FROM CHAPTER 13…
KID RHINO, Micky Dolenz
In 1994, Rhino Entertainment formally introduced Kid Rhino, its new division for children’s records. Asked by Richard Foos and Harold Bronson if I was interested in the position of Director, I told them both “yes.” After an interview process with personnel and then, Rhino’s Director of A & R, Gary Stewart, I lost out to Robin Frederick, who had a lot more experience in children’s records than I did.
Still, I was in on the ground floor of Kid Rhino even before the division was up and running with the label’s first release back in 1991, and here’s how it happened. Harold had asked me if I would be interested in co-producing a children’s record with him. The act being Micky Dolenz of The Monkees. In an instant, I said “yes.” The record would be recorded at Sunburst, and I was to have free reign in choosing all the musicians. After a couple of organizational meetings with Micky and harold to talk over the song selection and the arrangements, we were off and running.
The album’s title (which I wasn’t particularly fond of) was “Micky Puts You to Sleep.” We were hoping that the children, not the adult listeners, would be put to sleep listening to it! The concept was that Micky would sing soft lullabies to help you get your little rug rats to bed, but it was easy to see how critics might use the title against us and say that the album was boring. However, the album was anything but boring and Micky was great to work with. He was always prepared, and in great voice for the sessions. For a big star, I never felt any ego getting in the way of our working relationship; Harold felt the same way. ¹
One of my favorite things to do as a record producer is to handpick the musicians. It not only gives me the opportunity to reward players for their great work over the years, but I get to mold the sound of the record with their expertise and unique styles. The instrumentation on this project needed to be lullaby-like…meaning SOFT! We did not use drums and added in its place, very limited light (hand) percussion. From Lennon & McCartney, (Gerry) Goffin & (Carol) King, Paul Simon , Neil Young, and Harry Nilsson…(continued in Chapter 13)
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¹ “Working with Micky was the best experience I had as a producer. He showed up on time, always sang in tune, and possessed a rare ability to sing in any style.” Harold Bronson, The Rhino Records Story, 2013, SelectBooks, Inc.
FROM CHAPTER 19…
Working with George Carlin had long been on my bucket list. I was grateful to be part of two of his albums: Grammy winning “Napalm & Silly Putty” (2001) and Grammy finalist “When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?” (2005). ...(For more on George Carlin, see Chapter 10)
A longtime fan of The Turtles since they hit-it-big back in the mid-60’s, I was excited to be involved in remixing some of their vintage tracks for the 2003 Rhino feature “My Dinner With Jimi” ¹ with Harold Bronson, the film’s producer. Re-mixing the tracks of some of The Turtles’ biggest hits was a real honor.
One of my most endearing sessions took place in 1994, when I had the honor of working with the legendary Richie Havens. Richie had been hired by Rhino/WEA to sing a new version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” from the multi-Oscar winning Tom Hanks’ film of the same name. I was brought on to handle all aspects of the sessions, from arrangements and musician selection to engineering and producing. There were a total of four recording sessions, and I would say that working with Richie on Bruce’s legendary, Oscar winning song was pure joy from beginning to end. What a double bill...Richie sings Brucie!
The project got off to a rough start. I hadn’t talked to Richie before the first session and was told by the Rhino staff that he’d be arriving to cut the track solo with his acoustic guitar and voice. However, upon arrival, Richie asked me politely where the bass player was. Bass player? I was under the impression that we would overdub bass later, but Richie said that he had requested Rhino to have a bass player record live with him. So here I was at the session panicking to try and get him a bass player at the last minute. I called Denny Croy at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, where he is Dean of Music, and asked him if he could come over right away and do the session. Unfortunately, Denny was tied up at McCabe’s, but recommended a wonderful bass player / instructor, Jim Garafalo, who might be available on very short notice. That is how I got Jim..he did a great job.
Another interesting side note is that Richie wore quite a bit of jewelry all over his body, and asked if he should take off the various arm, neck and wrist accessories for the recording. Listening to it both ways, we decided that the jewelry added extra percussive and rhythmic sparkle, so that’s just how I recorded it. We also experimented with cutting Richie’s acoustic guitar track first and then overdubbing his vocal. Not surprising to me, the live track of him singing and playing together, won hands down. Maybe not the best technical way to approach a modern recording, but it had way more spirit, which outweighed the negatives of compromising the recording’s mix potentials. Special thanks to George Emerson on piano and Hammond organ and yours truly on hand percussion and background vocals.
Link to the recording:
Richie’s “Streets of Philadelphia” was originally released in 1995 as part of a Rhino/WEA box set: “Academy Award Winning Songs (1934 – 1993).” In 1997, it showed up again - this time on “One Step Up / Two Steps Back, The Songs of Bruce Springsteen.”
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FROM CHAPTER 14…
The Not So Good, The Bad & The Really Ugly
Working in an environment where you’re trying to help fulfill other people’s dreams can often be depressing and downright risky. The recording studio is “ground zero” for aspiring singers, musicians and songwriters, and strange antics often take place. Sunburst was somewhat off the beaten track (being in Culver City on the Jefferson Blvd. corridor, not in Hollywood), but we still had our share of bizarre behavior. This chapter presents a few examples of real life situations encountered by my staff and myself as we struggled to keep paying the bills and hopefully, make a profit at the end of the month. All the individuals and company names in this chapter have been changed, as I don’t think many of them would appreciate the notoriety of the following recollections…
“The Edward Scissorhands of Recording”
...”Edward” could be difficult and sometimes even childlike in his behavior - like a “spoiled little brat.” However, he was quite gifted and had some amazing ideas that just needed direction.
At first, everything was going smoothly as Edward recorded some inspiring guitar and vocal tracks. Then we switched to mixing down the songs…simple guitar / vocal tracks, so mixing should have been a snap. Well, not so fast...I soon found out with our first playback of the mix. Edward was listening and started screaming about how awful his voice was, or his guitar playing was, or the song, or the mix. During recording, everything was fine, but committing to something on tape for others to hear was simply too much for Edward to bear that evening. So, I suggested that we try a re-mix to see if that would fix the problem. He agreed, but then the strangest thing happened.
Normally, you just erase and re-record over the mix that you’re not going to use, mixing again from the multi-track tape. But Edward had other plans! He wanted to destroy the mix, literally, as if it harbored some evil spell and needed to be exorcised! Asking for a pair of scissors, hoping that he was not going to slit his wrists, I reluctantly gave them to him and stood back. He told me to run the mix tape into the trash can and, as it spooled off the reel, he started cutting it into hundreds of small pieces. I tried to stop him and said that the tape was expensive, and it would also be very time consuming to be doing this, aside from being totally unnecessary. He didn’t care and seemed to be finding great joy in aggressively slashing the innocent tape, making loud grunting and other unintelligible noises as he cut. It was as if the tape itself had sabotaged his recording, and it was going to pay the ultimate price!
So next mixdown, next rejection, and next execution of the defenseless tape. This continued for hours until, finally, Edward decided to halt the executions and call it a night... (continued in Chapter 14)
FROM CHAPTER 15…
Becoming The Band of ’59 - Big Daddy Version 3.0
(1982 - 1987)
“In many ways, 1983’s Big Daddy was an album that best defined a Rhino release: it was fun, spirited, creative Rock ‘n’ Roll; it was roots music, and it was novelty.”
- The Rhino Records Story, Revenge of the Music Nerds
(2013) by Rhino co-founder, Harold Bronson
Big Daddy’s street sign from our live shows:
The band of ’59 and our tribute to “the day (year) the music died” ¹
There were a few early sessions at Sunburst’s new Culver City facility before Big Daddy came along, but none captured such excitement. Here is how the band, Big Daddy, was resurrected at Sunburst Recording in 1982. ²
Richard Foos, Harold Bronson and I, who had developed a great working relationship with Rhino projects at the Kittyhawk Studio (1979 – 1981), were looking for other things to record. Previously, I had found out, quite by accident, that Richard was a big fan of a band called Godfrey Daniel. Seeing their 1972 album on Atlantic Records’ release called “take a sad song…” ³ in Richard’s Rhino office one day, I remarked how much I loved that record. Being a big fan of 50’s Doo-Wop & Pop music, he agreed. To my knowledge, Godfrey Daniel never toured or released anything else after that first album, but has developed quite a cult following through the years. Richard shared his desire to someday revisit and expand upon their concept. In listening to “take a sad song…,” it becomes clear to fans of nostalgic Rock music what that concept was: they re-recorded big hits of the late 60’s and early 70’s, making them sound like they were arranged and produced in the 1950’s.
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¹ Harold Bronson, The Rhino Records Story, Revenge of the Music Nerds / SelectBooks, Inc., New York, First Edition, 2013, Page 61
² From Don McLean’s “American Pie” https://people.com/celebrity/don-mclean-talks-american-pie-song-meaning-before-manuscript-auction/
³ Godfrey Daniel “Take A Sad Song…”: https://www.allmusic.com/album/take-a-sad-song-mw0000447580
“take a sad song...” on Atlantic Records, 1972
Being fans of 50’s music, both Richard and I were hooked. Thinking about it, I was convinced that we could put together a project similar to “take a sad song…” Richard was intrigued, but skeptical that I, mainly known to Rhino as a recording engineer, could actually produce such a project. What he did not know was that Marty Kaniger and I were in the early stages of resurrecting Big Daddy, and had already put together most of the members of a new band to play 50’s oldies at local clubs. We had rehearsed this new version of Big Daddy and were trying to get work when the idea of the concept album with Richard and Rhino started being kicked around. I don’t think that many of the band’s members thought this idea had much of a chance of actually happening but, as it turned out, we were on the road to a record deal and long term relationship with Rhino!...
...The band sent Richard an audio cassette (remember those?) with a few examples of the songs potential arrangements. These included our versions of “Super Freak” (done like The Everly Brothers), a wacky version of “I Write The Songs” (done like “At The Hop,”) and the “Star Wars” theme (as a tribute to 50’s “twangy” electric guitar legend Duane Eddy). And guess what? He loved the tape and green lit the entire album project almost immediately. A few weeks later, I was at Rhino for a meeting with Richard on the project when his partner, Harold Bronson, came into the room. I vividly remember what Harold, a pragmatist, said to me: “I heard that you convinced Richard to go ahead with the Big Daddy album…it better be good!”
Good it would be...as over the next few months we dug in and came up with twelve songs and arrangements that would make up the first album, “What Really Happened To The Band of ’59.” An interesting side note regarding the album’s title is that Marty and I were members of Palisades High School, Class of 1965, and two of our classmates, future talk show host and film critic Michael Medved and David Wallechinsky, noted author of “The Book of Lists,” had written a 1976 book called “What Really Happened to the Class of ’65.” ⁴ Obviously, we reworked the title to fit the band and the concept.
Godfrey Daniel didn’t have liner notes on their album, nor did they include a list of credits as to who was in the band. Richard wanted to go in the opposite direction with our project and so, together with Harold Bronson and the band, we concocted an involved, fictitious story as to why the band sounded like it did. Richard, Harold and the five core members of the band, who would later become partners in Big Daddy (David, Gary, Marty, Tom and I), worked on several versions of a story to explain the concept behind the album. All of the stories had one thing in common: that the members of Big Daddy were somehow removed from society in the late 1950’s and returned almost a quarter of a century later! The band wanted to get back into playing Rock & Roll so they were given sheet music of current hits of the era (late 70’s and early 80’s pop hits). The result is what is heard on that first Big Daddy album released in 1983. ..50’s versions of current hits of the day.
Some of the back-story suggestions ranged from being captured by UFO’s, The Russians, or Communist forces in North Vietnam or Laos. We went with the Laotian story, and embellished it to be about a Rock & Roll band traveling on a USO tour in 1959 captured by Laotian communists, the Pathet Lao...(continued in chapter 15)
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⁴ D. Wallechinsky wrote a follow-up ten years later called “Midterm Report,” featuring a chapter on Marty Kaniger...see below: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-28-bk-9610-story.html
