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Home , All I Intended to Be, Anna McGarrigle, Brian Ahern (producer), Kate McGarrigle, Kenny Vaughan, Light of the Stable

s e t o n

Anna McGarrigle (button accordion) and Kate McGarrigle () tracking with . g

n reunion of Harris’ legendary Hot Band for the 2004

i ASCAP Awards show, where Harris was presented with the Founders Award.

d “Since the award was about history, she asked me to come in to supervise the rehearsal and to re-create r TOGETHER AGAIN the Hot Band session vibe,” Ahern explains. “After the show, we were sitting at dinner when she asked me o By Rick Clark to do another .”

c Few artists in any genre have created a body of work By that time, the two had already reunited for %--9,/5as substantive and ric(!22)3h as Emmylou Harris. Over the a number of recordings for various projects: Robert e years, Harris has mined great songs from folk, coun- Redford and Ethan Hawke movies, duets with Wil- try and traditions and showcased their lie Nelson and , and, with Kate and r !.$compellin"2)!.g power w!(%ith her2. own unique readings. Anna McGarrigle, three songs for the re-issue of She has also been a selfless champion of many art- Harris’ luminous Christmas album . ists and writers, and has written a number of superior Especially moving was her version of Joni Mitchell’s songs herself. Harris has received many awards for “The Magdalene Laundries” and a richly imagistic her work, and this year she was inducted into the track called “The Connection,” which appeared on Country Music Hall of Fame. The Very Best of Emmylou Harris: Heartaches and Harris’ string of hits stretches back to 1975, when Highways, and earned Harris a 2005 Grammy for Best she began working with producer on a Female Country Vocal Performance. successful run of 11 that included a number of “We’ve always worked incredibly well together,” classic tracks and hits like “Together Again,” “Boulder says Harris. “Even from those first sessions, when I to Birmingham,” “Sweet Dreams,” “If I Could Only Win was so unsure of myself, it wasn’t long for me to feel Your Love,” “,” “Beneath comfortable because one of Brian’s many talents is Still Waters” and “Too Far Gone.” , which his ability to sense an artist’s strengths and encour- was released 25 years ago, age them without putting you on the spot. He allows was the last album the two you to grow at your own pace and gives you just made together. Since then, enough room so that you don’t hang yourself, but Harris has put out many you also start to get confidence. I really think Brian fine and critically acclaimed understands that every artist is completely unique and albums, but it is her work has a vision down there somewhere. He helps you with Ahern that has proven discover that by giving you all the tools. I felt I had to be the most influential a safety net, that he was listening to everything, and and enduring over time. sometimes just him not saying anything was exactly During the past few what you needed. It’s a very nurturing presence.” years, Harris and Ahern celebrates some of the people have occasionally revisited who have journeyed with Harris over the years on their creative dance, and her artistic path, including , most recently it has resulted and musicians Glen D. Hardin, , Steve in a beautiful new release Fishell, Richard Bennett (who has produced Harris) titled All I Intended to Be. and the Seldom Scene. The album also showcases Brain Ahern and Dolly Parton The seeds for this new col- Harris’ talent for gatherering great songs, as well as laboration began during a —CONTINUED ON PAGE 115

108 MIX, April 2008 • www.mixonline.com recording n o t e s ever think. And we were buddies right up to the day he died.” Owen Bradley passed away in 1998. His brother Harold, now VP of the American Federation of Musicians, is quick to point out that he’s still making musical memories, but he knows that those days at the Quonset Hut and in Bradley’s Barn, working side-by-side with his brother, were some of the best. “One thing about Loretta,” Harold Brad- ley says, “when you walked in the studio, you were going to get a hug, and when you left, you were going to get a hug. We all became like a family. The business part was secondary to the personal part of going in and meeting an old friend and having a party Welcome to the control room: Ahern during overdubs at The Village. and making a few records.” N

was also a highly sought-after mobile facility with an LA-2A. An RCA 44 was placed on used by such diverse acts as Black Sabbath, the floor looking up at the bass with a big Bob Dylan, and James block of foam behind it so the backside of Taylor. the mic heard nothing. That was run through Even with these options, however, sev- a Tube-Tech CL1B compressor. “Glen finds a eral basic tracks on Harris’ latest required way to be musical with one note at a time,” FROM PAGE 108 a larger band, and for those Ahern booked says Ahern admiringly. The producer places her own gifts as a . the Sound Emporium in Nashville, where he his on Gramma insulating floor Harris has long kept a huge library of produced and a Number One risers designed to hold guitar amplifiers. %--9stashed s,o/5ng-fi(!22)3nds on what she calls “mate- country record for . “I like re- Guitarist Bennett was situated in an all- rial cassettes,” and as always she shows her cording at home, but not playing host,” says wood room designed for string sections with !.$extraor"2)!.dinary kn!(%ack f2.or taking others’ songs Ahern. “So when the contingent exceeds two four bidirectional ribbon mics to capture his and making them feel like they came from people, I book a studio.” Ahern mounted his sound. According to Sound Emporium engi- her heart. Ahern’s empathetic production 16-track headstack on Sound Emporium’s neer Kyle Ford, “For the close stereo sound, and go a long way to making Studer A827 to record bass and drums at 15 Brian hung two RCA Varicoustics on the only All I Intended to Be one of the most emo- ips on 14-inch reels. “I like to use 14-inch stereo bar I’ve ever seen like this—at differ- tionally satisfying albums Harris has done in reels because it cuts down on tape waste ent heights, on the 12th fret and at the sound years. and while you are changing smaller reels, hole. Brian had Richard face the curved Six of the tracks on the new album are the best performances could be slipping wood wall, where he spread out a pair of Harris’ own compositions. This is an area away.” Wes Dooley’s 44RcneX microphones. Huge where she has shown tremendous growth Another member of the creative team vintage Turner hybrid microphones faced during the past several years, as her songs who has contributed to the excellence of Kenny Vaughn’s amplifiers, which included on and this new album, as well as most of Ahern’s Brian’s Space Echo feeding his Fender De- show. One song of All I Intended to Be, titled productions since 1975, is engineer/mixer luxe.” “Gold,” is a stripped-down “three chords and Donivan Cowart. “Donivan puts up with me. Stinson, one of Nashville’s consummate the truth” gem of classic country. “Those are I’m getting old and irascible,” states Ahern. session drummers, observes, “the first ques- the hardest songs to write,” she comments, “But the common lingo tends to build after tion Brian asked when he hired me was, “because you’re working in a very small 30 years. He’s become an irreplaceable as- ‘Where do you want to be set up?’ That framework and you can’t get clever. You set.” question never gets asked! Nothing about have to come out and say exactly what you To ensure that there would be plenty of this was typical Nashville. Emmy and Brian mean.” creative sparks, Ahern brought in a group of still like to approach music as an art form, Most of the work on All I Intended to Be world-class players. He notes wryly, “If you whereas Nashville—if I can make a politi- took place at Ahern’s Easter Island Surround are the smartest person in the room, you’re cal statement—is about doing it quick, fast, studio, which got its name from the 8-foot working with the wrong people.” Musicians formula: ‘Let’s go with all these plug-ins.’” stacks of gear that surround the control room included original Hot Band member Glenn Stinson also overdubbed drums at like the ancient Pacific Island statues. Among D. Hardin (keys), Glen Worf (bass), Harry Ahern’s house. “When Harry is overdub- the projects Ahern has done there are Harris’ Stinson (drums), Richard Bennett (guitar) bing to something previously recorded, he Producer’s Cut (a DVD-Audio surround col- and Kenny Vaughan (guitar). can hear, sympathize and play through the lection of classic Harris tracks) and surround Ahern miked Worf’s upright bass with his center of the mayhem,” says Ahern. mixes for Johnny Cash and three Jimmy Buf- rare, large British ribbon mic called a Reslo Final overdubs took place at The Village fett . right off the bridge to achieve what he calls in West L.A., where Ahern had been work- Looming behind the studio is the legend- “knuckles—you could hear what Glen had ing with an all-star band on another project. ary 42-foot, lead-lined Enactron truck. De- for lunch.” The Reslo was run through a “Emmy’s album still felt sleepy, so I peeled off ployed for all the great Harris productions, it Neve 1084 mic pre and lightly compressed two of my ringers to contribute”:

114 MIX, April 2008 • www.mixonline.com and Patrick Warren for stringed guitar so the phrasing and the overdubs and keyboards, respectively. heartbeat are connected with “Brian can walk the line between allow- the guitar. I find my voice ing you to instinctually do what you do to through the guitar in a way. a song and also knowing how to get what I’m perfectly happy to have he wants out of that person by just a few my own little picker’s corner carefully chosen words of direction here and where I’m comfortable.” For there,” says Leisz. “It’s a really good combi- Harris’ guitar on this album, nation for somebody like me, and I think it’s they sometimes used an AKG a really important part of what he does as a C-24 in an M/S configuration producer. I think to be completely left alone and at other times one of four without any direction at all is sometimes BK-5Bs. frustrating because you want a little bit of For mic pre’s for ribbons, feedback.” Cowart and Ahern also liked “On rare occasions, a producer may one made by Wes Dooley. superimpose [his own vision],” Ahern says. “It works well: You set it up “‘Broken Man’s Lament’ is a song about a right by the ribbon mic and mechanic who lost his wife to her singing amplify it before you make a career. To me, he obsesses on a piece of long run into the studio with music as an artifact of his creeping insan- it,” explains Cowart. “It helps Engineer Donivan Cowart ity. I explained this to Patrick Warren who hold the gain together; it has researched the ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ B-3 lots of gain and low noise.” organ drawbar settings. Over the course of the project, Ahern “If you’re sounding good to yourself, you’re “Extracting the best performances is Job and Cowart used some other favorite pieces going to stop thinking, worrying and just Number One,” Ahern continues. “Great of gear one might not expect. “We have a sing. They’re also very patient. I feel more , if you’re using them, are es- discontinued Yamaha reverb unit Keith comfortable having that working relation- sential. We dedicated two MacIntosh MC-275 Richards showed me in New York that pro- ship, that sort of ‘nest’ where you know tube amps, our finest, to the headphone vides convolution presets of a wood-domed everything’s gonna be okay. I think we got mixes. Everybody hears really well.” studio,” says Ahern. “We also used it to take to that point a long time ago and we sort of One element that leaves a sonic finger- quad convolution recordings of the soon-to- picked up where we left off.” N print on this album is Ahern’s pervasive be extinct Lexicon 224XL. We use two low- use of ribbon mics. “Brian has more ribbon bit Prime Times. And the Germanium Tone mics than anyone I’ve ever met,” remarks Control and the Zener Limiter seem to be in engineer Ford. “He carries around a number successful pursuit of the best vintage sonic of rare, hard-to-find mics, as well as some markers and character that we’ve come to newer ones. I had never heard the Turners know and love over the last 40 years.” and Reslos.” In a time when so many records sound For Harris’ vocals, Ahern says, “Because like the life has been squashed out of them recording up close to a is a rela- from overcompression, Ahern’s productions tively modern concept, vintage ribbon mics are rich in dynamics. Vocals and instruments are susceptible to pops and breaths. I told rise and fall naturally, enticing the listener to Wes we liked his AEA R-84, but I couldn’t ride with the feeling of the moment. use it because Emmy kept sneaking up on “That’s the emotion, and the dynamics it. He built one to accommodate us. And his has a lot to do with the emotion,” says Cow- FROM PAGE 109 ribbon preamplifier was everywhere. When art. “If you suck all that out, you’re just left Publishing, which moved its offices across Vince [Gill] and Dolly [Parton] sang harmo- with noise. I’d much rather have somebody the street and then remodeled the building nies on ‘Gold,’ I used his big AEA 44Cs. have to lean into the mix than be blown with the expectation of eventually setting Dolly said, ‘I love this microphone,’ so we against the back wall.” up a nice studio. When AOL Time Warner gave it to her!” Ahern adds, “It provides a sense of ,!$9sold off !.4the W%"%arne,,5-r Music Group, there were Dooley’s AEAcneX was used to record people being together in a room rather than many jobs lost and the space lay fallow for a Harris’ bluegrass buddies the Seldom Scene. rash wave forms. We don’t use any stereo couple of years. “Live in the room, she used a Soundelux gain reduction. Let mastering do that.” “Then Paul [Worley], who was a VP at U67. I often choose it for contralto females,” Georgetown Masters’ Andrew Mendelson Warner Bros. at the time, decided he wanted Ahern says. mastered the album; he remarks that All I In- to get the studio back online,” says Warner Ahern and Cowart are both fond of Har- tended to Be is an exceptionally “emotional” Bros. chief engineer and head of studio op- ris’ aggressive guitar style. Harris clearly loves album that has “loads of vibe and makes no erations Clarke Schleicher. “I’d been working playing guitar, and Ahern hired her to play concessions to the highly compressed sound with Paul on many projects as an indepen- on ’ contribution to George of what you hear today,” he says. “As a re- dent since the mid-’80s, and he asked if I’d be Jones’ Bradley’s Barn Sessions album. “I do sult, it stands out and sounds totally fresh.” interested in managing the studio and doing enjoy playing rhythm guitar,” Harris says. “I “Working with Brian and Donovan gives the engineering. We spent about a half-mil- think it’s just connected to you. That’s how I me everything I need and lets me know lion bucks, put in a Neve VR-60 console, Pro learn songs: I sit down and play them on the when it’s not happening,” Harris concludes. Tools HD3, brought in plenty of great mics and outboard gear, and basically fixed it so www.mix-