Right Here are Free MP3's of Kelly Thomas's "Another Mile". I've made some recording notes for the GearSlutz who might hear it.
Recording Notes. 500 miles to Memphis' lead singer and guitar player Ryan Malott plays guitar with the kind of relaxed passion and dead-on intuition that makes me glad to be a producer. He walked in, pluged in his Kustom Amp, and kool Gibson 330, cranked it up and played the song. 1 take. We put in some dubs cause he was doing this amazing trem thing and I wanted to be sure we got that right. Paulie played drums. We were having trouble making the Bass fit, so I handed the Bass to Ryan and told him to just play the song. He, did - just like the guitar with a big right hand. He's not a bass player. The net effect was that the feel of the Bass was awesome - it just slams cause its so hooked up with his right hand on guitar. He managed to pull the strings out of tune badly, however, So a pitch corrector fixed it. David Brown was in a sour mood that day - near death from poisoning of some sort ( guess what sort!) and onmygod he played the slide like he wanted to kill something, and it was perfect. The crickets were an afterthought. I mean, it was so steamy.
Gear Stuff. The Kick is huge but in control thanks to Geoff Daking's Limiter on the kick mic (Beta 52). There's also an L2 on the zone mics, - which were an at4047sv on the snare side and a Peluso 22-251 on the brass side. I used a kel-hm1, back, and an MD441, close, on the guitars. I also stuck a Blue Baby Bottle in as an ambient mic. The Bass used the Pendulum Quartet. Kelly's voice was Done with the Peluso into a Great River mp2nv Pre, and the Daking Compressor.
Music Notes. The idea here was a "churchy", almost gospel blues. Keyboard wiz Rick Nye came in to play the organ and piano and simply nailed it. The guitar was Jeff's PRS for the clean part, but used his Gretsch for the solo's - and that gave it that funky character that I think blues requires to sound authentic.
Gear: Kelly's voice - a Blue Baby Bottle through the Pendulum Quartet (teeny 10k bump, and teeny auto release compression), and a bit o the old Waves Renaissance Vox in the mix.
Music. Flattop (John Bedinghaus) just sorta grabbed my old Martin 000 and slammed it out in one take. Jerry Hedge came in and added instant country with his pedal steel. No muss no fuss. We were trying to get away from like, too Nashville, so we just went with small warts and screw pitch correction (almost never used for Kelly). Paulie played Drums and made em sound sweet. Kelly added harmonies to taste. Jeff did the Big Melodic Solo in which he trades 4's with Jerry on steel. kinda cool considering they never met each other.
Gear. That was Jeff's Gretsch through his Princeton and miced with the AEA r84, I think. The Pendulum did an amazing job with the steel as a direct. The pre tube stages are cranked, and the compressor is their mostly to drive its tubes. Vocal Mic was the 22-251. The strings on the Martin we totally dead (I like it that way) - and I just stuck a Sure KSM32 way out the neck pointing in, rolled off, through the pendulum with a touch of slow attack and release. I added a touch of air later (to the guitar) on Jimmy Dee's advice because the strings sounded too dead.
I played acoustic and two Baritone Guitar parts on this one. It was kinda touch and go since there was no arrangement (until I arranged it). Basically, Laurie and Kelly and I sat down and played it live in the studio and that was it. I overdubbed the Bari's through the pod. This was hard due to no timing reference - but "temptation" is a sort of dark mysterious concept, and the bari's made that atmosphere. I did it more or less unilaterally, and was thinking Kelly would freak out when she heard it - but no, she liked it, warts and all.
Gear. Alex Kosiorek (Chief Engineer for the CSO) who mastered this stuff used this song in his personal portfolio (ie resume).
The backup band for this was basically the Catalog Cowboys, with David Brown, John Schmidt on Bass, and swinger (But its a head banger!) Greg Schramm on Drums, Brian Ewing playing viola and guitar, and Scott on mando. The cowboys haul from the far corners of American music. Between them they’ve won more the 10 Cincinnati area music awards, played with the likes of R.E.M., Alison Krauss, U2, Bo Didly, Paula Cole and The Drifters. Not bad for a bunch of local boys.
Kelly was almost in tears as she sang it because its about child abuse and she sees way too much of it in her day job.
Gear: Scott went totally nuts over the Mando sound I got from the AEA r84 ribbon mic. ("Nobody in Nashville ever made my mandolin sound so good"). That brought tears to MY eyes and a good time was had by all.
Bo Diddly of course. The wicked sounding guitar is my Gibson Chet through Jeff's Princeton, cranked, played by Flattop.
Eric Sayer, who's won national awards for his Irish music skills overdubbed this part. Tough job with no timing reference. It shows Kelly's voice as well as any of the tunes on the record.
Gear: The Bass was an earthworks z30x 6 inches from the bridge, pointing at it. Nice. I got a little encouragement to try this method from the Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Opera who I chat with on www.gearslutz.com .
Eric again on Bass. Interestingly, I asked him to play the part while he was here, on a whim. There was no vocal. Later, I offered Kelly the chance to sing to just the Bass - and I was doubtful she could pull it off. Boy was I wrong. It tells the whole story about Kelly - she's intuitive and musical so she can make things like that work out. Its just Eric and Her, on different days. Jeff is playing guitar on a mic three feet out in front of the Martin 000c. Flattop is banging beer bottles in the background just for the hell of it, and I'm giving blow by blow "amen" kinda stuff in the background. We broke every rule of recording here, except of course the main one - "make music". Kelly's Crackin up. When it was over, everybody was so fired up that Jeff started playing the John Prine tune - and it sounded good in my headphones - so I let the tape run. Another totally spontaneous event. Kelly voice sounds so natural - you can hear her relax, and she sounds 10 years younger - and xtra charming. Jeff is Singing into the guitar mic and (scolding no no no when she gets the words wrong). It was a great moment.