The AmeriKarma album was released in 2023 and it became something bigger than I ever could have expected. It was a career-defining moment. My streaming numbers jumped 6-fold to over 3 million streams on Spotify! But the stage had been set a few years earlier. At that time the very idea of an AmeriKarma album was non-existent. How did it happen?
At the core of AmeriKarma are 4 songs: Live, Shadow Walk, Fly and When The Angels Sing. Back in 2013 I was working on a Sync Project for TV. I was up in New Hampshire in a private studio for 3 days and recorded 15 tracks. These were all instrumentals for about 2 minutes each. When I finished recording, I came home to listen to the results. There were a few tracks that I thought were very cool and decided to flesh them out a bit more, recording bass guitar and some extra guitars. I did this on my Tascam 8-Track Digital recorder, putting the studio mixes on Tks 1 & 2. This gave me 6 extra tracks to work with. Once I finished overdubbing the extra tracks, I mixed the 8 tracks down to 2-Tk stereo. The last song I recorded was Live and that was the only song not recorded in the studio. I did it all on the 8-Tk.
I found myself listening to these 4 tracks in particular. I could hear the potential of turning them into real songs with melodies and lyrics. I kept coming back to them off and on, trying out melodies and possible arrangements. I could make this a verse and this a chorus. But it wouldn’t be until 2018 that I finally started writing them as songs. I knew I needed to start thinking about a new album. It was already 2 years since my last one Rock’nRoll Romantic. With the competition in streaming, I was behind the eight ball. The days of putting out an album every 2 or 3 years were over. You might as well be starting from scratch every time.
I had this track called The Wish, sitting in the can since 2010. The track was done but I never finished the lyrics for it. So in January 2018 I decided I was finally going to finish it. Generally, what usually happens when I start being creative, ideas for other songs start coming in. While working on The Wish, I began to look at these other 4 tracks and finished 2 of them—Live and Shadow Walk. By October I had booked studio time at The Spa with Stevie DeAcutis. I cut 4 tracks in the 1st week of October and a couple of weeks later went for my annual physical. That did not go as well. My doctor said my blood count had dropped to 7! (This is time for a blood transfusion) He wanted me to come in for a bone marrow test…not fun!
Stephen & Rob
On Halloween 2018 my doctor called to tell me the results of a bone marrow test. The diagnosis was MDS, short for Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a pre-condition of Leukemia. When I met with the Leukemia doctor, he said my body was making irregular cells called Blasts at 12%, which is considered high because at 20% it’s full-blown leukemia. He said I had 3 months to get it under control and then get a Stem Cell Transplant to cure the MDS. He said I was good candidate for a new Drug Trial he was heading up, if I was interested. Of course I’m interested! 3 months later my Blasts fell to 2% and I was ready for the transplant. It literally saved my life.
When I came home to recover, I went back to the music I had started working on before going into the hospital. I decided I wanted to add a 3rd verse to Live. The strange thing about the song Live was that I thought I wrote the lyrics after my transplant. I had been in such a fog in the hospital that I forgot when I had written it. It wasn’t until I went into my workbook when I was finishing writing the lyrics to Shadow Walk that I saw the date for the lyrics of Live—January 2018! Talk about life imitating art!! They say that truth is stranger than fiction and here’s a case that bears that out. Somehow my subconscious was telling me I needed to have a positive frame of mind for something that was coming my way. I had written a song about wanting to live life to the fullest, 10 months before I was diagnosed with MDS!
With my hero donor Marc
It was only 6 months after my transplant that the world was hit with the Covid-19 pandemic. Now everyone would get to experience what I had just gone through—Isolation, Quarantine in their homes. It was crazy. It was also historic. Nothing would ever be the same as we knew it before. It was under these circumstances that AmeriKarma started to take shape. I went to work on my music. Fly came quickly. It was one of the last tracks I recorded in New Hampshire and something about the turn around chords reminded me of Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly, which is what I called it (Buddy Holly) before it became Fly.
After having written 2 intense kind of songs with Live and Shadow Walk, I looked at Fly as sort of “comic relief”. I kept singing “I just want to fly, I just want to fly’. Let me out of here, you know? It’s simple, why not go with it? So, I did. It came together easily enough. Now I had 3 songs finished. The 4th track that was my favorite was called Acoustic Heart. I loved the vibe of the track and its simple acoustic lines. But for some reason I could not get a melody for it. I mean I worked on this song off and on for years! I decided that I would turn it into a rocker on piano. I even had a title—Birds of A Feather.
Robert on the Breedlove
In 2021 we moved from our home of 43 years, 90 miles down the NJ Parkway to Ocean County to be closer to the ocean. When we finally moved into our new home I was unpacking my computer and started listening to my iTunes. Acoustic Heart came up. I hadn’t heard it in quite awhile and I was pleasantly surprised to be hearing it now. And then it happened…as I was listening I suddenly realized why I hadn’t been able to write a song from it. The simple acoustic guitar lines had been in the way all along. I also realized that if I sang those acoustic lines as the melody, I could write the song!
I quickly picked up my guitar and started to try it out. YES!!! It worked!!! This would become When The Angels Sing. If AmeriKarma was going to be about the pandemic, I needed a song about Death. Like many people who lost friends and family to Covid-19, Death was something that touched everyone. I lost my cousin and my engineer of 20 years within 24 hours of each other. No funerals, no paying final respects, NOTHING. I worked with Ben Elliott for 20 years at his Showplace Studios. In his last days, his partner was selling the studio from under him. I can’t imagine the stress it must have placed on him. Ben had recorded everything by DownTown Mystic. Where would I go to record?
Ben Elliott
Having made the move to Ocean County put me within 30 minutes of Shorefire Studios in W. Long Branch, NJ. I hadn’t worked there in 35 years, when Garry Tallent was a co-owner. Garry sold his share in the 90s. The new owner was a guy named Joe DeMaio, who bought the studio in the mid 90s. I called Joe and asked him if still had that old board, which was one reason I never went back. He said he sold it and replaced it with one of the last Helios boards ever made. This was the board used at Trident Studios in London where The Beatles, Stones and the cream of the English music scene record all those classic albums. I didn’t know it at the time but I had found my new home. 😊
I had been planning to record once the pandemic had passed. I sent the demos to drummer Steve Holley and bassist Paul Page and planned on a session for January 2022. One day Steve calls me and tells me how much he’s knocked out by the songs. This is Steve Holley! He said he was blown away by the demos. He can’t stop listening to them. Now I’m blown away! I’ve never had a conversation like this with the great Steve Holley. The man’s a legend. Something is happening. I feel like I’ve arrived! On January 15, 2022, a week before my birthday, the 1st sessions for AmeriKarma take place at Shorefire Studios.
Shorefire Entrance
For most of 2022 I was in the studio overdubbing and mixing the album that would become AmeriKarma. Actually, the album had no name at this point. Every month I worked with Joe DeMaio, averaging 25-30 mixes on each song. By May I knew I had to release Fly as a single. I had not been that big a fan of the song, but Steve Holley said it was a great song. I had Steve come back to do harmonies and background vocals. He’s so talented. Probably the best all-around musician I’ve ever worked with. Once I put the 12-string Rickenbacker on the track and cut the lead vocal, I could hear that Fly was the lead track for the album. Things started to fall into place as if by magic.
Having had the incredible experience of having my life changed by the transplant to creating the album of my life fills me with gratitude. It’s so hard to put into words because the feeling and emotions go so deep. It is in this spirit that I decided to put out The DownTown Demos for the 2024 Holidays as a thank you to all who listened and streamed AmeriKarma, as a way of giving back to share my story. I’m so grateful to be alive and making the music that I want to make. I want to offer hope to those who might be facing hard times in their own lives. Stay in the moment and be positive. If I could do it, so can you. Peace. 😊
Rock and Roll is what made America great. The music that was created in the USA back in the 1950s was the sound heard around the world. It inspired a generation of British teens who would bring it back to new heights in the 1960s and beyond, inspiring a new generation of American teens to rediscover their own roots. I was one of those American teens who heard that sound and never looked back. I started playing guitar and writing songs, while buying and listening to the greatest records ever made. It was a golden age for 20th Century music, with Rock and Roll front and center.
In 1967 it started to be called “Rock” to give it a more serious image. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band transformed the world of popular music. This wasn’t I Want To Hold Your Hand anymore. FM Radio was giving Radio a facelift with hipper DJs and cooler sounds not heard on the AM side. New publications like Rolling Stone and Creem began to cover and give voice to the artists and take them seriously, no longer fodder for the Teen magazines. The term Rock and Roll became a cliché, used to describe the Oldies shows.
Like most things retro, Rock and Roll has found its way back into the lexicon. Thanks in part to Americana artists keeping the flame alive and those ageless wonders, The Rolling Stones, Rock and Roll is alive and kicking in the 21st Century. The late great Tom Petty shared his thoughts on rock’n’roll in his Musicares Person of The Year speech in 2017. Tom said “I was collecting records—Rock and Roll records. Not rock; this was Rock and Roll. The roll designates a swing—there’s a swing in the roll.”
Yes, for those who are serious about their RnR, there’s a “feel” to playing it that differs from Rock. Some might call it a “backbeat” or a “groove” that is not found in modern rock. I’ve been at this for a while now and I’ve been recording and producing music to make my contribution to keeping the sound alive and hopefully, inspire a new generation to play Rock and Roll and make it their own. With that said, here are some tips:
TIP #1: THE PLAYERS
This is where it all starts. For me it’s about finding the right musicians who know how to play Rock and Roll. I’ve had the privilege to record and play with some great musicians like Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg from The E Street Band. (Hey I’m from Joisey!) I’ve done most of my studio work with the great rhythm section of drummer Steve Holley and bassist Paul Page. These guys know how to play RnR! I know that it’s not that simple and it took me years to get to this point. Like most, I started playing RnR by forming a band. I could probably write a book on this subject. Bands by nature are something special. There’s a certain camaraderie and excitement playing in a band. When it’s working it’s as good as it gets. When it’s not…needless to say, there are not too many RnR bands that make it to the “toppermost of the poppermost”. This doesn’t mean you can’t create classic RnR by yourself. Just check out Maybe I’m Amazed by Sir Paul.
TIP #2: KISS (not the band): Keep It Simple Stupid
Rock and Roll is a simple style of music. It’s best played with a band or group of musicians. Don’t overthink it. Let the rhythm be your guide. Try to keep it loose, allowing yourself to feel the beat with the other musicians. You’ll know it when you’re all in sync and when you are, the fun begins. When I’m tracking in the studio I try to keep the number of takes on a song to 3-4 takes at the most. You want it to sound fresh and not rehearsed to death.
TIP #3: RETRO IS WHERE IT’S AT
courtesy of @markmaryanovich
Rock and Roll is all about the electric guitar and it started in the 1950s when Leo Fender introduced the Telecaster and the Stratocaster, two of the most iconic guitars ever made. Add to that the Gibson Les Paul and ES-335T, along with the Gretsch Duo Jet and 6120 (I can’t forget Rickenbackers), and you have the beginning of the Golden Age of RnR guitars. A new Strat in 1956 cost $175. I have a 1964 Strat that I bought for $150 in 1972…ok, it’s probably worth around $10-20,000 today, but the sound is classic and that’s what you want to hear. I know the prices are crazy now, but you can still buy a good Tele or Strat at a decent price. Also, there are great new guitar makers and modern technology is always improving with plugins and effects pedals that can give you the sound of classic guitars and amps that can be very impressive sounding.
TIP #4: SuSuSTUDIO
Joe DeMaio and SG
Of course, recording on 2” analog tape on a Studer 24-track machine is a sure way to get a classic sound, but Pro Tools has pretty much made that extinct. Nevertheless, if you really want to create a classic Rock and Roll recording, then you owe it to yourself to record in a studio. I feel sorry for the younger generation of musicians today who will not have a chance at recording in the great studios that once dotted the RnR landscape. So many incredible and fabled recording studios have gone the way of the dodo, but there are still some around. Your best bet is to find a studio with a “Lifer” running it. These are the guys that will never quit and are always looking for vintage gear like an archeologist looking for that rarest of finds. They know how to get that classic sound. The early studios like Sun or Chess were primitive compared to what came later, but back in the day, they cut killer tracks. Today, vintage outboard gear like compressors and limiters are highly sought after, along with vintage mics. There’s your classic sound. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore! I’m very lucky to record at Shorefire Studios in Long Branch, NJ. It boasts the last Helios recording console ever made. This was the console used at Trident Studios in London, where all those classic records were made by The Stones, Led Zep and many others. Also, owner and engineer (“Lifer”) Joe DeMaio has all kinds of vintage amps, keyboards, and drums. It’s like working in a RnR museum! lol
TIP #5: EXPERIMENT
Some of the coolest sounds on classic records were created by experimenting. Sometimes trial and error are the way to go. The goal of any classic recording is to create a “Vibe”. That’s a certain feeling a track has that’s just undeniable and undefinable. I like trying to create magic in the studio whenever I can and sometimes that occurs by paying attention to the little things like mistakes I like to call “happy accidents”. You never know when it’s going to happen, but when it does, try to be alert and willing to go with it. Garry Tallent once told me a story that when recording with Bruce Springsteen “mistakes” would occur. Bruce would go home and listen to the recordings, and after much listening, Bruce would not hear the “mistakes” anymore. To him they were now part of the song, and Garry said, the band would have to learn the “mistakes”. 🙂
Rock and Roll has a rich tradition and I’m honored to be part of carrying it on. But this is also the 21st Century with a new generation that can take all the new technology and information at their fingertips and create something that’s never been heard before. All it takes with Rock and Roll is a little inspiration.
For years I’ve felt like the lone voice talking about rock’n’roll. That’s been changing as the term “rock’n’roll” has been making quite a comeback. People are talking about it more and it makes me feel like I might just have had some kind of effect, even if by only putting it out in the universe watching it come back like an echo. That’s cool in my book.
Since RnR is back in the collective conscience I thought it would be a perfect time to reintroduce my version of it by releasing Rock’n’Roll 4 The Soul. At the core of this album are 6 songs which were recorded just to see what would be created. Something good? Something worth pursuing further? A cool hobby to take up and have some fun with? That’s about as far as it went. I was managing and producing The Discontent, who I felt were THE perfect band for the time. I also started my record label Sha-La Music to release their music. So, I was very involved, if you follow.
Jessie, Robert, Tommy & Eric
I had released the band’s 1st album societydidit and quite frankly…it didn’t. But I knew how good it was and ahead of its time. That’s like a curse to me. I was right about it being ahead of its time, because 5 years later, to reboot the band, I remastered the lead track Bulletproof and released it at Specialty Radio, which were the Specialty shows on Alternative Radio. It was becoming the proving ground for new music at Radio. Even major bands like Radiohead and Foo Fighters released their music there first. It was highly competitive, to say the least!
Tom Fletcher
But I had learned a few things in 5 years and hired the top alternative specialty radio plugger. I used an alternative mix by engineer Tom Fletcher. Fletch was in from LA because I hired him to produce another band I was managing named Shotgun Symphony. In fact, both bands started their projects on the same day. I was at Unique Recording in NYC and The Discontent had booked Showplace Studios in Dover, NJ. I hadn’t been there since it had become a studio. It used to be a club back in the day and my band played there, opening for Robert Gordon. So it was through The Discontent that I would meet the studio owner Ben Elliott, and I was about to start a 20-year working relationship with Ben.
Ben Elliott & Keith Richards
Fletch was staying at my house during this and I would play him what The Discontent had recorded. I played him Bulletproof and he was floored! I asked him if he would like to take a shot at mixing it and he jumped at it. To me, Fletch was one of the most talented producer/engineers I’d ever seen. A very cool guy who knew an SSL board inside and out. Watching him inspired me and got me thinking about recording some of my songs again. It was Fletch who told me to just cut it all live with guitars. Fletch was also ahead of his time and did this killer mix. This time Bulletproof went Top 5 at Specialty, going as high as #3. Instant success for an unknown indie band’s 5 yr-old recording!! 5 years later I had better connections and the right sound for the right format.
Bulletproof video – Directed By Rune Lind
It was less than a year after Fletch’s comments to me and I was in Showplace Studios getting ready to cut 6 tracks with The Discontent’s drummer Tommy Mastro and bass player Eric Hoagland. They were rehearsing in Asbury Park in a place called Wild Sound owned by a guy named Joe DeMaio, who now owns Shorefire Studios and is my engineer. Go figure! That’s where I did my 1 and only rehearsal with Tommy & Eric. I knew my stuff would be different from what they were used to, so I told them to just go with it. When I think about it now, I could see that they could have some reservations since I was their manager. My job was to critique their performances at live shows and now I’m asking them to play with me in the studio. Plus, they knew I’d played with Garry Tallent & Max Weinberg from the E Street Band. Maybe a bit of pressure?? LOL
Tommy
I knew they were cool with it and pumped to get in the studio with me. Tommy was the real deal. I saw it the 1st time I laid eyes on him playing with the band. Eric? Ummm…not so much. I kid Eric. 😊 The truth is he was in a no-win situation. Because I wanted to allow myself the space to experiment with different parts and people I was upfront about it with him, so I told E that I would probably be replacing what he played. Thanks, Eric, for being cool with that. I knew you could handle it. 😊
The Big E
Tommy attacked the songs like he did with The Discontent but he could also put a groove to it. I would compare him to another great drummer, Kenny Aronoff—muscular, hard hitting, and solid. That was Tommy. It’s a bit of a haze now but I do remember the energy from Tommy & Eric, we were committed! Add to that a great live sound that engineer Ben Elliott got and all done live to tape. ANALOG BABY!! It was a fun day. So much so I had to lay down some vocals and guitars the next day. Now I was doing this because I was bringing The Discontent into Showplace to record some demos for a 2nd album. But first I would borrow Tommy & Eric to cut some tracks of my own music. I was going into the 2nd day and starting to hear about it from the band. INGRATES!!!
So, you get the picture. It turned out when I was done and listening at home I was hooked! Here’s what I remember about these tracks:
Turn Around and Go: One of my all-time faves and I knew Tommy would kill it. He did. I think we cut it first. I added the guitar intro lines and sang one of my best RnR vocals. I wrote the song after a visit to Cheeques, one of NJ’s best Go-Go bars with my cousin Gordon. We were sitting in the middle of the bar when the next dancer was introduced by the DJ. She came out strutting her stuff in heels and wearing a top hat. Suddenly she stopped, put her high heel on edge of the bar right in front of me, leaned over and kissed me! WTF?? My cousin looked at me in amazement and said “do you know how many times I’ve come here? You come in 1 time and this happens”??!! lol I already had the music and just needed the right inspiration to write the lyrics. I knew right then I would finish the song. 🙂
Ozzie
Dead End Space: I wrote this with Jessie Hobbs and Ozzie Caccavelli from The Discontent. Yes, there was a great guitar player in the band named Ozzie. It’s Jessie’s lyrics. He was the main songwriter in the band with me and Ozzie adding musical parts. The band demoed it at Ozzie’s home studio and I think I played acoustic guitar on it. I wanted to do my own version of it after that and brought in Tommy to play drums and PJ Farley (of Trixter fame) on bass. Ozzie came in later to add his guitar. Not 1 of the core songs and definitely not a typical Discontent song. I heard it as a type of Fleetwood Mac thing which fit more with my style.
PJ
Think a Little Louder: This song has some epic stories behind it. I was working with a guy in NYC named Eddie Walker. He and his band were rehearsing in Soho near Little Italy. After listening to them a few times I approached Eddie with the music to a song of mine. I played him the song with a melody but no lyrics. I asked him to write them. The next time at rehearsal he sang to me and the band the finished song. I still remember it. That’s how good it was to hear the 1st time. A real Moment! Eddie and his band recorded a decent version, but he and the band would eventually split up and Eddie moved down to Austin. I always liked the song and wanted to cut it myself. This was the last of the core tracks recorded that day and the least successful one for me. I didn’t really like anything about it. A couple of years went by and I decided to go back to Showplace to finish recording the other 3 tracks. Now I’m managing a band called Soaked that won the WXRK Battle of The Bands! The 2 main guys Steve Brown and PJ Farley were in Trixter, which was probably the 1st young rock band to break on MTV. They were just out of high school and Trixter became a big deal.
Steve
I decided the problem with the track was the key. It’s in B and will play much better in A. Also, the song had a 3rd verse and I decided to get rid of it. In its place I wrote a bridge that took me back to the final chorus and fade out. When I got to the studio, I had Ben Elliott delete all the recorded parts except for Tommy’s drums. Remember this is analog tape. You wipe it and it’s gone forever! It was here on this track that I learned that the basic track is recorded for the drums. If the drums are all there, then you can re-record anything with them in place. Tommy is solid and he’s all there! I go in and record a new acoustic rhythm track, including a new bridge, with PJ putting down the bass next. Then Steve comes in with his monster red guitar that he saves for special occasions and plays these heavy sounding chords. Now Steve is an incredible guitarist and I know he could have shred all over the track. But he’s chill enough to just play a simple but great sounding guitar part that really carries the track. When I hear what he plays I know the track is finished. It rocks now!
And You Know Why: An important song for me. I was working with Garry Tallent and played it for him. He called Max Weinberg up to come and play on it. He did and we cut it at Shorefire. I didn’t know at the time how rare it was to have both Garry & Max playing as the rhythm section on a track. It turns out, besides backing Bruce, they’ve only done it a handful of times with other artists, and I’m one of them. A few years later I recut most of my parts and added new vocals at Showplace with Ben engineering. Not 1 of the core songs. Had I not written this song, I might have quit music altogether. No lie. That’s how important this song is to me. I had left my band The Tupelos and was burnt out. I just couldn’t bring myself to write the kind of songs we had been playing anymore. After 6 months or so, I happened to be playing guitar and came up with the chords that start the song and verse. They blew my mind. They were so different from anything I had done before, and it relit the fire in me. I HAD to finish this song! Once I did, I never looked back.
Rock’n’Roll 4 The Soul (Part 2)
Lost and Found: This one was probably the 2nd track to be cut. I recut the bass because I heard something different that I wanted to try. There’s nothing wrong with Eric’s part and he knew going in that I would probably redo the bass at some point. It has become 1 of my most streamed tracks. It’s got this vibe and I think that’s what catches the listener’s ear. It ended up with just me and Tommy playing on it. I added a tambourine that makes it feel like a RnR Gospel type of track to me. The lyrics also seem to add to that with a kind of out of the darkness and into the light imagery. There’s something inspirational about it. At the same time, it’s 1 of my oddest songs from a musical standpoint. There’s major against minor musical things that shouldn’t work together but somehow do. Also, years after writing it, I looked at the lyrics from a new POV while recording it and it seemed like they were about something bi-polar…” the lows are high and the highs are low” Then the lyrics on the chorus are so positive. It took me years to understand how I could write them.
Think It Over: Also 1 of the core tracks with Tommy killing it, as are Steve & PJ. I wanted to focus on the guitar sound. The opening chords remind me of Pete Townsend, who is a guitar player I don’t think of right away as 1 of my influences. But every time I listen to him I find myself of 1 mind with him on how to approach guitar parts, especially from a RnR standpoint. There’s a really cool guitar sound on it. As time has gone on, I think this song has some of my best lyrics. I was probably writing it about and to myself, although I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I also think it’s 1 of Tommy’s best tracks. He plays some parts that surprise me because they’re things I wouldn’t think of him playing. His energy makes the track happen.
Martin H. Samuel
Soul’d Out: This is kind of a sleeper. My original idea for the song was in an Americana style and feel, but the lyrics that award-winning lyricist Martin Samuel sent me were so sad. The music I had sounded too upbeat. However, the lyrics fit really well with the melody and I could sing them, so I had to change the groove if I wanted it to work. It was an emotional piece. I cut a demo that I really liked, so I decided to cut it as one of the core tracks. This was the last of the 3 songs that Steve & PJ played on. Steve brought a beautiful 12-string acoustic and played another great sounding part. I had played a pulsing bass part on my demo and I had PJ play the same part but let him decide when to add passing notes and he nailed it. It’s simple but he adds these nice bass lines that help to build the tension in the track. I think it’s 1 of my best vocal performances.
Redemption: The song is built around the guitar riff that starts the song. This is the 3rd and final version of it. The very 1st time I played it with my band was at a small club on the upper East Side of NYC called JPs. Downstairs in the basement were 3 of the owner’s friends—James Taylor, Jimmy Buffet and JD Souther. JD told me he liked the song and that it sounded like a hit. That might have been the hit he had just snorted talking because a closer listen to the lyrics might have changed his mind. When I went solo, I re-wrote and recorded it as Temptation with my good bud Monte Farber playing bass. A definite improvement but I still felt I hadn’t got it right yet. On this version I overhauled the verses and re-wrote the chorus. The lyrics reflected a situation I found myself in, so they were truthful. What I finally got right was the sound of the guitars for the riff and the 12-string Rics on the chorus. That’s what I was always going for, so it was worth all those years to finally get my reward. Redemption was cut with Steve Holley on drums and Paul Page on bass and not 1 of the core 6.
Steve, Robert & Paul
Gongs of Karma: There was a gong in a corner at Showplace Studios and I made it my ritual to hit the gong every time I would start a session. Then I would hit it again before I left the studio after a session was over. One day I had Ben Elliott set up a mike to record me banging the gong, as it were. I wanted to have the sound on tape. It was at a mastering session with Larry Bentley that I decided to use what I had recorded, but listening to just the gong hits was a bit boring. I got an idea and asked Larry if he had some effects I could use on the gongs. After some experimenting Larry found what I was looking for and we created the track. I knew I was going to use it as an intro to Brian Jones. The crazy thing is that the track has been sync-licensed a few times.
Brian Jones: I could write a book about this song, and I probably have come close to it over the years. In case you don’t know who Brian Jones is, he’s the guy who started The Rolling Stones. Mick & Keith joined HIS band. The song came to be written because I was “in touch” with Brian’s spirit. This was confirmed many years later in a channeling session I had with the renowned spirit of Dr. Peebles. Google the good Dr. and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about. I’ll leave it at that and just talk about the song. I’ve said it took me 15 minutes to write and 15 years to finally get it right, recording-wise. This might have been the 3rd or 4th of the core tracks to be recorded. One day I was on my way to the studio to work on the track and I was trying to figure out how to approach it. Then I remembered that when my band was playing it with Garry Tallent on bass, Garry was modelling his bass part on the chorus after Bill Wyman’s bass on The Stones Paint It Black. I wasn’t sure if it fit the song, but it was a very cool idea! Thinking about Garry’s idea of using a particular Stone’s song for the basis of a part sparked the light bulb to go off. Why not do the same kind of thing throughout the song?
When I got to the studio, I went to work with The Discontent to try some of my ideas out. We modelled the chorus on Gimme Shelter with driving guitars and the way it breaks down with the drums. Then I had the thought to try the oohs from Sympathy For The Devil on the backing vocals. From there I added a piano part that plays the same pattern through the song. It’s played to Brian’s piano rhythm on Let’s Spend The Night Together. All in all, I used 7 parts from Stones songs, including The Last Time, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Jumping Jack Flash and Satisfaction. But something was still missing for me. What was it?
One weekend I was going up to Boston with The Discontent for a gig they were playing. I think it might have been on that trip that I saw this wooden stake in the median near Mystic, CT that read “next stop Downtown Mystic”. I knew it was the perfect name for my little project the second I saw it. I never saw that stake again on the return trip or subsequent trips to New England. On the way back from Boston, John Borneo (guitar) from the band asked me what I was doing later. He knew I had a beach house at the Jersey shore and would probably be going down later that night, which is what I told him. He said his sister was having a birthday party in Red Bank and invited me to drop in on my way down to the beach. John was a bit of an enigma to me. He was the heartthrob of the band but was kind of quiet. So I said “sure, give me the directions”. I get there later that night and the party seems to be winding down. John introduces me to some people. I’m sitting at a table in the backyard and one of his sister’s friends asks me if I could use a good harp player? The Discontent is not the kind of band for a harp, but as soon as she asks me, I know I have the missing piece to Brian Jones. That’s just the way my mind works. I tell her to give me the name and number of this harp player. You never know.
Jerry Fierro
When I heard the word harp, I flashed back to the 1st time I saw The Stones. It was a TV show and Brian was wailing on his harmonica. That was it—the harmonica was the missing piece to this track! I called the harp player and asked him if he would come to Showplace Studios to record something for me. His name was Jerry Fierro and as it turns out, he was a champion harp player, having won a few titles in competitions over the years! He showed up at the studio and I wasn’t quite sure what we would do. He asks me what style of harp playing do I want. Chicago? Yeah, sure. Ben mikes him up and as Jerry starts to play, I realize that the harmonica should represent Brian in the song. I tell Jerry to riff after every line, as if it was Brian responding. I coach Jerry to create the intro part that gets repeated in the song and he’s killer! When Jerry is done playing, I know I have the finishing piece I was missing.
Brian Jones is a good example of the lengths I will go to for a get a great track. It will consume me, sometimes for years, but it won’t leave me until I get it! I should be less nuts about it, but then I wouldn’t be me. 😊
Last Teardrop: There are just some songs that I write, and I feel like somebody else should sing them. This is one of them. I don’t think it fits my voice. The original track was recorded with Bruce Engler singing the lead. His voice was perfect for it and he nails it! It’s on his One More Chance album that I produced and played on. This is my version with Bruce adding acoustic guitar with mine. I wrote it at a time of great emotional upheaval in my life and I consider it one of my best. I feel that if I was ever lucky enough to write a “classic”, this would be it. It’s probably one of the lesser-known songs in my catalog and I included it on this release to try and change that. I think it’s a great album closer.
Eyes of The World: This was originally going to be on the album, but it didn’t make the cut because I was never fond of the mix. I decided to finally fix that by remixing it at Shorefire with Joe DeMaio engineering. I added some more acoustic guitars and 12-string Rics to finally get the sound I had been looking for. I had cut the lead guitar part on my 1964 Fender Strat played thru a Leslie speaker cabinet that Ben used for the B-3 organ at Showplace. Bruce Engler, who played a great slide part and sang vocals, went in the studio and would keep the rotors going on the Leslie because they would slow down. Joe featured more of the Strat in the mix to give the track that chimey sound. I was so happy with the results that I decided to release it as the advance single to promote the release of the RnR 4 The Soul album.
Ben & Robert
So there you have it. These are my best recollections of the songs and recording them. It’s amazing to me that I remembered as much as I did. Part of releasing RnR 4 The Soul is not only tell how DownTown Mystic was created, but also to honor the people that helped me to do it. My main interest was always doing the best thing possible in recording these tracks and I know that everyone who was involved felt the same way. I couldn’t have done it without them and as I look back now, it’s a bit bittersweet because 3 of the participants are no longer with us. Tommy, Ozzie and Ben have all passed since the recordings. I dedicate RnR 4 The Soul to them because we were RnR brothers and they are missed by everyone who knew them.
There have only been 2 songs that I’ve heard in a dream and somehow managed to wake up and then get up and put them on tape. Day of Reckoning is one of those 2 songs. I heard this hook playing in my head. It was getting louder and I could tell that it was worth remembering. At that point I was starting to wake up. I could tell I was asleep and that I had a choice to make. Continue to sleep or wake up and try to remember what I was hearing.
I knew I had to make a decision quickly because I was becoming awake, and the song was starting to fade. I knew from experience that if I didn’t get up, I would not remember the tune. I listened one more time to try and set the melody in my mind and then woke up. It was 3am and I went to get my guitar to try and find the melody I had been dreaming. When I found the key to sing it in, I got my camcorder and went downstairs to record in my office. I placed the camera down in front of me and hit record.
Over the next few days I continued to work on my 3am dream song, honing the chorus and creating a verse for it. I kept recording each evolution of the song until I felt I had a complete version to work on. Now all I needed were some lyrics. Nothing seemed to spring out at me. After awhile I put the song to the side. I needed to come up with a title. A good title might trigger something but there was no title in sight. It might take years to get this written, which is usually the case with me.
I knew there was something special about this song and I didn’t want to write just anything to get it finished. No, this one had to have the right lyrics. I couldn’t settle. If only I could find a title. It’s odd, but the 1st song that I wrote from hearing it in a dream got its title from watching a movie. Something was said that caught my ear and once I realized it would make a good title for my song, I was set. As I said, it’s odd because the same thing happened with Day of Reckoning.
I was trying to find something to watch on TV and happened to come upon Tombstone with Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday. Now I’d seen this movie quite a few times but for some reason I decided to watch a bit. The movie was towards the end when Wyatt goes after the Cowboys who killed his brother with his posse of Doc and 2 other guys. Wyatt’s just heroically fought and killed one of the leaders after being ambushed. They’ve set up camp for the night and Doc is talking with the other deputies, who can’t believe what they saw earlier. At this point Doc looks at them and says “there’s gonna be a RECKONING”.
I heard the word RECKONING and immediately thought of my dream song. It needed to be about a RECKONING!! What was a RECKONING??? Here’s one definition: “a time when somebody’s actions will be judged to be right or wrong and they may be punished. In the final reckoning truth is rewarded”. That sounds like Judgement Day to me and I started to write some lyrics with that in mind. But they sat there for a few years as I moved on to other songs. And then Covid came along. This might be the time to revisit the RECKONING song. But I knew I wasn’t going to write it.
Jay Friedman
So, I reached out to my friend Jay Friedman. I knew she had been a teacher so she might be good with words. I sent her a text and asked her if she would be interested in writing a song together. She replied “sure”. She had just started to try her hand at writing songs, so she was up for the opportunity. I told her the title was something like My Reckoning or Day of Reckoning. I wasn’t sure but the song had to be about a RECKONING. I sent her an MP3 of the music to give her something to write to and Jay jumped right in. The next day she sent me the 1st verse. I read it in disbelief…it was amazing! I didn’t need to change a word of it! The chorus…not so much. But there were ideas I could latch onto like being haunted by the past. I told her to move onto the 2nd verse, and once again, Jay delivered a bullseye!
I knew the chorus had to deliver the final payoff. In my previous lyrics I had the word “beckoning” rhyming with “reckoning” and I knew I had to keep that! It was the start of the chorus that was holding things up. I kept singing “I try and try” every time I would play it and I thought why not go with it? Once I did the chorus began to fall into place. With some of Jay’s bits and pieces, I was able to mold the chorus together and finish the song. I demoed the song and sent it to Jay to sing a harmony on it and we had Day of Reckoning ready to rock!
January 2022 I was in Shorefire Studios with drummer Steve Holley and bassist Paul Page cutting the basic track. I had sent them a Fleetwood Mac track called Say You Love Me to use as a basis for the groove I was going for. For some reason, the way I played the opening G chord reminded me of Christine McVie’s song. I added a mandolin and a 12-string and had Jay and her husband Tom Wise come down to the studio to do some work. Jay did her harmony vocals on Day of Reckoning. Then she and Tom joined me for some background oohs on another track and Tom brought his bass to play on a new track I had recently recorded. It was a fun day getting together and putting the finished touches on our song. Or so I thought.
Tony Trischka
I felt that Day of Reckoning was like the lynch-pin for what would become the AmeriKarma album. But something was bothering me about the track. It needed something else, and I wasn’t quite sure what it was. One day I came into to do some work and Shorefire owner & engineer Joe DeMaio mentioned that Tony Trischka has been in recently for a session. Joe thought he could hear a banjo on one of my songs and it wasn’t Day of Reckoning! But as soon as Joe said Tony’s name, I knew he could finish DOR for me. I had been thinking about a banjo for the song because Lindsay Buckingham had played one on Say You Love Me.
A couple of days later I called Joe to have him call Tony for me. Tony was on the road so Joe gave me his number. I called Tony and he said he would call me back in a couple of days when he was back home. But I couldn’t let him off until I told him that I’ve known him for like 50 years and yet we never met. Tony was intrigued and wanted to hear more. I mentioned the bluegrass band he was in called Country Granola in Syracuse NY. I told him I probably stayed in his room one weekend when I came up to Syracuse to record with my college band Trilogy. Tony had just left Granola to join Breakfast Special, which would be the band that would make him famous. Once I mentioned Herb-O, the leader of Country Granola, Tony was hooked. We talked for another 20 minutes before he hung up.
For those of you who have not heard of Tony Trischka, he’s considered to be one of the top banjo players in the world. Not only that but he taught one of the other top banjo players, Bela Fleck. Tony’s been called “the father of modern bluegrass” by the New York Times! I did relate to Tony, in my next phone call to book him for the session, that we might have met at a gig at Indiana University in PA back in ‘73. We were opening for Country Granola and Breakfast Special and this was the 1st time that the guys in Granola had seen Tony since he left the band. It was a crazy night with a wild party after the gig, so my memory of meeting him might not be all there. 🙂
Tony Trischka with Epiphone Banjo
The following week Tony came down for the session and I even brought my banjo with me that I bought in the 70s to show him because I wanted to see if he could tell me about it. It’s an Epiphone banjo that looked like it was made by Gibson when they owned Epiphone. He played it and liked its tone and showed me a few things about the bridge. Then he proceeded to play some incredible stuff on 2 of my songs. It was his suggestion that he play double time at the end of Day of Reckoning and that really makes the track. Tony is a consummate professional and having him play on one of my sessions was a highlight on AmeriKarma. I know Jay was thrilled when she heard that Tony would be playing on our song because she’s in a bluegrass band called Blue Plate Special and everyone knows Tony.
Day of Reckoning was just a dream of a song that became reality in the most magical way possible. The rest, as they say, is history. 🙂
2 years ago in September 2021 I released the DownTown Demos. The premise for this release was that I would release demos that featured the songs Live and Shadow Walk and then go in the studio and re-record new versions of them. Then listeners could compare them, like before and after photos. It was a bit unusual to do it this way but I wanted to show the natural progression of the songs going from demos to finished product.
A few months later in January 2022, I was in Shorefire Studios with drummer Steve Holley and bassist Paul Page to record the tracks that would become AmeriKarma. Included in these tracks were Live and Shadow Walk. It had been a number of years since we were in the studio together and we picked up like it was just the other day. Both Steve and Paul were very enthusiastic about recording these songs and the initial session proceeded along in a timely fashion. That is until we tried to record the basic track for Shadow Walk.
Paul, Robert & Steve
I knew in advance that Steve was knocked out by the demo because he called me about it a few days before the session. I say he was knocked out because I had never heard this kind of reaction from him for one of my demos. This blew me away. When Steve Holley talks, people listen! Lol I had very straight forward kind of rockers planned for Live and Shadow Walk because I wanted them to be different from the demos. One of the other reasons for putting out the DownTown Demos was because I didn’t think I could ever duplicate them. They were one-of-a-kind recordings. It seems that Steve had other ideas.
I had taken it for granted that Steve & Paul would listen to the demos I sent them and do their thing for the recording like they had always done in the past. Then we’d run the track down in the studio and find the right groove and tempo for it. Paul was in the pocket as usual but on Shadow Walk, Steve was intent on recreating the demo. WTF??? I really hadn’t anticipated this from him because I thought he’d hear it the same way that I did. I didn’t think there was any way a band could reproduce the demo.
Steve Holley
Steve wanted to try and try he did. There was something he was hearing but it was eluding him behind the drum kit. Paul and I looked at each other in bewilderment. Neither one of us were going to say anything to him. We plodded along until we had something on tape that we could listen to. It was the perfect point to stop for the evening and start fresh tomorrow. Let’s sleep on it and come back with fresh ears.
The next day I arrived at the studio knowing I had to take charge to get the approach I was looking for. We gathered in the control room with engineer Joe DeMaio and listened to the playback of our previous night’s work. Being the consummate pro that he is, Steve thanked me for giving him the time to try out his ideas but this was my session and he’d play what I wanted him to play on Shadow Walk. I told him the approach I was looking for and we cut the track in a couple of takes. However, Steve was not done yet.
After finishing the track and listening to it, Steve wanted to try one more idea. There was still something gnawing at him and he wanted to try an overdub on the verses. Now he goes in and takes out his tympani sticks and uses them to lay down a part on the toms. It seems totally out of left field, but when Steve is done playing, he’s created the part that nails Shadow Walk! Like I said, Steve Holley is the consummate professional and that part he played proves it. I don’t know anyone who would have thought of playing that but that’s why he’s Steve Holley. As far as I’m concerned his overdub really put the finishing touch on Shadow Walk. I know THAT wasn’t on the demo! LOL
With the basic track out of the way, the real work could begin. There are a lot of guitars on Shadow Walk and that was by design. I wanted to make them as atmospheric as possible and I would put my Jimi Hendrix knowledge to good use with a bunch of backward guitar sounds. But I needed something for the instrumental solo. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Luckily, I had an ace in the hole—Joe (hold) DeMaio to be exact! I had heard that, besides being a talented engineer, Joe was also a talented guitar player.
Joe DeMaio and SG
I had to put him to good use, so I asked him if he would try putting down something for the solo. Joe was up to the task and laid down a beautiful double slide part that sounds like the guitars are melting to me. Just a perfect sound! With the solo done we moved to the out choruses and the guitar frenzy that builds in the background. I didn’t want them to be upfront over the vocals. This sets the stage for the ending solo and once again I turned to Joe. I had brought in my 1968 Gibson SG for the job. We had been talking about Clapton and Cream and his use of the SG. Joe plays a killer solo on the end of Shadow Walk that sounds like Clapton in ’68. Even Clapton doesn’t sound like that anymore, but Joe does 🙂
The recording of Live went fairly smoothly. I knew the demo had been a bit on the slow side, so we went with a bit more energy. Paul’s bass part really sets the stage for the song, so much so, that I decided to feature it at the start of the song. The tricky part with the bass is the depth of sound you get. Pushing it to the forefront, I had to make sure the listener can hear what Paul’s playing for it to work. Then there’s the mastering process to consider because the bass sound can, and probably will, change from what we already have on it. This would be my 1st time working with Leon Zervos, who’s a world-class mastering engineer, but new to me.
I had already recorded my lead vocals when Steve came back for a day to do harmony vocals on a few songs. When it came time for Live, we stacked his vocals and then he went into the studio to add percussion where needed. He brought out an over-sized cowbell, the name of it escapes me, and proceeded to play throughout the track. Steve would have made Christopher Walken very happy with the amount of cowbell he laid down as only Steve Holley can. 🙂
The plan was now to send a track to harmonica wiz Jerry Fierro down in Florida to record a harp track on Live. It had been 25 years since Jerry had come to Showplace Studios in Dover, NJ to cut his iconic track on Brian Jones. That had been a day of destiny for me. A harp track was the final piece I needed to complete the song and on a chance meeting at someone’s birthday party a few weeks earlier, I was asked if I could ever use a harp player. As soon as I heard the word “harp” (cool slang for harmonica) I knew I had the final piece to the puzzle that was Brian Jones. That harp player turned out to be Jerry.
Jerry Fierro
Joe DeMaio sent the track to Jerry, who sent back a sizzling harp track. The only thing left was to record a guitar track to bounce off of Jerry’s harp and add to the bluesy vibe of the track. I went with my 1964 Fender Strat to play on the track. This guitar sounds so good; it will pretty much play for you. Once I had my part, it was time to mix, and I knew this mix would take some doing.
Unlike the demos, the final mixes for both Live & Shadow Walk took months before we were ready to master. Live took around 40 mixes to complete and Shadow Walk about 30, but I think the proof is in the final product. I think that we delivered great versions of the songs that really show an evolution from the demos. A big heartfelt thanks to everybody involved. U guys ROCKED it!! 🙂
The song Superstar was originally titled Ode To A Superstar. My cousin Gordon (GT Sullivan) had written the lyrics and gave them to me on a visit to his home. We grew up writing songs together in our teenage years and he would write lyrics from time to time and give me a batch when we got together. It’s kind of ironic that we wrote Superstar the way Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote songs, with Bernie writing lyrics and then having Elton putting them to music. I say ironic because Superstar was in no way written with Elton in mind.
Elton John & Bernie Taupin
I think the song was written back in 1974 and would become part of my band’s set list, usually as an opener. I remember the drummer would play it on his toms to help drive it. It fit right in when we played it at CBGB back in 1975. The drums changed when I went out to LA in 1981 and recorded a new version of the song with drummer Greg Thomas, who had worked with Neil Young and Leon Russell. He played it with a more straight forward groove, which I really liked. The song had always been a guitar rocker. Greg had Mike Finnigan (CSNY & Bonnie Raitt) put an organ part on it but it didn’t really do much for the track.
Greg Thomas
Fast forward 40 years…I had recently moved and was putting my computer together and listening to my iTunes library. One of the songs I came across was the 1981 recording of Superstar. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that great groove from Greg and I made it part of a playlist I put together of songs I was planning to record. The more I heard the song the more I seriously thought about recording it with drummer Steve Holley and bassist Paul Page. My wife commented to me what a cool song it was and I should record it. So I decided to include it as part of the demos I sent to Steve and Paul when I was planning to go into the studio.
Paul, Robert & Steve
So it’s January 2022 and I’m cutting tracks with Steve and Paul at Shorefire Studios for what will become the AmeriKarma album. When it comes time to track Superstar, Steve, as he always does, tells me the tempo of the demo. It’s really fast and I say I could do it a bit slower which Steve seems to be more comfortable with. So we try it at a few different speeds and settle on one that feels good to me. It’s a straight ahead punk rocker, the way it was written. I haven’t changed a thing to the song in over 40 years.
Elton John
It’s not until I’m listening to a playback and it comes to the breakdown part after the first chorus, for some reason, Elton John pops into my head. I can see him getting up from behind his piano and strutting across the stage to the groove like I’d seen him do on many occasions in concert. Elton John? Really?? Now I start thinking about Elton and his music. I’m a huge Elton John fan, having been there at the start when he hit in 1970 and seeing him at The Fillmore East in NYC opening for Leon Russell. Superstar is not an Elton John song but the more I hear the track, the more I’m thinking about how Elton would play it.
Jeff Levine
I had keyboard wiz Jeff Levine coming in for a session and told him to think of Elton’s song Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting as an approach for Superstar. Both songs are guitar based and I believe Elton didn’t even want to play piano on his track. He had to be talked into it! Jeff got into it right away and laid down a piano track very fitting of Elton. Jeff’s playing is as close to Elton’s style as you can get. It made me have to think about how I could make the track more like Elton. I hadn’t changed my guitar parts one iota, so I needed something else.
Elton John at Dodger Stadium
It happened when I was laying down my vocals. As I was listening to the playbacks I started to think about Elton’s vocals. It occurred to me that he always had harmonies and background parts that were like hooks in themselves. That was it! I needed to come up with a background part on the chorus. So I told my engineer Joe DeMaio I wanted to try a background vocal and went into the studio and basically came up with a part on the spot. I added a harmony to it and when it was mixed together with the lead vocal I had my Elton John track.
Elton
One of the weirdest things that ever happened to me in a recording studio happened to me as I was overdubbing a lead guitar part on my 1960s Gretsch Tennessean (the one that George Harrison used with The Beatles at Shea Stadium). I was almost finished with the part when the bridge of the guitar started to slip under the strings. I thought it was because of the Bigsby tailpiece but I wasn’t using it. Joe came rushing into the studio to try and help me get the bridge back under the strings and we came very close to doing it. I decided to put the guitar in its case and let guitar tech extraordinaire Billy Penn work his magic on it.
George Harrison at Shea Stadium
I figured it was my 1964 Strat that had sabotaged the Gretsch so that I would have to use it since I had it on hand that day. 🙂 It was very weird! After laying down some more tracks with the Strat, Superstar was finished. Listening back in the control room I could hear flashes of Mark Bolan (T-Rex) and even David Bowie. How odd I thought. Back in the early 70s, Bolan was the king of Glam Rock in the UK, playing with both Elton and Bowie. Nearly 50 years after writing the song I could hear all 3 influences in the track!
Elton John with T-Rex at at BBC Top of the Pops London 1971
I started doing 3 different mixes but it was obvious I had to focus on Elton as the main mix. Besides the piano I really focused on Steve’s snare. I always felt that the drum sound was a key element to the song like the guitars, so I made sure the drums were slamming. Besides writing the song like Elton and Bernie would, the other irony was that Steve Holley had recorded with Elton in the early 80s. So the stage was set. I would release Superstar as a single in October of 2022 with the To Sir Elton With Love Mix as the Radio single and for the release I added the Guitar Mix to show the way the song was played in 1975.
Steve Holley
The song received a great reaction from Radio with over 150 stations around the world playing it. Superstar (To Sir Elton With Love Mix) has also become the most streamed song in the DownTown Mystic catalog. I think part of the reason is that it has a vibe that hasn’t been around in a long time. So Elton, if you’re out there and read this, please know that the track was created out of love for a musical hero of mine. I tried to make it as close to one of your songs as possible and I think you’re the only one who could do it better. 🙂
With the release of the 21st Century RnR album, I felt like I had made peace with the end of an era. The songs represented the best of the work I did with my engineer of 20 years, Ben Elliott. It was time to move on and I was ready to do it. The release of the 21st Century album was timed with going into the studio to record new material in a new studio with a new engineer.
For 20 years I had recorded at Ben’s Showplace Studios in Dover, NJ. The studio was gone with Ben so I had to find a new place to record. Change was in the air. I sold my house of 40+ years during the Covid Pandemic and had moved 80 miles south down the GSP. A year after Ben’s death I closed on my new house and realized I was only a half hour from Shorefire Studios in Long Branch, NJ where I had recorded the On E Street sessions with Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg.
Shorefire Entrance
Garry was a co-owner of the studio then and I hadn’t been back since he sold his interest in it. A guy named Joe DeMaio had bought the studio. I didn’t know Joe, but as it would turn out, we had many things in common, including being guitar players. What was amazing was how we had managed to never meet before I walked into the studio in January of 2022. My fellow compatriots in the enterprise were 2 old friends–Steve Holley and Paul Page. It had been a while since we had played and recorded together.
Paul, Robert & Steve
What I didn’t know was that Steve had been working with Joe at Shorefire for 20 years! As is usually the case, we picked up as if we had just seen each other yesterday. Covid had surely changed everything but some things never change, and as far as I was concerned, that was definitely a good thing. 🙂
I found out very quickly just how fast and on target Joe DeMaio is as an engineer. Setup was a breeze and Joe had the sound of the drums down with very minimal sound checks. We were recording from the word go. That was something I was not used to. But Joe knew the sound of his room. Having briefly talked beforehand, Joe told me he had set Steve’s drums up like Ringo’s kit and that was no exaggeration because they sounded great! Also, Joe had replaced the original MCI board with a classic Helios console, one of the last to be made. This was the console used in all those classic 60s and 70s recordings in the UK. It had THE sound!!
Joe DeMaio at the Helios console
I was originally planning to work on 5 songs but we ended up recording10 tracks. One of the songs had different versions. I was not a real fan of a song called Fly. I mean, I liked it but it wasn’t exciting me in its original form. What was exciting me was doing a different version of it ala Buddy Holly. Paul was very much for doing it but Steve was a bit reticent about it. He thought it was a great song and was afraid I would release the Buddy Holly version instead. However, he finally agreed to record a BH version, setting up his drums like Jerry Allison, the drummer for The Crickets.
Now you’re probably thinking, Buddy Holly?? Yes Buddy Holly. In fact, the original title of Fly was Buddy Holly. That was before I had any lyrics. For some reason, I kept hearing Buddy Holly influences in the music on the demo. So much so, that I wanted to record a version that was based on Buddy’s Peggy Sue. And we did! I still have some work left on it before I can mix it, but this track will be released someday! 🙂
Robert on the Breedlove
It was the original version of Fly that we cut that would take me by surprise. I knew exactly what acoustic guitars I was going to record on it, including the 12-string Rickenbacker. What I didn’t know was that the 12-string Ric would be recorded through an early 60s white Vox AC30 with the Blue Celestion Alnico speakers…a Beatles geek orgasm if there ever was one! The Ric sounded amazing through it! The song took on a whole new character for me after that. There’s a bit of a laid-back Tom Petty feel to it that works really well. Recording the vocals was a breeze and it would be the 1st song I ever had Steve Holley sing harmony on.
The day before he came down to record vocals, Steve had lost one of his oldest friends. He seemed to be in a sad place but I think having him come down to record vocals helped to lighten his load a bit. He had some ideas for the harmonies that made me rethink the parts of the song. One was in the main refrain which acts like a bridge in the song. I had recorded a high harmony on the demo but Steve didn’t hear it that way. He heard a lower harmony for it and I was glad he did because I wasn’t sure about the harmony on the demo.
By not singing a harmony over the lead vocal on that part, it allowed me to keep the focus on the main melody and that was helpful. But in working on the song, it took on a zen-like quality for me that I had never experienced before. The mix was one of the easiest I’ve ever done, which owes a good deal to Joe DeMaio’s engineering. But it also had a very calming effect on me, which was odd. The song somehow transformed into something I really dug and I decided I had to release it as the 1st Single from the sessions! 🙂
Fly was recorded in January and February, mixed in March, and released in May. To date, it’s getting airplay on 100+ stations in 25 countries around the world. I also decided to make it my 1st single release at AAA Radio in the US in over 6 years. That just might be too long a time to be away but I also decided to release the song When The Angels Sing as a AAA Exclusive and part of the Fly single release. Steve also sang harmony on that track, but I’ll save talking about it for another day.
Fly just seems like a song for this point in time. I wrote it during the Covid lockdown and I think it speaks to a lot of people around the world who just want to get out and about again. At the time I wrote it I was just trying to lighten up a bit from some of the more intense songs I was working on. But as I played it for people, their feedback made me look at the song in a totally different way. It’s not easy trying to put complicated ideas in a simple straightforward way, which is what Fly seems to do. It’s one of my favorite tracks now.
All in all, I’m having the time of my life working with Joe D. at Shorefire. I’m a retro-sounding artist that has to deal with “classic rock” comparisons but that’s what you’re going to sound like if you’re trying to compete with recordings made 50-60 years ago. It comes with the territory. In doing so, I don’t sound like anybody else and having the chance to work with a Helios board only enhances the sound. Also, these are much different recordings from any others I’ve done before and a challenge to me as a producer. I could not ask for more! 🙂
The One More Chance album by Bruce Engler featuring DownTown Mystic has been a pet project for some time now. It’s filled with great songs and it was a highlight of my career to work on and be a part of. Of course, I’m a bit partial since I co-wrote 2 songs with Bruce, including the title track, and Bruce was generous enough to record 2 of mine. Besides producing, I got to sing and play on every track on the album. Considering that Bruce and I have been collaborating and working together over the past 25 years, it was about time we did an album of his songs.
Buce & Robert
I
wrote about how the title track One More Chance came to be written
before and really started our working relationship. It’s been an interesting
journey for the two of us. Bruce has been an integral part of the DownTown Mystic project since its
inception, lending his many talents, chief of which is his excellent guitar
work. I think Bruce is one of the most expressive guitar players I’ve ever
seen, let alone worked with. His playing has a character all its own and it’s
great that he’s finally getting some of the recognition he deserves. Of course,
his slide playing brings out the best in him.
The Way To Know single is a great example of Bruce’s slide playing and technique. Aided and ably abetted by the RnR HOF rhythm section from The E Street Band, Bruce puts down layers of slide guitar parts that float on top of the track. When he solos during the instrumental break, it’s hard to tell if he’s playing slide or a synth is playing the part. Bruce is that good. Having written and produced the track, I got excited when Bruce recorded his vocal. Bruce’s vocal style is a lot like his guitar playing, where he’ll phrase something in a way that lifts the entire track.
One
of my favorite tracks on the album is Fiona. From the moment I heard
Bruce’s demo I knew I wanted to record it with harmonies not on the demo. PJ Farley (Trixter) lays down a great
bass line and Rich Scannella (Bon
Jovi) provides a cool reggae beat that brings the song to life. I came up with
a cool vocal arrangement on the chorus that Bruce, me and the lovely Jaime Della Fave sing in the
background. One of my all-time fave parts!
Bruce at Bitter End, NYC
One Step Closer is the original
version by Bruce. DownTown Mystic recorded a version for the Better
Day album. I always thought this was a breakthrough song for Bruce and
his career as a singer/songwriter. It signified something deeper in him that I
had not seen before. I love its message and the good feeling you get from it. Outside
of the She Said, She Said cover, One Step Closer is the only song
recorded but not written by DownTown Mystic.
Goodbye is a rocker with a classic riff that
provides Bruce with the opportunity to show off his guitar chops in a big way
and he doesn’t disappoint. Backed by the rhythm section from Ian Hunter’s Rant Band, drummer Steve Holley and bassist Paul Page lay down a solid track and
Bruce does the rest. Blue Moonlight shows off some more
tasty slide work from Bruce. I think it’s one of his most underrated songs. I
had just bought my Rickenbacker 360/12-string and got the chance to use it on
this track as well as singing a couple of harmony parts.
I’ve
always thought that Bruce’s whistling on Go Back made it one of his most
unique songs. Bruce and I disagree about this because he thinks I hated the
song when I first heard it because of the whistle, but he would be wrong about
that. 🙂 I first heard the song when Bruce sent me a homemade 8-tk recording
which blew my mind, so it’s very unlikely that his whistle would have turned me
off to the track. I still think that 8-tk is one of the best home recordings I’ve
ever heard. Go Back really has it
all—great guitar work, killer harmonies and a chill acoustic groove that Steve
Holley and Paul Page star on.
Read The Signs is the other co-write on the
album that I did with Bruce and it appears here as it did on the Better
Day album. It’s too good of a song to keep off this album and once
again, Steve Holley and Paul Page play a big role in its success. Letter
To My Brother is one of the first songs I ever heard by Bruce and he
shows off his acoustic guitar playing on the track. We also share the bass
duties on it. I play on everything except the chorus, as Bruce came up with the
part and it made sense to have him play it. I don’t think anyone can tell there
are 2 different players as the playing is seamless. I think this is the first
time I recorded a part with my Rickenbacker 360/6-string.
Bruce Engler
Bruce
sings my song Last Teardrop and his vocal is killer. The song has always been
a problem for me because of the key but it fit Bruce’s voice perfectly. It was
fun to do the harmony part as well as recording the acoustic guitars which I
have to credit to producer Rob Harari
for a great idea in layering them. The last track If We Believe was
recorded at the same session as Fiona and features the same
personnel—PJ on bass and Rich on drums, who lay down a solid rockin’ track for
Bruce’s cool slide parts. Once again Bruce, Jaime and myself provide stellar
background vocals as counterpoint to Bruce’s strong lead vocal. A fun track to
end the album.
I’ve
included an unreleased version of Fiona as a bonus track on the album.
This is the full unedited track and shows off more of Bruce’s lead guitar work
than on the final version. There was also an extra drum track that wasn’t used
on the final, but overall, an interesting take. Even Bruce was surprised to
hear how different it was from the final version. As I said at the start of
this blog post, the One More Chance album has been a pet project of mine and one of
my favorite albums to have worked on. I think it will help continue the roll
that Bruce has been on since his excellent release The Landing in late 2020.
Check out One More Chance.
After going 4 years between releasing albums, DownTown Mystic has released 3 in the last 3 months! Ok, technically Welcome To Sha-La Landis not a DownTown Mystic album but DownTown Mystic is featured on all the tracks and released the Test Of Time single from it. But the release of the DownTown Mystic: Used Records History 1979-1985 album in November sparked the idea for the release of DownTown Mystic On E Street Deluxe. Going through the archives and listening to the music made back in the 80s and then releasing it was somewhat liberating. All those years of silence would finally be rewarded because of the reaction that the music received from fans and especially from the airplay at Radio.
Living in New Jersey, everyone knows Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band is the biggest thing that ever happened to the state. And that’s pretty BIG when you consider that Frank Sinatra, Tom Cruise and Bon Jovi also come from New Jersey, as well as many others like Jack Nicholson! People like to make fun of the Garden State but just look at those names!! Seriously, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb here. Come on people!! In the 80s Bruce was “The Boss” and about to release the biggest record of his career—Born In The USA. At the time, I happened to be working with his bass player, Garry Tallent.
As previously mentioned in the Used Records History blog post, I had met Garry when I was in The Tupelos, and Garry would record and play a show with us. We re-connected a couple of years after I left The Tupelos and Garry had returned from The River world tour. Garry had bought part ownership in a studio in Long Branch called Shorefire Recording. He was interested in learning to be a studio engineer, and when I asked him why he told me in part because of what he saw had happened with my band when he recorded with us in Washington D.C. That had been a disastrous situation where the engineer had sabotaged our sessions. That’s another long story but I knew what he meant. He said he never wanted that to ever happen to him. So lesson learned! 🙂
Garry & Max Photo by Danny Clinch
I sent some tapes to Garry and he picked some songs to record. Hard Enoughwas his pick and when it came time to cut the track he had contacted the E Street Band’s drummer—“Mighty” Max Weinbergto come down and play with us. I thought this was going to be interesting because even before Max had gotten the gig with Bruce, he was already well known in my town. He was a BMOC in high school because of his drumming and when he showed up at the studio while setting up to record Hard Enough, I started throwing out names of people we both went to high school with. Max had graduated the year before me but we knew some of the same people, so we started reminiscing about our alma mater—Columbia High School in Maplewood, NJ.
While mentioning
various names of people we had in common, at one point Max stopped and asked
me, “Do you remember this girl?”—and was about to say her name, when I looked
at him and we both said her name together, which really got Max going, “YES,
you remember her??!!” LOL Garry had been slightly paying attention to our
conversation, but when Max and I both roared about this girl (who I will not
name to save her any embarrassment), he wanted to know all about her. Garry
asked us, “Who is this girl? I want to meet her!” Max began to tell Garry about
the hottest girl in our HS, and how every red-blooded male in that school would
drool over her. I added that she was like a Playboy Centerfold at 17, but
looked like 25. The irony was that the song we were about to record was
probably written using her, from my subconscious, as the model for the girl in
the song! Crazy, right?
Needless to say, the good vibes carried over to the session because Max kills on Hard Enough and Garry’s bass line reminds me a bit of the bass line he played on Springsteen’s Ramrod, which is a fave of mine. Like any good classic RnR song, there’s a double meaning that’s sexual in nature. However, I must confess that the double entendre of “it gets hard enough to love her” was more by accident than planned. The only reason I wrote hard enough was that “it gets difficult to love her” didn’t fit or sound right. The whole song is about how difficult this girl makes this guy’s life, but she’s too hot for him to say no to. Garry had a good laugh about me and Max still being able to rave about this girl so many years later. How could this song not be about her? I’m telling you she was hot!! 🙂
We also cut Sometimes Wrong that day, which I picked. The version that appears on the Deluxe album is listed as a “demo”. This is mainly due to never quite getting the track right. Garry and I would tinker with it over a 2 year period, adding parts and mixing at least 3 different versions. Going back and listening now it’s easy to hear “Mighty” Max and how bombastic he could be live. He’s the highlight on the track. It wasn’t until the Standing Still sessions with Steve Holley and Paul Page that I cut the original version the way I wrote it and it finally worked. I was probably too close to be objective because the “demo” gets rave reviews now from reviewers. But that was the great thing about working with Garry because he would try everything. He had the studio time and it didn’t matter if something worked or didn’t because we were learning as we went.
At the next session we cut And You Know Why and Way to Know. Max had just written his book called The Big Beat where he interviewed great drummers like Ringo, Charlie Watts, Levon Helm and Hal Blaine to name a few. I think he really took to heart what some of these great drummers told him so he could become a better well-rounded drummer. On And You Know Why he put that knowledge to good use. It might just be the least “Mighty” Max you’ll ever hear on a song he plays on, but he’s still solid keeping the groove against Garry’s economical bass line.
The next time I was going to the studio, I stopped at Garry’s to give him a ride and he told me to come in and sit down. He had headphones out by his stereo and told me to put them on. He then put on a record and I heard the Born In The USA album for the first time in its entirety. This was a week before the official release of the album, and as with all things Bruce, I had to swear not to tell anyone that I had heard the record until its release. The album floored me, and I understood why Garry played it for me when we got to the studio.
Up until then, Garry was not interested in using synths but after Born In The USA, it was obvious that synths were now going to be a big part of Bruce’s sound. In the studio waiting for us and already set up with his synths, was Joe Norosavage, who Garry had brought in to play on the tracks we recorded with Max. Joe immediately made a great impression when he came up with a cool lead line for And You Know Why. The rest of the session went just as smoothly and I started up a friendship with Joe, who would work on many of my projects in the coming years. I’m pleased to have been able to unearth the tracks and make them a part of the DownTown Mystic On E Street Deluxealbum.
Looking back, the thing that I find really interesting is that at the time, Garry wasn’t doing any recording for himself with the studio. I couldn’t believe it when he finally recorded and put out a solo record a few years back. I never knew he had it in him and when I asked him why now, he said “67”. He had just reached that age and felt if he didn’t do it now, he never would. It just goes to show it’s never too late, even for an “old pro” like Garry Tallent. 🙂
Nashville has always held a fascination for me, long before I ever went there. It’s not called Music City for nothing and I love the city’s vibe. It feels like a small town and music permeates everywhere. There’s no other place like it. Steve Earle called Nashville Guitar Town and I’ve long been a fan of the many great players that ply their trade there. Some of these players’ names are not well known outside the city limits but their presence is felt around the world.
To the world at large, Nashville is a symbol for Country Music, but I like to think it’s a symbol of something more powerful beyond being just an Industry town where Music is the main commodity. The new EP DownTown Nashville is an homage to the city and the music that’s been made there. The spirit of Nashville has infused my songs for many years, as evidenced by the 6 songs that are presented on this release.
Sometimes Wrong
I originally wrote Sometimes Wrong for a female artist, since many of the Divine Feminine would cry on my shoulder and wonder why they “always picked the wrong guy”. I only had to change the words HE to SHE to make it work for a male artist, although it’s not easy for a guy to start a song singing “last night I cried”. But on the plus side, women tend to like a guy who can show his feminine side. 🙂 I recorded a demo of this song with Garry Tallent & Max Weinberg on the DownTown Mystic on E Street release last year. We tried to rock it up but it didn’t quite work for me so I went back to the way I wrote the song. I’ve always been a big fan of Don Everly’s rhythm guitar style and give a tip of my hat to him with the acoustic guitar start. I was also a big fan of Foster & Lloydand I feel like some of their work rubbed off on Sometimes Wrong.
Rise and Fall
Let’s face it, the Eagles big comeback in the 90s was mostly due to the impact they had on the artists in Nashville. There’s always been a strong Nashville-LA connection, and it’s had a big impact on my music, especially when it comes to guitars and harmonies. A good deal of that comes from listening to those great Eagles songs written by Glenn Frey & Don Henley, as well as their co-conspirators JD Souther and Jackson Browne. Many of their best work elevated things to mythological levels like the Hotel California or the she-devil Witchy Woman. Their myth-making inspired me to write Rise and Fall. I don’t know why, but for some reason, men are drawn to those she-devils like moths to a flame. We’re gluttons for punishment…yeah, hurt me baby! 🙂
Backdoor
Speaking of She-Devils, the guitar player usually gets the girl, but be careful what you wish for. You never know people’s sexual proclivities and our hero learns the joke’s on him in Backdoor. Speaking of guitar players, John Sebastian wrote Nashville Cats about all the great guitar pickers down in Nashville and I’ve always loved the songs that featured hot guitar licks. All those songs left their impression on my consciousness and certainly inspired me on Backdoor. Former Nashville (via Bama) studio ace Lance Dosslent a helping hand on lap steel to bring out the flavor for me. Believe it or not, Backdoor actually started as a bluegrass song. But let’s face it, rock’n’roll is sexier than bluegrass, so I had to rock it out. I tried for years to find the right groove and finally heard a song by The Tractors that helped me to get it right.
There’s nothing better than writing a song filled with righteous indignation when you can’t take it any longer and need to vent. Losing My Mind is just that type of song and it evokes Steve Earle for me. His Guitar Town record was a big influence and I have to thank him for making Nashville that mythological place for me. I know Garry Tallent played bass on Steve’s Copperhead Road and I remember meeting Steve’s wife Teresa Ensenat (I think she was #5 at the time) in LA, where she had an A&R gig. I could not imagine them being in the same room let alone being married, but I guess that’s Steve for you. 🙂 I like to think some of his magic rubbed off on me for Losing My Mind, which features some killer guitar work from Lance Doss.
Sony Music put out a Country Hits Compilation cd in Germany featuring a Who’s Who of Nashville. We’re talking Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Kenny Chesney, Jason Aldean, Eric Church, Zac Brown, Dierks Bentley…you get the picture. I had a cd out in Europe via Sony and by a stroke of luck, Believe got the final slot. I later learned that John Mayer had refused permission to use his song, so DownTown Mystic got the nod. I can’t tell you how exciting it was to see my name on that cd! It made me want to be in Nashville and was probably the impetus for this release. It also allowed me to hear how my song stacked up and was pleasantly surprised. Of course, compared to my vocal, any one of those other artists would have a smash if they cut Believe. 🙂
Shade of White Bluegrass
I’ve always had a place in my heart for Bluegrass. From Bill Monroe to Ricky Skaggs and everyone in between I can’t help myself when I hear those pickers. As far as I’m concerned, Bluegrass is Happy Music! I love playing it when I get the chance because it is simply so much fun! I originally wrote Shade of White as a country rocker about this painting I have hanging over my bed. After we cut the basic track I realized I had made a mistake with the arrangement and the groove. But the track was so upbeat and sounded so good that I decided to go with the flow. Voilà—Shade of White Bluegrass! 🙂
Steve, Robert & Paul
One of the great things about making DownTown Nashville was getting to record the songs with Steve Holley and Paul Page. Going from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band rhythm section to Ian Hunter’s Rant Band rhythm section is like being in Rock’n’Roll Heaven. It just doesn’t get any better than that for me. Drummer Steve Holley is a NYC legend, having played with just about everyone, including Rock Royalty like Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John. With a resume like that and always being in demand, it would be very easy for him to just give the basics of what’s needed and move on to the next gig.
Steve Holley
But that’s not Steve Holley’s style. He comes prepared and gives his full attention to the job at hand, including suggestions on how to approach or improve a track. It was Steve’s idea for the intro part on Sometimes Wrong that was so good I had to have it throughout the song. He’s great to watch behind the drums. When the playback comes in the booth I ask him how he feels about his take. If he’s fine with it, then we move on to the next song. If he feels he wants to do another take, then we do another take. 🙂
Paul Page
Now add the Urban Legend Paul Page into the mix and you have the Dynamic Duo. Paul & Steve work so well in tandem that it’s like a fine piece of machinery humming along on all cylinders. Having worked with them a few times now I’m always amazed at the quality of the parts they put down on tape. I mean they’re great players and that’s a given. But what really make them great are the actual parts they create. As a recording artist I’m trying to create magic in the studio that will find its way onto the tape, and somehow, Steve and Paul make it happen in ways that are not planned. That’s real magic! 🙂
