Recording - August 2010 - 36

As far as song choices are concerned, it started with me telling him what I think he should do for the record. I gave him two CDs of songs, he listened to them, and he liked a handful. From that point we started to record. We started with a rhythm section, but it didn’t work out. So Jeff and I went into a room and for the most part worked on the album. Then we got his keyboard player in, Jason Rebello, who had some song ideas, so the three of us put them together. Then we got Tal Wilkenfeld, the bass player, in to do her parts. Then lastly we recorded the drummer and added a few bits here and there. There are only two tracks we recorded all together at once with the rhythm section. Did you have vocalists in mind when recording the songs? Jeff, his manager Harvey Goldsmith, and myself thought there should be singing on the record. Imelda May had worked with Jeff in the past and was very up for doing it. Olivia Safe is an opera singer who hangs around at the studio, so she sang on some tracks. And Jeff knew Joss Stone and she came down and sang on two songs.

Tell us about the choice of recording “Over The Rainbow”? Jeff has been playing that live for a while. We didn’t choose it first because we were worried about the whole balance of the album. Originally we thought it was a little bit too sweet. While I was mixing the record, Jeff was chopping some vegetables and he chopped the end of his finger off on his left hand. It was stitched back on, but it took a few weeks to heal. In the meantime, we had to do two songs and “Over The Rainbow” was one of them. So he played it without using that finger. Unbelievable! It was his first finger, the anchor finger for a guitarist. He recorded the whole song without that finger. What guitars did Jeff use on the album? He used only one Fender strat that he is used to, nothing unusual about it. It has a break in the neck that has been repaired, but he really isn’t bothered by it. It’s a sad lesson to us all, one I didn’t realize at the time, but what it states is that gear doesn’t matter! It just doesn’t matter at all. I remember years ago I was working with Paul McCartney and I was engineering. He was producing Ringo Starr’s solo album. It was a very interesting session. There was a moment when he said to Ringo, “Why don’t you go sing the vocals.” Ringo said, “Yeah and I want to sing into that microphone”, which was an old Shure retro-styled cardioid

I see that Trevor Horn is listed as Executive Producer. What was his role in recording the album? Well, Trevor and I have worked together for more than 20 years. He gave us encouragement and helped with a couple of edits. The main thing was his encouragement, really, because it was such a long process. Just making sure we were on track. After a while you get a little too close to things, so he was good at telling us it sounds good, keep going. Where did you mix? I used the same room. I have a big room and I only use Yamaha NS-10 monitors to mix on. I moved all my recordings into the box completely and utterly. The difference it would make to go out into a console and back is so esoteric. I think that would be focusing on the wrong things. There are more important things to focus on than that slight difference. 99% of the people would not be able to tell the difference if I mixed it through a Neve. The pros of mixing in the box are so huge by comparison.
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dynamic, a rubbish mic. Paul said, “Certainly.” While the assistant was setting up the mic with Ringo, I asked Paul if he wanted to set up another, proper microphone? He said no. After the session I was speaking to Paul and he said to me that the microphone does not matter, because it is all about the performance—if Ringo is happy singing into that mic, he will sing better and give a better performance. What made you decide to go with “Nessun Dorma”, the aria from Puccini’s opera Turandot? Well, there is a history to that. Jeff was playing some large venue in Italy last year and someone suggested to him to perform “Nessun Dorma.” He thought it was the most ridiculous idea in front of thousands of people. But he stood up and he played it and the audience went ballistic. So he thought, let’s just do it for the record, based upon this one gig. To capture his tone that he has live—the best thing to do is nothing. See, if you make a big deal about it, then he becomes

Recording - August 2010

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