Again an interesting overview from Sound On Sound on Don Was and Don Smith producing and recording Voodoo Lounge and Bridges To Babylon.

Link : [www.soundonsound.com]

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Talking of the way that Jagger and Richards tend not to write a song in 15 minutes and record it as originally conceived, Was describes them as "guys who keep working with the clay, over and over". This is especially true of Keith Richards. "He may play a riff for an hour, just trying to get inside of the thing," says Was.

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"On every song we tried to apply some extra texture. Like on the intro to 'You Got Me Rocking', Keith is playing something called a 'mystery guitar', which is actually just a wild sound that he got from playing an old fibre glass dobro with a stick. It makes a kind of clanging effect in the background, and it just gives the song some dimension and a unique texture.

"Perhaps the best example, however, is 'Moon Is Up', which has everything," adds Smith, "from Charlie banging on a garbage can with brushes to Ronnie playing his pedal steel through a Mutron, Keith playing his acoustic guitar through the Hammond organ's Leslie cabinet, and Mick singing through his harmonica mic which had phasing on it. Every sound on there was dramatically altered.

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For Was, however, the track that best embodies the spirit of the entire Voodoo project is 'Sweethearts Together', on which Mick and Keith both played their acoustic guitars in an isolation booth. Then with a pair of microphones facing away from each other, they dueted on lead vocal.

"They were standing eyeball-to-eyeball, about 18 inches apart," recalls Was. "They did this incredible Everly Brothers-type harmony all the way through the song. I thought it was very cool, but the people in the control room who had worked with them for 10 or 15 years were like, 'I can't believe this is happening!' That moment epitomised the collaboration which characterises the whole album, and I think that's why it's a better record than others they've done in recent years."

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For Was, however, the track that best embodies the spirit of the entire Voodoo project is 'Sweethearts Together', on which Mick and Keith both played their acoustic guitars in an isolation booth. Then with a pair of microphones facing away from each other, they dueted on lead vocal.

"They were standing eyeball-to-eyeball, about 18 inches apart," recalls Was. "They did this incredible Everly Brothers-type harmony all the way through the song. I thought it was very cool, but the people in the control room who had worked with them for 10 or 15 years were like, 'I can't believe this is happening!' That moment epitomised the collaboration which characterises the whole album, and I think that's why it's a better record than others they've done in recent years."

[/quote]

Now that warms my heart. Wouldn't it just be so wonderful if they could do this kind of collaboration again? I'm off to go listen to Sweethearts Together now...

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kowalski
Again an interesting overview from Sound On Sound on Don Was and Don Smith producing and recording Voodoo Lounge and Bridges To Babylon.

Link : [www.soundonsound.com]

Quote

Talking of the way that Jagger and Richards tend not to write a song in 15 minutes and record it as originally conceived, Was describes them as "guys who keep working with the clay, over and over". This is especially true of Keith Richards. "He may play a riff for an hour, just trying to get inside of the thing," says Was.

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"On every song we tried to apply some extra texture. Like on the intro to 'You Got Me Rocking', Keith is playing something called a 'mystery guitar', which is actually just a wild sound that he got from playing an old fibre glass dobro with a stick. It makes a kind of clanging effect in the background, and it just gives the song some dimension and a unique texture.

"Perhaps the best example, however, is 'Moon Is Up', which has everything," adds Smith, "from Charlie banging on a garbage can with brushes to Ronnie playing his pedal steel through a Mutron, Keith playing his acoustic guitar through the Hammond organ's Leslie cabinet, and Mick singing through his harmonica mic which had phasing on it. Every sound on there was dramatically altered.

Quote

For Was, however, the track that best embodies the spirit of the entire Voodoo project is 'Sweethearts Together', on which Mick and Keith both played their acoustic guitars in an isolation booth. Then with a pair of microphones facing away from each other, they dueted on lead vocal.

"They were standing eyeball-to-eyeball, about 18 inches apart," recalls Was. "They did this incredible Everly Brothers-type harmony all the way through the song. I thought it was very cool, but the people in the control room who had worked with them for 10 or 15 years were like, 'I can't believe this is happening!' That moment epitomised the collaboration which characterises the whole album, and I think that's why it's a better record than others they've done in recent years."

Cool cool... talk about NOT resting on their laurels, this shows how much they really wanted to produce some good stuff and worked hard on it.... and I thank them for it. I think both of these albums have some GREAT songs on them, and thus are great Stones albums.

Don Was is all about having fun in the studio. He is a very positive guy, sets a great mood for his artists...

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latebloomer

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For Was, however, the track that best embodies the spirit of the entire Voodoo project is 'Sweethearts Together', on which Mick and Keith both played their acoustic guitars in an isolation booth. Then with a pair of microphones facing away from each other, they dueted on lead vocal.

"They were standing eyeball-to-eyeball, about 18 inches apart," recalls Was. "They did this incredible Everly Brothers-type harmony all the way through the song. I thought it was very cool, but the people in the control room who had worked with them for 10 or 15 years were like, 'I can't believe this is happening!' That moment epitomised the collaboration which characterises the whole album, and I think that's why it's a better record than others they've done in recent years."

Now that warms my heart. Wouldn't it just be so wonderful if they could do this kind of collaboration again? I'm off to go listen to Sweethearts Together now...

Still doesn't make it a good song!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-01-31 01:53 by GasLightStreet.

Reading this reminds me of that cool photo in the "Exile" album of Mick and Keith singing into the same mic with a bottle of bourbon in their hand...

I have a picture somewhere of this session that Don Was talks about... its black and white and looks likes something out of the Sun Sessions...really....

Dunno...I listened to VL a lot when it came out but I find it pretty boring these days...and that article, while a great read, sounds very much like an artifact of the early days of that album, i.e. "they've recorded their best album since Exile". Yeah the story of "Sweethears Together" is nice as well as listening to the writing sessions captured on "Voodoo Residue"...

B2B on the other hand still sounds fresh and exciting these days, even though its recording was a lot more chaotic (with the firing of babyface, Mick pretty much quitting in the end, etc...) maybe it's because of that actually. Maybe it's also because they had a lot of input from outside people, producers, but also musicians (Waddy's guitar part on SOM is a pure marvel, Benmont Tench is great too on Already Over Me)...maybe it's what's missing on Voodoo Lounge...and A Bigger Bang. Apart from a couple of duds (Suffering, Gunface) it's just that the songs are probably better.

So the production/recording techniques, yeah...it's still down to the songs and how they are played.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-01-31 01:50 by gotdablouse.

The trouble with Don Was is that he consistently steers The Stones away from breaking new ground musically. Flawed as Steel Wheels was, it was a modern recording, both musically and sonically, and just like every album that preceded it was a step ahead of what they had recorded and released before. It is my understanding that VL was originally supposed to be a more grooves-oriented album, but instead Don Was, thinking he could capture the "classic Stones sound", made The Stones become a retro-sounding museum version of itself, recording tracks that could just as likely have been recorded in the late 60s. They broke no ground musically with VL, but instead became their very own tribute band. On the other hand, B2B does not suffer the same fate, as there were more cooks in the kitchen and more modern influences coming through. Then Don Was is back and you have again with ABB The Stones emulating The Stones. ABB, despite several good songs, breaks no new ground musically and is distinguished among its other studio albums only in terms of sonic compression.

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gotdablouse
Dunno...I listened to VL a lot when it came out but I find it pretty boring these days...and that article, while a great read, sounds very much like an artifact of the early days of that album, i.e. "they've recorded their best album since Exile".

Obviously those kind of Exile statements are a lame attempt at making the record sound tougher and leaner than Steel Wheels, which was the previous 'best since Exile' and the vitality of 25 year old men garbage as well. They realised that album has the sound of Mick's hair cut. So for Voodoo they went for longer hair. Plus it was a new record deal so they had to drum up some hype.

Like you say, the record was played a lot (although I think I listened to The Storm from the LIS single more than the LP!) but the blandness of the LP settled in quick like a cloud of fog that turned into mud.

Bridges was bizarrely a lot better.

Dump Don Was. They need to find another producer if they ever record again.

They wrote 75 songs and those were the best they came up with to record? I guess Steel Wheels was indeed the last great album.

A Bigger Bang is their best record since they started working with Don Was.

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GasLightStreet

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gotdablouse
Dunno...I listened to VL a lot when it came out but I find it pretty boring these days...and that article, while a great read, sounds very much like an artifact of the early days of that album, i.e. "they've recorded their best album since Exile".

Obviously those kind of Exile statements are a lame attempt at making the record sound tougher and leaner than Steel Wheels, which was the previous 'best since Exile' and the vitality of 25 year old men garbage as well. They realised that album has the sound of Mick's hair cut. So for Voodoo they went for longer hair. Plus it was a new record deal so they had to drum up some hype.

Like you say, the record was played a lot (although I think I listened to The Storm from the LIS single more than the LP!) but the blandness of the LP settled in quick like a cloud of fog that turned into mud.

Bridges was bizarrely a lot better.

Yeah especially when you consider how chaotic the recording was, the worst ever probably, with Mick quitting for weeks. Even DW wasn't that bad.

I think it comes down to getting outside help from producers who have something to ad to the equation, I mean what does Don Was have to offer that Mick and Keith can't do themselves, except I suppose help them compromise which is probably not going to do the music much good anyway. But then you get stuff like Gunface (Danny Saber ?) or "Might as well get Juiced", which could have sounded a lot better without the Dust Brothers' tricks I'm sure.

I think it really comes down to getting fresh input from other musicians. I'm sure ABB would have sounded a lot better with Waddy, Benmont Tench, Meshell Ndegeocello (instead of Mick on the bass!), etc...

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gotdablouse
Dunno...I listened to VL a lot when it came out but I find it pretty boring these days...

Agreed! And the Brew boot trilogy rubs salt on the wounds as you can't help thinking they chose the wrong songs to be put on the final album.

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24FPS
They wrote 75 songs and those were the best they came up with to record? I guess Steel Wheels was indeed the last great album.

Just like the DW outtakes, the VL outtakes really shines. It's a pity that they're not officially released.

I'll never understand how The Storm was left off as a B-Side - It's such a great track, and there some real duds on the album (too many). Here's what the album should have been...

1. Love Is Strong
2. You Got Me Rocking
3. Sparks Will Fly
4. The Worst
5. Moon Is Up
6. Out of Tears
7. The Storm
8. Jump On Top of Me
9. Baby Break It Down
10. Blinded By Rainbows
11. I Go Wild
12. Thru and Thru

And then Mick should have saved Wandering Spirit songs for the Stones so the band could have used Don't Tear Me Up, Evening Gown, Wired All Night, etc. - he blew his songwriting load in '93

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Send It To me
A Bigger Bang is their best record since they started working with Don Was.

Wow. What a low bar to hurdle.

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GasLightStreet

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latebloomer

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For Was, however, the track that best embodies the spirit of the entire Voodoo project is 'Sweethearts Together', on which Mick and Keith both played their acoustic guitars in an isolation booth. Then with a pair of microphones facing away from each other, they dueted on lead vocal.

"They were standing eyeball-to-eyeball, about 18 inches apart," recalls Was. "They did this incredible Everly Brothers-type harmony all the way through the song. I thought it was very cool, but the people in the control room who had worked with them for 10 or 15 years were like, 'I can't believe this is happening!' That moment epitomised the collaboration which characterises the whole album, and I think that's why it's a better record than others they've done in recent years."

Now that warms my heart. Wouldn't it just be so wonderful if they could do this kind of collaboration again? I'm off to go listen to Sweethearts Together now...

Still doesn't make it a good song!

It's a good song to many. All my lady friends love it.

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DoomandGloom
Don Was is all about having fun in the studio. He is a very positive guy, sets a great mood for his artists...

Not only that, but he is the coolest dude on the planet.

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bob r
Reading this reminds me of that cool photo in the "Exile" album of Mick and Keith singing into the same mic with a bottle of bourbon in their hand...

I have a picture somewhere of this session that Don Was talks about... its black and white and looks likes something out of the Sun Sessions...really....

That "Exile" photo you speak of is my all-time favorite Stones photo. Kinda says it all.

Wish I could get a good print of that.

"Take all the pain...It's yours anyway"

i love donnie boy. just love him to death. he and chuck take some much abuse here that i love them both even more, cos they take it and handle it so well...

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bob r
Reading this reminds me of that cool photo in the "Exile" album of Mick and Keith singing into the same mic with a bottle of bourbon in their hand...

I have a picture somewhere of this session that Don Was talks about... its black and white and looks likes something out of the Sun Sessions...really....

here's the 'old grand dad ' pic

love it...probably singing 'Loving Cup'..

Dump Don Was and get Chris Kimsey back again, or produce it by themselves, The Glimmer Twins with maybe Steve jordan as added producer.

jeroen

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T&A
i love donnie boy. just love him to death. he and chuck take some much abuse here that i love them both even more, cos they take it and handle it so well...

Chuck might but his wife didn't seem to be able to handle it according to that infamous thread a while back........

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JumpinJackOLantern

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GasLightStreet

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latebloomer

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For Was, however, the track that best embodies the spirit of the entire Voodoo project is 'Sweethearts Together', on which Mick and Keith both played their acoustic guitars in an isolation booth. Then with a pair of microphones facing away from each other, they dueted on lead vocal.

"They were standing eyeball-to-eyeball, about 18 inches apart," recalls Was. "They did this incredible Everly Brothers-type harmony all the way through the song. I thought it was very cool, but the people in the control room who had worked with them for 10 or 15 years were like, 'I can't believe this is happening!' That moment epitomised the collaboration which characterises the whole album, and I think that's why it's a better record than others they've done in recent years."

Now that warms my heart. Wouldn't it just be so wonderful if they could do this kind of collaboration again? I'm off to go listen to Sweethearts Together now...

Still doesn't make it a good song!

It's a good song to many. All my lady friends love it.

"Many" in your eyes is hardly anyone in the real world.

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GasLightStreet

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JumpinJackOLantern

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GasLightStreet

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latebloomer

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For Was, however, the track that best embodies the spirit of the entire Voodoo project is 'Sweethearts Together', on which Mick and Keith both played their acoustic guitars in an isolation booth. Then with a pair of microphones facing away from each other, they dueted on lead vocal.

"They were standing eyeball-to-eyeball, about 18 inches apart," recalls Was. "They did this incredible Everly Brothers-type harmony all the way through the song. I thought it was very cool, but the people in the control room who had worked with them for 10 or 15 years were like, 'I can't believe this is happening!' That moment epitomised the collaboration which characterises the whole album, and I think that's why it's a better record than others they've done in recent years."

Now that warms my heart. Wouldn't it just be so wonderful if they could do this kind of collaboration again? I'm off to go listen to Sweethearts Together now...

Still doesn't make it a good song!

It's a good song to many. All my lady friends love it.

"Many" in your eyes is hardly anyone in the real world.

Have you ever been off your own block? How do you know what is going on in the "real" world?

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JumpinJackOLantern

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GasLightStreet

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latebloomer

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For Was, however, the track that best embodies the spirit of the entire Voodoo project is 'Sweethearts Together', on which Mick and Keith both played their acoustic guitars in an isolation booth. Then with a pair of microphones facing away from each other, they dueted on lead vocal.

"They were standing eyeball-to-eyeball, about 18 inches apart," recalls Was. "They did this incredible Everly Brothers-type harmony all the way through the song. I thought it was very cool, but the people in the control room who had worked with them for 10 or 15 years were like, 'I can't believe this is happening!' That moment epitomised the collaboration which characterises the whole album, and I think that's why it's a better record than others they've done in recent years."

Now that warms my heart. Wouldn't it just be so wonderful if they could do this kind of collaboration again? I'm off to go listen to Sweethearts Together now...

Still doesn't make it a good song!

It's a good song to many. All my lady friends love it.

Don't forget its a wedding staple too.
this song and Brick House...as well as Celebration

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JumpinJackOLantern

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GasLightStreet

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JumpinJackOLantern

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GasLightStreet

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latebloomer

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For Was, however, the track that best embodies the spirit of the entire Voodoo project is 'Sweethearts Together', on which Mick and Keith both played their acoustic guitars in an isolation booth. Then with a pair of microphones facing away from each other, they dueted on lead vocal.

"They were standing eyeball-to-eyeball, about 18 inches apart," recalls Was. "They did this incredible Everly Brothers-type harmony all the way through the song. I thought it was very cool, but the people in the control room who had worked with them for 10 or 15 years were like, 'I can't believe this is happening!' That moment epitomised the collaboration which characterises the whole album, and I think that's why it's a better record than others they've done in recent years."

Now that warms my heart. Wouldn't it just be so wonderful if they could do this kind of collaboration again? I'm off to go listen to Sweethearts Together now...

Still doesn't make it a good song!

It's a good song to many. All my lady friends love it.

"Many" in your eyes is hardly anyone in the real world.

Have you ever been off your own block? How do you know what is going on in the "real" world?

I live in it. You don't resemble that, I know. We all know that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-01-31 22:36 by GasLightStreet.

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duke richardson

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bob r
Reading this reminds me of that cool photo in the "Exile" album of Mick and Keith singing into the same mic with a bottle of bourbon in their hand...

I have a picture somewhere of this session that Don Was talks about... its black and white and looks likes something out of the Sun Sessions...really....

here's the 'old grand dad ' pic

love it...probably singing 'Loving Cup'..

Thanks for posting this, one of my favorite pictures of them. Anyone have a larger version?

Some new revelations by Don Was as he promotes his first solo album, apparently

[www.rollingstone.com]

"There are at least a dozen “great” Rolling Stones songs, with the late Charlie Watts on drums, that are still unreleased from Was’ time with the band. “There’s stuff that’s been left off of those albums that should have been finished,” Was says, referring to the Voodoo Lounge, Bridges to Babylon, and A Bigger Bang sessions. “I’m just waiting for someone to ask. I already know what to do… I know that there’s stuff that should have been finished.”"

A lot of good stuff has leaked from VL and B2B, from ABB nothing AFAIK.

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IORR Links : Essential Studio Outtakes CDs : Audio - History of Rarest Outtakes : Audio