Recording - July 2019 - 30

Catching Greatness
Lightning in a bottle

For an artist that's built a career on live performance, capturing the essence of what you do on stage can be tricky. "Oh
yeah, I definitely was nervous," says Kingfish. "It was my first
record and it was long overdue, plus I was working with new
players and some new people, so I really didn't know what to
expect." He knew going in that the confines of the 3-5 minute
time window would take a little adjustment. He laughs, "I kind
of restrained myself a little bit. I wasn't doing, like, a whole
lot of shredding. It was kind of a
fight, but I got through it."
The record opens with "Outside
Of This Town", an unapologetic
tune that rips like that first roar of a
Shelby Mustang. Perhaps an allegory for the way Kingfish's life has
gone so far, it's all about leaving
your comfort zone and jumping
into the big pond. To make sure
that kind of nervous excitement
came through on the recording,
Tom Hambridge tracked it first.
"I wanted it, almost subliminally, to sound to everyone like they
are just getting behind the wheel,
they're cranking up the motor and,
bam! We're on a trip."
Armed with a crew of seasoned
musicians he's used on other projects, Hambridge played "Outside
Of This Town" for the band only
moments before it was time to
hit it. "Kingfish and me were the PHOTO BY: RIC WHITNEY
only two people that had heard
it, 'cause we wrote it together. We went out on the floor, and I
said, 'I'm gonna count it off, and let's just play this.' So the first
time we ever performed 'Outside Of This Town' is what you
hear as the first song on the album."
Recorded in Ocean Way Nashville's Studio B over the course
of 48 hours, almost every track on Kingfish was approached similarly. Hambridge played rough work tapes for the guys before
cutting the songs cold. No rehearsal. No pre-production. And
while he made sure Kingfish knew any part of his performance
could be redone, the pressure was on for the band. "I always tell
the artist, 'This isn't your last one and only shot' at anything, but I
tell the other guys, 'We gotta get this now.' The way I record is I
get all the tracks done, so the house is solid. Whoever's playing
on it besides the artist, we are gonna be done."
With Ingram in one of the isolation booths, and bass and
rhythm guitar set up in the live area, Hambridge produced the
record from behind the drum kit. "I'm positioned so that I have
a sight line to everybody, even if they're in a booth. Kingfish is
across from me in a room. I'm looking right at him, so, if his take
is great on guitar, we have it. If his vocal is great, we have it.

I want to get the band's take." With the cabinets isolated, and
all the players able to see each other, the result is something that
feels sonically spacious but emotionally connected. Tracks like "If
You Love Me" and "Before I'm Old" highlight the live feel of the
record, yet sound remarkably clean. That, says Tom Hambridge,
is precisely what he was going for. "I always try to capture that
energy, that live feel with all the records. That's a priority."
In the control room, Grammy-winning engineer Zach Allen
used Studio B's Neve VR console before running everything into
a 24-bit/48kHz Pro Tools session.
Knowing that tracking time was limited, he stayed as sharp as possible.
"It's all about preparation," Allen
explains. "I try to be ready for anything. In my Pro Tools session, I have
tracks made for every instrument, as
well as all of their subsequent passes and they're already routed to the
headphones accordingly. That way
I don't get flustered, because I'm already ten steps ahead." Given the
spontaneous atmosphere, he was
acutely aware of how the headphone mix could skew the room.
"They have a great cue system at
Ocean Way. I prefer to send my mix
off of the console to the musicians,
rather than create a separate cue
mix. As each song is going down,
my mix can have a huge impact on
inspiring the players in that particular moment, so I like them to hear
what I am hearing."

KINGFISH AND TOM HAMBRIDGE

30 RECORDING July 2019

Setting the tone

Christone Ingram grew up in the epicenter of Blues history in
Clarksdale, Mississippi. By age 11, he was performing at the
Ground Zero blues club, Morgan Freeman's modern take on
old-school juke joints. He studied under Bill "Howl-N-Madd"
Perry, a local icon whose career traces all the way back to
Chess Records, and who is the second cousin of country music
legend Charley Pride. That said, the restraint and humility with
which Kingfish plays isn't something you can explain with genetics and a cool hometown.
There's a lot more going on than some good licks and a few
choice settings, but Kingfish is more than happy to share some of
his tricks. "I like a lot of meaty, fat tones. I had one distortion pedal
that I used on the record, I probably put the tone at like, 1 o'clock,
volume at 12, but I turn the drive all the way up. That's one of my big
tone secrets. For amps, it's pretty much bass-dominant, and treble is
maybe a few numbers behind it. I'm pretty attached to Peavey amps
and Fender amps. Peavey amps, I like to use the Peavey Classic, or
the Peavey Delta Blues, and for Fender I like to use the Fender Twin,
which is what I used on the record... and also a Fender DeVille."

Recording - July 2019

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