FEATURE SO BEAUTIFUL OR SO WHAT PHIL RAMONE & ANDY SMITH RECORDING PAUL SIMON Legendary producer Phil What is it with old guys making good REWIND TO THE BEGINNING music? !ere appears to be a whole swathe In interviews Simon has explained that Graceland Ramone recently teamed up of famous musicians who reached their marked the beginning of him writing songs to with legendary songwriter commercial and artistic peak in their 20s and rhythmic backing tracks and that on the new early 30s returning in their 50s and 60s and album he wanted to write songs the way he and close friend Paul Simon rediscovering their muse. !ere are countless did when he started; just him singing with an – again – to construct yet albums being produced by old rockers that are acoustic guitar, and then adding the rhythms hailed as their best work since, well… a long long and ethnic instruments later on, ie. working another classic. time ago. Paul McCartney’s most recent o"ering, top to bottom. !ere’s also an extensive use of Text: Paul Tingen Memory Almost Full (2007), is inarguably his best samples on the new album, although the sparsely since his solo albums of the 1970s, Neil Young’s arranged and delicate sounding album appears to recent Le Noise has been billed as “his best in be, in part, a reaction to its slightly overlaboured decades,” Bob Dylan pulled o" the trick a couple predecessor, Surprise, on which Simon’s of times with Time Out Of Mind (1997) and songs and Brian Eno’s electronic treatments Modern Times (2006), Carlos Santana stepped arguably resulted in the sum being less than its back into the limelight with Supernatural (1999), considerable parts. !e Stones A Bigger Bang (2005) was “their best THE PRODUCER & THE ENGINEER in years,” Robert Plant revived his career with Anyone with a keen eye for credits will have Raising Sand (2007) and Band Of Joy (2010), and noted two other signs that indicate that So so on and, seemingly, on. Beautiful or So What is both continuation and Paul Simon’s recent album, So Beautiful or So recapping of Simon’s career. First it $nds Simon What, appears to be another case in point. reuniting with legendary producer Phil Ramone, Even the usually understated 69-year old who worked on Rhymin’ Simon, Still Crazy A"er singer himself earmarked it as “the best thing All !ese Years and also on Simon & Garfunkel’s I’ve done in 20 years,” while Elvis Costello, in famous !e Concert In Central Park (1982). !e the CD booklet blurb, calls it a “remarkable, 15-time Grammy-winning Ramone is known for thoughtful, o#en joyful record” that “deserves his work with household names like Billy Joel, to be recognised as among Paul Simon’s very Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Frank $nest achievements.” Many critics agreed, Sinatra, Elton John, and Paul McCartney. !e illustrated by the fact that the album achieved a other sign on the credits of the new album is the very impressive average score of 85 out of 100 presence of long-time Paul Simon engineer, Andy in Metacritic’s compiled review ratings. !e Smith. Smith is a New York city-based freelance only argument that could be o"ered against the engineer who has worked on several of Simon’s above observations is that Simon never sank into projects over the years as well as projects with middle-aged mediocrity, even as Songs from the Simon’s wife Edie Brickell and her current band Capeman (1997), You’re !e One (2000), and !e Gaddabouts. Via separate phone interviews, Surprise (2006) are o#en seen as lesser e"orts, Ramone and Smith provided a compelling and in contrast to undisputed classics such as Paul unique insight into aspects of Simon’s creative Simon (1972), !ere Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973), process in general and the recordings of So Still Crazy A"er All !ese Years (1975), Graceland Beautiful or So What in particular. (1986) and Rhythm of the Saints (1990). AT !" AT !" Tracking sessions at The Cottage were often a bit of a squeeze, so much so that the flautist seems to have been relegated to the veranda. Smith began by charting the very beginnings of and that we duplicated for his private studio. for months. It was a discipline, because it put a the recordings, several years ago, in a room in !ere was also a lot of "oating gear that we would certain kind of pressure on you because of the a cottage at Simon’s property in Connecticut: “I use when recording out in his summer place in money involved, whereas when people use home think it was the $rst time that the bulk of one of Long Island, NY, that eventually found a home in studios the discipline disappears in some cases. Paul’s albums was recorded in his own studio. the cottage. !e main challenge of working in the But there are only three big studios le# in New !e cottage was initially an empty house, and we cottage studio was that it’s not acoustically treated York now! So many people are now working gradually built the studio up as the project went in any way, so on several occasions I had to use in their own studio, and it’s important to keep along. We didn’t record all the time. We’d had a iZotope RX so#ware to get rid of extraneous a certain schedule. Paul McCartney will come month o% here and there, and during that time, noises. For example, there’s an acorn tree right into his studio at 10am and stop at 6pm, and we were also upgrading the studio. By the end of above the cottage and occasionally acorns would Paul [Simon] kind of does the same thing. !ere the project we had a pretty well-equipped small fall on the roof. RX quickly becomes one of those was a nice atmosphere at Paul’s studio and the studio and a new album! !e studio now has a pieces of so#ware that you can’t imagine how you discipline to go with it. It turned out to be a really decent mic collection including the Bock Audio ever got along without.” comfortable situation for Paul, Andy, and I. Paul 251s, various high voltage DPAs, Royer R122V, and I are old friends so I was very happy when COTTAGE STUDIO RECORDING SF24, 121s, as well as the basics like Neumann, he asked me to work with him on this project. I By recording most of his new album at his own Shure, Sennheiser and AKG. We gathered love opening doors that he may not have thought facility, Simon was de$nitely riding a very current mic pres by Telefunken, Great River, Grace, of, and his mind is so fertile. It was a joy. Paul wave that’s, in part, inspired by the developments Chandler and API; compressors by Purple Audio, and I live close to each other, which meant that I in new technology and in part fuelled by Chandler, API and Teletronix; a ProTools HD could come over when needed, and also do other necessity. Several of the studios credited on his systems with plug-ins by iZotope, Massenburg, projects. We spent a lot of time driving in the car, previous album Surprise have since closed and Soundtoys, Eventide, Oxford and Audio Ease; listening to what we had done and deciding what recording budgets are smaller, even for major two Apogee AD16Xs and one DA16x converter; needed doing next.” artists, making long recording projects in big an Antelope Audio master clock; and Adam S3A studios uneconomical. Phil Ramone, who is TRANSPARENCY monitors. All the wiring was done with Mogami about the same age as Simon, and whose $rst Both Smith and Ramone recounted details of cables and one of the coolest features is that credits date from the late 1950s, has witnessed the the top-to-bottom approach to the recording there’s a Grace 902 headphone ampli$er at each rise and fall of big recording studios extremely sessions. Ramone stated, “In many cases Paul player location. close up. !e producer, who became involved in had 20–30% of the songs ready when he came “Paul previously owned a lot of studio gear, the recording of So Beautiful or So What during into the studio, at least a melody and some which gave us a good starting point. !ere was the last year of recording, re"ected… chord changes, and then we’d look for what also some gear in my own collection that Paul colours and lyrics should go with it. He was “When Paul recorded albums like Still Crazy o#en used when we recorded in proper studios, exploring di%erent things, like for example and Graceland he would book a studio room out AT !" bluegrass in!uences, and we recorded a group of bluegrass musicians at Tony Bennett’s studio in New Jersey. Paul asked the players how they would play this or that and pushed them to do a lot of interesting things. Also, Gil Goldstein orchestrated Love and Hard Times and we went to Avatar Studios to record that, because I wanted a bigger room.” Smith elaborates, “Working on this album was di"erent than on previous AKG albums I’d done with Paul, because this time he had an idea of how each song would be before we started recording in the studio. With previous albums he’d #rst build an extensive backing track, and then he’d take those DMS 700 recordings and see how they would inspire him to write guitar parts and eventually melodies and lyrics to them.