Janis' Diary - Part 3

The tracking week begins, and we find out whether all this has any chance of working…

From the tracking on, my days were full. On the tracking and overdub days, I played, sang, arranged, cajoled, oversaw the project, I got up each morning at six so I could spend a few hours doing business with Europe and Japan, answering emails, and working on the budget. Usually, when I got home after a session, I was too tired to do much more than eat dinner and answer emails. When we moved into overdubbing, my work continued for several hours after each session as well, coordinating the various record companies, negotiating the label contracts with four countries, meeting with attorneys and business managers about those contracts, talking to agents in three countries about the 2004 tour in support of this album. It's no wonder that I appreciated the times in between sessions!

Everyone came early the first day. Richard hopped out of Tina's van with a huge grin for me. It was almost annoying; the only thing different about him 28 years later is that his hair is white, and he's put on a few pounds. Otherwise, he's in his 70's and looks the same as he did in his forties. Very irritating.

From the first, these sessions went differently than any in my previous experience. Tina handed everyone their charts and we all - production crew, engineers, musicians - gathered in the control room and listened to the song. Except Richard asked for a copy of the lyric, and everyone else wanted one too, so Tina ran to make spares. Then, when we'd finished playing the worktape of "Billie's Bones", Richard leaned forward and said Janis. Tell me a story. I looked at him, confused, and he said again Tell me a story. I want a story for every song.

So I told them about Billie Holiday, how her birthday was also April 7th, though she was 1915 and I'm 1951. How that had always seemed special to me, destined somehow. How when I'd realized I couldn't ever play her in a movie because my skin was the wrong color, I was devastated. How listening to her changed my life, my vision, as a singer and a writer. I talked about growing older, feeling the changes in my own voice, and said that even though some critics panned Billie's last records because her voice was used up on heroin and hard living, I thought they were her finest - because there was nothing there but the pure voice and emotion. That artists spend their lives trying to strip away the layers of civilization and family, to get down to their essence, and the essence of their art. Then we went into the studio…

… where it was as close to a disaster as I ever want to come in the studio! I probably should have begun with something easier; bad planning on my part. We stopped playing it after about three hours, deciding to move on to something else, because our time is so limited.

"Paris In Your Eyes" went smoothly, and I began to take heart; then "My Tennessee Hills" fell into place in a couple of takes and I was mightily encouraged. Of course, it all went down the gurgler when we began "Mockingbird". That song is such a slant-eyed look at old country songs and old English ballads that it was hard to keep it from sounding like someone else's record. But at the end of the day, we were all satisfied, and I was completely exhausted.

Started the next morning with every band member asking me if we could take another crack at "Bones", and me seeing my budget going down the tubes. I was honest; told them there was no record company to bail me out, so if they wanted to shoot for five songs today, we could try it. They were magnificent! "Glasgow" took a while just because of the transitions and dynamics, but came together nicely. And "Matthew", which I'd been worried about because of its delicacy, just recorded itself. I started playing to set the time, so Harry would know how fast to play it. Richard started playing along, Dan and Harry and Brock came in, and we got it in one take. That is so very rare!

We got hung up on "Dead Men Walking" until Jeff asked Richard to play 8th notes through the chorus. Richard looked up and said "Are you sure? I never heard of that!" and it was fun to see the stunned expression on Jeff's face! 8th notes from the bass are such a pop standard item - boom boom boom boom all through the chorus - that Jeff couldn't believe Richard had never heard of it, much less played it! We nailed it right away after that, and went on to "Billie's Bones", which suddenly fell into place.

Closed out the day with "Forever Young", a puzzle at first since no one could figure out what to play. Harry thought it was the funniest thing to sit there for four or five minutes so he could hit the cymbal once. Jim was playing some huge, low drum that reminded me of a funeral, which was apt. I asked Harry if he'd sing harmony on it later next week.

On the last day, we started out with "Amsterdam". That's already been cut by several people, but I think we got it to sound very eerie without sounding contrived. Then on to "Save Somebody", the last "bear" of the recording sessions. Jeff had a real specific vision, very pop I thought (although he hadn't meant that, as it turned out). Harry couldn't find his place. Dan went from one instrument to another. My stomach was starting to hurt, so Jeff and I went out to talk about it. Went back in, put Dan on acoustic, and we were fine.

When I played the worktape of "When I Lay Down", the band all told me how much they loved it. Then they all refused to play on it. Richard in particular thought it should be just piano/vocal on the album. I said "Richard, I thought you said it made you cry?" and he responded Yeah, Janis, but sometimes you need to cry alone. I asked them to just be in the room with me, and only play if they felt like it. As a result, I think Dan does two licks, and there's one cymbal somewhere, but that's it. It felt right for the song, though.

For "I Hear You Sing Again", I wanted a very live, very sensitive backdrop. We broke down the baffles that were keeping my guitar from leaking into the other instruments, and just put a sheet of Plexiglas in front of me. Dan sat on the other side of it with his guitar. We played the song once, then again, and were done. In fact, even though I was monumentally tired, and that shows in my scratch vocal, we kept that vocal, because it has heart.

Last, we tried to cut "Mary's Eyes" as a band, and we worked and worked trying to make it fly, but it just never happened. At around seven I sat everyone down and talked about the budget, told Jeff I'd be glad to go another hour or two, but that it just wasn't settling in. At this point about the only thing we could do would be to make it just a vocal/guitar cut. Brock pointed out that so far, there was only one of those on the album - "I Hear You Sing Again". I checked the list, because I didn't believe him, but he was right! And there were five up-tempo songs, which is a record for me. So vocal/guitar it will be, though I might indulge myself and play and second guitar part at some point.

Tina had gotten some champagne and we laid out the glasses, toasted, and paid everyone. There was a huge snafu over the payments, which had been made out to each player for just one day instead of all three - how embarrassing! So Philip brought down my checkbook and I paid them all fair and square. It would have been nice to party on down, but everyone was so tired - cutting twelve complete tracks in three days when the songs are complex isn't easy! I was so whipped that I went home before anyone even packed up, and left after arranging to meet Tina in the morning and teach her about budgets, and to meet the crew at the home studio the next day to start our overdubbing process.



contact webmaster: click here © Rude Girl Publishing™, All Rights Reserved