Sunday, May 14, 2006
TJR's Advance Single featured on Melodic.net
My Advance Single "Peace Love And Don't Trust MTV" has received press on the Melodic.net website. You can read the whole story here
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Singing with Neil Young
On April 6th 2006 I did a recording session with Neil Young. I thought I would write about this...in detail.
*****************************
It was wed night at 11:30 pm. I was brushing my teeth getting ready for bed when the call came in. A friend of mine, a professional singer and Emmy award winning songwriter calls me. She asks me if I can be available at 10 am the next day for a recording session that will be held at Capital Records. The project is a new album being recorded by Neil Young. I take about 1 second to think.. "Is it April Fools day"?....and say "yes".
She tells me that I am going to be part of singing group that will sing back up vocals for Neil Young's next album. We will be in the studio from 10 AM to 10 PM. She gives me the name and number of the woman named Rosemary who is putting together singers for the session and tells me to tell her that Faith referred me.
The next day I am up early and driving to Capital Records in Hollywood. I have seen this building a million times driving through the area but I have never been inside of it. On the way I wonder, Will I get to meet Neil Young?....Will he even be there?
When I get there I am asked by security what session I am there for? I tell them, and I am issued a badge to wear and told to go to Studio A. Once inside the studio I find my friend Faith along with a bunch of other professional singers.
I very quickly have to fill out some paperwork along with all the other singers, and then we start working. We are told that we are going to be working on 10 songs. None of us have ever heard these songs before. There is a huge monitor screen that will project the lyrics for us so we aren't stumbling on words. The band tracks for this album (Guitar, Bass, Drums and lead vocals) are already done (Or at least done enough to serve as a guide for us to follow). In the recording studio is the album's producer, he is also running the board. We have two people who are there to conduct the singing group that I am part of (One of them is Rosemary). It is a 100 voice choir.
The Album is going to be entitled "Living With War". It is going to be a very political album. There where two people in charge of conducting us. But Mr. Young would take a huge hand in shaping how and what we would sing (Yes, he was there, and for the entire session). We are learning these songs as we are recording them. In most cases one line at a time. When we are singing along word for word with Neil's vocal, we have to match his every inflection. If he sings the first chorus one way and the second chorus slightly different we have to match his vocal each time. Sometimes this process goes quickly and we get it in the first take. Some lines are difficult and we have to do them over and over, in some case 10 or more times in a row. At other times we simply have to sing Ooohs and Ahhhs and this part goes quickly.
Throughout the day Neil Young moves back and forth from listening to playback inside the control booth to listening to us sing and making suggestions and asking us to try multiple variations on the same theme.
One thing that struck me about Neil Young: I am a fan, and have a lot of his albums. But I have talked to plenty of people, and read plenty of critics who say that they just can't listen to him because of his voice, saying that he can't sing.
For someone who is accused of not knowing how to sing, he sure knew a lot about how to direct our singing. He knew how to arrange our voices, who should sing the melody and who should sing the harmony. He knew all the technical terms.
Sometimes he would play the parts that he wanted us to sing on the piano and other times He would just sing the notes he wanted us to hit. Sometimes he would even stand with us and sing along too. There was never a time in the session when he asked us to hit a note that he couldn't hit himself.
All in all it was quickest 12 hr work day I have experienced so far. I met a lot of different people.
At lunch I sat and talked with a girl who had sung back ups for Celine Dion and Christina Aguilera. Earlier in the day I got the chance to talk to a woman who places musicians in film and TV (She asked for my card, which was cool). I also recognized a lot of my other fellow indie artists including Dan Navarro of Lowen and Navarro (http://www.lownav.com/), Faith Rivera (http://www.faithrivera.com) and Ali Handel (http://www.alihandel.com).
After we finished singing on the 10 orignal songs for the album, we where asked to sing "America the Beautiful". the conductor told us that he would not give us any direction. We where each to sing the song in unison the best way we knew how.
We sang it once with a live piano accompaning us. Then we sang it again accapella (That means without the piano or any instrument backing us up). I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, singing America the Beautiful with this group of singers ended up being one of the most unexpectedly spiritual experiences I have had in a long time.
When the session was over I found myself walking around taking one last look at the studio. It would be a long drive home and I hadn't gotten to much sleep the night before (to excited the night before to sleep well LOL). I am looking forward to hearing this album when it comes out. Later in the week I will be at another studio but to work on MY ALBUM (Which I'm also looking forward to hearing LOL).
*****************************
It was wed night at 11:30 pm. I was brushing my teeth getting ready for bed when the call came in. A friend of mine, a professional singer and Emmy award winning songwriter calls me. She asks me if I can be available at 10 am the next day for a recording session that will be held at Capital Records. The project is a new album being recorded by Neil Young. I take about 1 second to think.. "Is it April Fools day"?....and say "yes".
She tells me that I am going to be part of singing group that will sing back up vocals for Neil Young's next album. We will be in the studio from 10 AM to 10 PM. She gives me the name and number of the woman named Rosemary who is putting together singers for the session and tells me to tell her that Faith referred me.
The next day I am up early and driving to Capital Records in Hollywood. I have seen this building a million times driving through the area but I have never been inside of it. On the way I wonder, Will I get to meet Neil Young?....Will he even be there?
When I get there I am asked by security what session I am there for? I tell them, and I am issued a badge to wear and told to go to Studio A. Once inside the studio I find my friend Faith along with a bunch of other professional singers.
I very quickly have to fill out some paperwork along with all the other singers, and then we start working. We are told that we are going to be working on 10 songs. None of us have ever heard these songs before. There is a huge monitor screen that will project the lyrics for us so we aren't stumbling on words. The band tracks for this album (Guitar, Bass, Drums and lead vocals) are already done (Or at least done enough to serve as a guide for us to follow). In the recording studio is the album's producer, he is also running the board. We have two people who are there to conduct the singing group that I am part of (One of them is Rosemary). It is a 100 voice choir.
The Album is going to be entitled "Living With War". It is going to be a very political album. There where two people in charge of conducting us. But Mr. Young would take a huge hand in shaping how and what we would sing (Yes, he was there, and for the entire session). We are learning these songs as we are recording them. In most cases one line at a time. When we are singing along word for word with Neil's vocal, we have to match his every inflection. If he sings the first chorus one way and the second chorus slightly different we have to match his vocal each time. Sometimes this process goes quickly and we get it in the first take. Some lines are difficult and we have to do them over and over, in some case 10 or more times in a row. At other times we simply have to sing Ooohs and Ahhhs and this part goes quickly.
Throughout the day Neil Young moves back and forth from listening to playback inside the control booth to listening to us sing and making suggestions and asking us to try multiple variations on the same theme.
One thing that struck me about Neil Young: I am a fan, and have a lot of his albums. But I have talked to plenty of people, and read plenty of critics who say that they just can't listen to him because of his voice, saying that he can't sing.
For someone who is accused of not knowing how to sing, he sure knew a lot about how to direct our singing. He knew how to arrange our voices, who should sing the melody and who should sing the harmony. He knew all the technical terms.
Sometimes he would play the parts that he wanted us to sing on the piano and other times He would just sing the notes he wanted us to hit. Sometimes he would even stand with us and sing along too. There was never a time in the session when he asked us to hit a note that he couldn't hit himself.
All in all it was quickest 12 hr work day I have experienced so far. I met a lot of different people.
At lunch I sat and talked with a girl who had sung back ups for Celine Dion and Christina Aguilera. Earlier in the day I got the chance to talk to a woman who places musicians in film and TV (She asked for my card, which was cool). I also recognized a lot of my other fellow indie artists including Dan Navarro of Lowen and Navarro (http://www.lownav.com/), Faith Rivera (http://www.faithrivera.com) and Ali Handel (http://www.alihandel.com).
After we finished singing on the 10 orignal songs for the album, we where asked to sing "America the Beautiful". the conductor told us that he would not give us any direction. We where each to sing the song in unison the best way we knew how.
We sang it once with a live piano accompaning us. Then we sang it again accapella (That means without the piano or any instrument backing us up). I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, singing America the Beautiful with this group of singers ended up being one of the most unexpectedly spiritual experiences I have had in a long time.
When the session was over I found myself walking around taking one last look at the studio. It would be a long drive home and I hadn't gotten to much sleep the night before (to excited the night before to sleep well LOL). I am looking forward to hearing this album when it comes out. Later in the week I will be at another studio but to work on MY ALBUM (Which I'm also looking forward to hearing LOL).
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
TJR Featured in the OC Register
Last weekend the Orange County Register did a story on me. I was interviewed regarding my involvement with Niel Young's Living With War Ablum. Here's a link to the online version of the article
Friday, January 6, 2006
More press for TJR
Newsblaze.com did an in depth interview with your's truely. You can check it out here:
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