Music History
I
love music and music history. As I was
listening to a DVD documentary I own, “Tom Dowd and the Language of Music,” I
learned a few things about music history I hadn’t noticed. Let me share some of them with you.
Like all modern DVDs, this one had “Extras” which included Deleted Scenes and interviews. Tom Dowd was the famous recording engineer who recorded Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Ben E. King, the Coasters, and later Eric Clapton, the Allman Brothers, and Lynard Skinner, among many others.
Jerry Wexler and the Rise of Rock'n'Roll
One of the interviews was with Jerry Wexler, an executive record producer at Atlantic Records. He was the person who invented the term “Rhythm and Blues” used by the recording industry. Before then they were called “Race Records." It was from this genre that Rock'n'Roll first originated. Wexler said the reason for the rise in popularity of Rock'n'Roll was the economy. I had never realized that. I knew rural electrification and the popularity of radio shows had an impact. Black kids like Ray Charles and Chuck Berry listened to white country music. White kids like Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Louis listened to black blues music. This mix is where Rock'n'Roll came from. But how did it become so popular so quickly?
Wexler said in the old days kids weren’t called
“teens.” All ages were just called
“kids” and it was hard to find one with a quarter in his pocket. Then came the 1950s and the rise of the
American teenager. Following WWII there was worldwide economic growth from then until the 1970s. Suddenly kids might
have $15 or $20. They could buy records!
Call for Les Paul on Oct-1, uh, I mean Line-1
One
of the other interviews was with Les Paul.
He was influential on recording industry as well as on the guitar
manufacturing industry. Les mentioned
that his first instrument though was a harmonica which a sewer
maintenance man was playing on his lunch break.
The guy gave the instrument to Les when Les became so interested
in it. Les went on to become a guitar great as well as an
inventer.
The
First Tape Recorder
Magnetic
recording has been around since the late 1890s according to Wikipedia.
The Germans developed an excellent recorder using paper tape during
WWII. After the war, one of the German
engineers helped Ampex develop the first commercial magnetic tape recorder
using acetate tape produced by 3M company.
Ampex shipped the first recorder to the Bing Crosby show in 1948 where Les Paul saw it. When he flipped over it, Bing bought him one as a surprise. Les Paul immediately recognized the multi-track potential of tape.
Wax Records and Tape Decks
Tom Dowd
went to work for Atlantic Records when he was only 22 years old. He had been recording since he was 15 and
played several band instruments in high school as well as piano. The studio wanted him because he wasn't old enough to be draft age. He went to Columbia University to study physics
and during WWII worked on the Manhattan project for the U.S. Army. He would have finished his degree when the
war was over but by then his military work in physics had become far more
advanced than what they were teaching in college. He never got that degree.
Dowd
introduced the first tape deck at Atlantic Records soon after Ampex began marketing
it in 1949. The recording industry
had used only shellac disks since 1910.
The record platters required that song length was only 2-1/2 to 3 minutes cut at 88
grooves per inch. This was back in the
day when playback was mechanical, not electrical, and grooves closer than 88
per inch would skip tracks if the recording was loud.
Dowd said 4 minute songs had to be cut at 120 grooves per inch. The closer grooves meant the recorded volume was lower to keep the needle from jumping out of the groove and skipping.
The First Stereo Recordings
Dowd
recorded in stereo (2-track) for years although records were cut in mono. When stereo records were first introduced,
Atlantic Records was among the first to market them because of Dowd’s stereo
tape recordings.
After Les Paul invented 8-track recording he taught Tom Dowd how to use his new invention. Atlantic Records bought the 2nd 8-track recorder ever produced by Ampex and Tom Dowd created the first 8-track recording console. It was new to the industry so there was no recording gear available.
He had to purchase gear made for radio
broadcasting that had large, 3-inch knobs making tracks hard to adjust dynamically during
recording.
Stax Records
Atlantic
had a good relationship with Stax Records in Memphis since 1961. Stax artists would record, send the tapes to
Tom Dowd for their final mix, and Atlantic would release the records to
the market. One day Stax stopped sending recordings. Jerry Wexler called Stax to ask
why no more records were coming out of Memphis.
They told him their only tape recorder broke a belt and
there were no replacement parts in Memphis nor anyone who knew how to
repair it. Dowd was on the next flight to Memphis.
He discovered it was an old, ¼-inch mono machine. He phoned Wexler to purchase a new band (belt drive) for it and ship it to him next-day-air. Dowd replaced the belt and all the old capacitors which improved the tone. Booker T and the MG’s were practicing as Dowd tested the machine. Rufus Thomas saw all the cars parked at the old theater building where Stax Records was located. He stopped in, saw they were recording, and told Dowd, “I’ve got this new song I want to try out.” Dowd returned to Atlantic Records the next day with a tape under his arm. Wexler heard it and told Dowd, “It’s a hit. Produce it.” The song was “Walkin’ The Dog.”
The Beatles
Because
of their popularity in Europe, all of Stax artists went on tour at the
same time. Stax Records Studios shut down for 2 months
as their entire review went to England. The Beatles were big fans of Otis Reading and
other Stax artists. They threw a party
for them. At the party, Tom Dowd met
George Martin who produced all the Beatle’s hits.
Dowd learned that Europe recording studios were still using old 3 and 4-track machines. All the Beatles’ hits had been recorded on machines like these and Martin had been bouncing down (combining) tracks to add more. This was in 1967. Dowd told Martin about 8-track recording which he had been using for nearly 10 years.
Aretha Franklin and the
meaning of “record producer”
Dowd
recorded Aretha Franklin for the first time in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I always wondered why, or how, famous artists
bounced from one studio to another while under contract. It seems all these famous old recording studios had a
relationship with Atlantic Records except for the studio at Sun Records in
Memphis. Mercury purchased the Sun label in 1969.
Dowd
was a recording engineer and record producer meaning he controlled the sound of
the song. Wexler was a businessman,
sales marketer, and executive record producer meaning he controlled the length
of the recording and it’s marketability.
Wexler knew what type records people bought.
Dowd knew what kept them listening.
As
a side note, they mentioned in another part of the documentary that Ray Charles
became his own record producer within about 30 seconds after Tom Dowd
introduced him to 8-track recording! Dowd
said all he had to do was show Charles how the board worked and Ray took over
from there.
The 5 M’s
Tom Dowd worked at 5 studios with which Atlantic Records had a relationship. They were located in: Manhattan, Miami, Memphis, Macon, and Muscle Shoals. Dowd referred to them as the “5 M’s.” He said he never knew where he would be next. He had to be available whenever and wherever the artists were ready to record.
It
was difficult on him to finish a day recording blues artists at 5:00 PM
only to be told he had to come in at midnight to record some Jazz
artists who were just finishing at a night club. I once worked
with a lady at the phone company whose husband had been a recording
engineer at Muscle Shoals. He quit because the crazy schedule
required engineers to be available at all hours. That affected
their home life so much that the divorce rate among recording engineers
was unusally high. Tom Dowd was married twice. Both
marriages ended in divorce.
He finally settled at the studio in Miami and moved to spend the rest of his life
there where he made some of his most popular records. It was there he recorded such famous blues
artists as Eric Clapton, the Allman Brothers, and Lynard Skynard.
Allman Brothers – Live
The
Allman Brothers at Fillmore East was considered one of their best albums. As history indicates, it was recorded
live in New York in 1970. That’s the way
Dowd liked to record the brothers, like they were playing live, even when they were in a studio. Dowd would
line them up as if on stage and put a microphone in front of each of them.
Dickey
Betts said, “Most people start with a rhythm track and record everything
separately. Of course you get a lot
cleaner sound that way – but you don’t get a performance!”
Layla
It
was because of Dowd’s close relationship with the Allman Brothers and with Eric
Clapton that Duane Allman is heard
playing the high range bottle-neck guitar notes on Clapton’s song “Layla”, which was recorded by Dowd.
Brit
bands had a little difficulty adjusting to Dowd’s recording style. They came in with their Marshall stack amps
and Dowd asked, “Why 2 of everything?”
He immediately rearranged things, laying the combo amps and speaker
cases flat on their backs as he told the band, “This way we can hear the
guitars and still communicate with each other.”
Tom
Dowd died in 2002 but his legacy lives on in the recordings he made and in the
engineering standards he established still in use today.