How many sessions a day did you used to work?
Two, three, four a day. That's three-hour dates, and a lot of times you'd go over a half hour, too. But we were pretty organized — we just got used to working hard and go to the next date. It's the first time in history, I think, where musicians in the studio could make a lot of money. We just stayed in the background, which was just fine with us. You had guys in there with butch haircuts that were not hip, like hippie fashion of the '60s. They were older guys and they were wonderful guys. They were top of the line, as far as playing their music and being in the studio working. They were either from the jazz world, or they were from the big band world. There were a lot of experienced guys in there, and if it was rumored that you used drugs or you used booze, then you simply weren't hired. You never saw drugs or booze in the studios in the '60s. Just a little bit in the '70s, but never in the film world at all.
How did you get into studio work?
I accidentally got into studio work close to Christmas time, 1957. Bumps Blackwell came in a jazz club that we were playing with Teddy Evers, Billy Higgins on drums and Curtis Counce on bass. At that time, I was playing a lot of jazz gigs. Bumps comes in and asks, "Do you want to do a record?" I didn't know him, but the rest of the band did, so I thought, "Okay, I'll take a chance." I really didn't want to go into studio work. I was about 22. So, Bumps asks me to do a record and he says it's for Sam Cooke. The date went really well, and the players were really nice. It paid real well. I thought, "Okay, maybe I should do this." And Bumps had some more work for me — I played on the Ritchie Valens stuff and then the Phil Spector stuff. Anne Margaret and Pat Boone. Five years into the studio work I wasn't that hot on guitar but I could play all the utility rock and roll kinda stuff. As soon as the bass player didn't show up at Capitol Records one time [1963], they put the Fender bass in my lap because I had been playing the Dano bass guitar, which is similar to it but it's not a real bass. I had fun at it, and I could feel how much more fun it was to play bass than it was to play guitar. If I play bass I only have to carry in one instrument. The guitarist, with the 12-string, 6-string, Dano, ukelele and banjo and all that stuff that you had to carry in. I always played with a hard pick, got a good sound, good feel and everything. I was fortunate to get a lot of work. I saw the creativeness that could be done on bass. Nobody up to that time was playing what I was hearing on the bass, like little Latin type of rock and roll figures. They used me a lot, especially that pick sound. They wanted a real clicky sound at first, but I said, "No, no, it's got to have a real bass sound." But some people still wanted that treble sound, so on certain dates, like with the Beach Boys, I got a lot more high end, because that's what Brian Wilson wanted. With Mission Impossible, I had the low end and the high end, and I really punched it hard. But there were other dates, like Andy Williams or The Lettermen — I kept the low end in. Most of my dates were just one bass, but there were sometimes, like on Pet Sounds, when they used the string bass along with me.
That brings up something that's very interesting to a lot of people, which is your pick style and your muting style.
The sound of the bass comes from the pickup, the strings, the rosewood neck, a little bit from the nut and from the bridges. When you have strings ringing it cuts into the sound. You can't get a distinct sound. I felt right away, "I've got to put a mute on the strings." We were all mute-conscious back then, because when you go into the studio, you can't possibly have all the same sounds that you do playing live. So I learned really quickly, since I played with a pick, I took a piece of felt, doubled it up, taped it on the strings. For finger players, they would put a piece of foam underneath the string, and just barely touch the string to avoid a lot of the overtones and the undertones which cut into the bass sound. Now for some reason, in the last 25 years or so, they lost this art and they started to sell a lot of gear for thousands of dollars to try to get a good sound recording-wise. That stuff doesn't work, a 25 cent mute works. So it works that way with a hard pick. The thin pick gets a real clicky sound and not a very good bass note.
Yeah, I think that's something often people hear, the click sound.
A lot of Pet Sounds has string bass to varying degrees, but there were some times that Lyle Ritz (on the string bass) said, "I think I'm playing pantomime" because he wasn't on the record very much. But there is one cut, I think "God Only Knows", where there is a lot of string bass on there, along with the electric bass. Brian wanted a real clicky sound. If you want a real click sound, listen to the Nancy Sinatra Sugar Town record. But the beauty about the way of playing with a pick that I did was that it gets both a good bottomy as well as a real good click.
Something that I've learned from your lessons is by playing hard and by slightly controlling the muting it's almost eliminated the need for compression in my recording.
Most of the time they never put any EQ or compression on me. When you compress the bass sound it's a bad sound. The only time they used compression on me was a little bit of the Motown sound with Armin Steiner, the engineer. He'd always mic my amp and say, "I love your bass sound!" And I'd go in there, and I'd say, "What happened to the bass sound? It's changed." And he said, "Well, I love your sound but I had to put some compression on it to match the sound they got back in Detroit." Well, that made sense to me because they were trying to match a certain sound. They wanted the L.A. stuff to sound more like the Detroit stuff. That I bought, but they never put EQ on me at all. They didn't have to. They either mic it, or toward the end of the '60s they could take it half off the amplifier and half off the DI too.
Now for some reason, in the last 25 years or so, they lost this art [of muting the strings] and they started to sell a lot of gear for thousands of dollars to try to get a good sound recording-wise. That stuff doesn't work, a 25 cent mute works.
You were using what people now would consider a guitar amp.
No, it was four ten inch speakers, and it stood about this high. It's what they called the Fender Super Reverb amp, but it was for bass. It had an open back — it just simply got the right sound with the cheapest speakers in the world. After that, I used the smaller Versatone amplifier — a very clean amp — it was very low powered. But it's very super clean, and I used that. But for most, if not all, of the Beach Boys, I think I used that Fender amp and they mic'd it.
Do you have any recollection of actually how they mic'd your amplifier. Was it the large condenser mics?
Mostly Shure, but sometimes AKG and RCA was the ElectroVoice mic, I'm pretty sure. I liked the Shure mic, I think that's the better thing. I have one of those little Shure mics too. And I also have a new Neumann mic that sounds really good too.
Would you have the amp next to you or would it be in isolation?
It would be right next to me, either side, and they'd mic it right there. Most of the film calls that I did — Mission Impossible, MASH, Hawaii 5-0 — that was always mic'd. The film scores like the Thomas Crown Affair, Airport, In The Heat of the Night, the Quincy Jones films, In Cold Blood, all that stuff — it's all mic'd. There are a few things that I did out at Universal that were half and half. But most of what you hear of me on the TV and on the films was on that.
That's incredible.
It wasn't always a great sound, because I'd be too loud or something, but most of the time it was great. Ray Charles loved to have it mic'd on me, like in "I Don't Need No Doctor" and that tune "America the Beautiful". That's all mic'd.
When you would go into a session and you were adjusting your sound, your tone, your bass, your amp — were there particular things that you could pinpoint that you listened to in general within the ensemble that you tried to blend your sound with?
Once you do this a few times you get an idea of what kind of sound that they're looking for. You have a certain sound that you know will work, and then if they want you to add more high or low end. It's usually more high end, because the way that they recorded back then was analog. I pick down on the downbeat and up on the upbeat. So it would come out very clean. The way most people play with a pick was like a guitar player, or they'll stand up and pick it way down here, and that's totally wrong. You have to pick from the wrist, set it on the string, and then pick right from the wrist. You don't move your arm hardly at all. Every note comes out clean.
One of the most impressive things about your playing is the absolute commitment to the beat. There's commitment and intention in everything I hear.
Every note has to come out clean. You have to have great time. That's why I tell all my students, practice with the metronome.
