape Op #112]. They had these old 3M machines and a very strict protocol, born of efficiency, I guess. They would cut the tape for every overdub; every punch-out. The 3M machines were so slow coming out [of record] that the only way you could make sure not to have an expanding punch-out that kept bleeding into other parts was to cut and put an "island" in. The engineers used to say, "I'm going to cut the tape now." Their masters ended up as confetti. But it's a human foible, right? To want to fix, "perfect," and eventually take the blood out of songs.
I remember a project I was working on where it seemed like I should keep trying engineering techniques I'd used before. Then I thought, "Wait a minute. No. This sounds really good. Let's print it."
It takes a certain internal security with yourself to think, "These instruments aren't hitting at exactly the same moment, but there's something great about it." I talk about it all the time with engineers or artists; that you get no points for being "correct." Doing something that is just correct and precise; that doesn't mean anything.
Who were some of the producers you worked with where you were happy with how the records came out? Ones you looked up to.
My god, there were a lot of those! There were quite a number that were really role models who I learned a tremendous amount from. Daniel Lanois [Tape Op #127, #37] certainly is one. [Robert] "Mutt" Lange, who's a good friend and someone I've worked with a fair amount, is incredibly talented. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him, and his talent as a producer, songwriter, and arranger. Some were engineers. I worked with Elliot Scheiner early on; I loved the way he made instruments sound and how he laid mixes out, balance-wise. The headphones always sounded like a record the minute you put them on. He was one of the first guys who I worked for. There are so many people. Brian Eno [#85] I respect tremendously. I've never worked with him, but I've listened to his records obsessively. Of course, George Martin; all of what he did. I met him, but never actually worked with him as a session player. I loved what Thomas Dolby [#119] was doing. I worked with him on a particular record [Joni Mitchell's Dog Eat Dog]; he has an idiosyncratic and wonderful way of looking at things musically.
I love the Prefab Sprout records he did.
Oh, yes. "Desire As." That song!
