Producer'snotes on 2B3 The Toronto Sessions
A few things have come up since we released the CD, 2B3 The Toronto Sessions that I will attempt to clarify. Lance Anderson
Who'splayingWhat?
On the inside jacket where the tunes and credits are, the organists are listed in the same order as they appear in the stereo field. In other words, on Hip Hug-her, Rob Gusevs plays the organ on the left and Bill Payne the organ on the right. This convention is maintained throughout the CD. Occasionally the organ was mixed into the middle, like Michael's opening to Gimme Some Lovin' or for a solo, but then moves to it's side when that section is over.
Who'sOnBass?
There is a mistake in the credits to All About My Girl - Dennis Pendrith is listed as the bass player when in fact I just fininshed saying that Doug was kicking the pedals on this tune .So which is it? Doug is indeed, kickin the pedals and Dennis did not play on this track. Blame the copy function.
Who'sInThePicture?
The people on the inside montage are not credited.These shots are captured from a video that was made of the sessions. (That explains the time code that appears in some of the shots) Top Left hand corner (panel 1 ) smiling is John Tilden, to his right is Neil Chapman. Underneath them is Michael Fonfara and myself discussing a chord voicing. (I'm the one with the black and white shirt and substantial forehead.)
Panel 2 - Under the Leslie switch is Colin Linden and at his left arm is Mitch Lewis wailing on a 'crazed' intro for Magic Carpet Ride with Neil Chapman providing the appropriate facial expression (It was getting a little late in the day). The big face overlooking all is Dennis Pendrith.(One of the most unassuming people I know, which is why he gets the big head shot) 3rd panel - bottom left Engineer Nick Blagona (glasses and beard) and bottom right Ritchie Hayward with an ' I just ate the mouse' grin on. Underneath the note with the Yankee's cap is another picture of Mitch in action.
WhichOrgans?
There were 3 different organs used. The first session we used a B3 rented from Kid Carson. It had 2 leslies. That is the one used on Gimme Some Lovin which was the first tune we recorded. I don't know the specific year but could find out if anyone was interested. The other B3 was Rob Gusevs. It had a three way switch (or brake) on the Leslie switch which allows one to stop the Leslie from turning. For the next two sessions (1 year later than the first day) We again used Rob's organ but I bought a CV from Denis and had Tortoise Blue the Hammond guy in these parts, put on a Trek II percussion unit. I didn't need another organ, because I already have an A100 in my living room but when I heard that CV it growled, and spoke to me. So I took it home.
WhichSessions?
As I said, this CD was recorded in three days. However one day was in May (I believe) 1996 and the other 2 days in July of 1997. So as I remember, we recorded Gimme Some Lovin', Steel Onions, Apricot Brandy, and Hush that first afternoon. Richie was on drums. It was our third day of recording with Richie. I had hired him for a session on Rick Worrall's record 'When Love Is Right' that I was producing. He didn't want to come all the way from L.A. for a day, so I put two other days of recording together. The second day we recorded some tunes of mine for an as yet to be released solo project. (Producer's projects never get done because we are always too busy with some one else's and it is too easy to postpone your own.) I had been throwing this idea around of doing a 2B3 record woth some of the players I know and this seemed to be a good opportunity since we would have a dream rhythm section to work with. It was a gas!
With everybody's schedule it wasn't until the next July that we could get two consecutive days together to finish the record. Little Feat was playing in Toronto then at the Ottawa Blues Festival. Ritchie mentioned that Bill Payne might be interested in joining our project, so I called Bill and it was arranged for me to meet them in Ottawa and we would drive back to Toronto and record the following day. Bill could only stay for the one day. We recorded All About My Girl, Drown in My Own Tears, High Heel Feat, Hip Hug-her and Life is a Carnival in that order, that day. As you can see Bill took on all comers that day. The next day we started with One Love then spent quite a long time on Burnin' At the Stake, then Richard Bell dropped by, at Colin's suggestion, and we did King Harvest and finished with Magic Carpet Ride for a hoot. As everyone was packing up Richard started playing Professor Longhair's Big Chief on the piano and Denis and I joined in. There was no mics on the piano and we were out of tape. We had no idea Nick had thrown a DAT on and recorded our 8 to 10 min jam. What you hear on the CD is only a thirty second edit I put together as a bonus track. It was never mixed because it went down live to 2 track. Not bad.
HowToMic
We mic'd the top of the Leslie in a fairly conventional way. Two mics pointing into the open back of the Leslie from about a 140 degree angle. Nick miked the bottom of the Leslie at the hole just above the drum at the back. Not in stereo and not down pointing at the drum. He felt it interfered too much with the bottom frequencies of the track and had too much movement when the Leslie was turned on fast to mike it there.These three mics were then recorded on two tracks with the top two mics hard left and right and the bottom mic in the middle. (I rememeber we used a CAD 300 on the bottom of one leslie and 58's on top.) he also put some kleenex over two of the mics to reduse the ammount of wind that was picked up when the Leslie was turned on fast.
So I hope this answers some of your questions that have appeared at my e-mail. I will be adding a page of news and an organ players hints page with contributions from the different players on the CD. Let me know what you would like to know about organ technique and we can put the questions right to the source. For instance how does Keldie get the wah-wah effect on One Love without using a wah-wah pedal or any external FX......??
LAnce - makeitreal@rogers.com