Ian Shaw

Ian Shaw, engineer and producer from London, England, relocated to the heart of tropical Key West, Florida, the southernmost point in the continental US. In the winter of 2011 Ian shipped his recording equipment to Key West and built a new studio there, whilst living in a quirky floating home with wife Vicky and dog Pugsy. Ian's records have won awards and earned chart successes on both sides of the Atlantic. Artists include Primal Scream, Nick Heyward, Kevin Rowland, Super Furry Animals, Julian Cope, Furniture, Glen Matlock, Edward Ball, The Would Be Goods and the entire 1990s Riot Grrl scene. Most recently Ian's worked with up-and-coming Folk artist Megan Henwood, Matt Backer, Claudia Morris, Socialist R&B band Thee Faction, austerity rock band Sebastopol, and singer/songwriter Nikki Murray.

Bill, who is in his late 60s, is a genuine "back porch" blues singer and guitarist with a signature slide guitar style of playing. He's originally from Richmond, Virginia and enjoyed his first break when he was invited to play guitar in Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's band. Crudup is best known for writing "That's All Right," Elvis Presley's first hit. When Crudup died in 1974, Bill formed The Bill Blue Band, signed to Adelphi Records, and toured extensively in the USA and Europe opening for Bonnie Raitt, Aerosmith, ZZ Top, and many others. In the early 80s, tired of the road and touring, Bill moved to Key West where he's lived ever since. He's considered to be the elder statesman of the music scene here, and in 2013, October 14th was declared by The City Of Key West to be 'Bluesman Bill Blue Day"! Key West being laid back and tropical can present a challenge to recording a conventional studio album, so this recording happened unconventionally. As Bill Blue says, "In a town known for it's liberal ways, year round sunshine, and Jimmy Buffett and Trop Rock, it's hard to have the Blues!" 

Ian Shaw's Notes on Recording Mojolation :

I fancied playing tennis year-round in a warm, sunny climate somewhere with a vibrant music scene. I haven't been disappointed! I still work with many of my UK clients and now the local talent too. At Old Town Key West's famous Green Parrot bar, Bill Blue has had a residency for over 30 years and that is where I first heard him play. Key West is a small town and Bill lives on the water, as I do, in fact, I can see his houseboat from my kitchen! He and I got to know each other as neighbours then started hanging out together at gigs and gradually I realized that Bill has a rich musical history." 

After I'd heard Bill play half a dozen times we talked about the possibility of making a record together. Bill hadn't recorded for over 20 years and I didn't feel that his previous recordings captured the vitality of his live set. Local guitarist Larry Baeder, one of Bill's regular live collaborators, said he believes it is important for blues history accurately to "document" what Bill does, and I agreed with him, so I decided to put the record out on my label Warmfuzz.

Rehearsal and pre-production is not the ethos of Key West musicians and, apart from Jimmy Buffett's private Shrimp Shack recording studio, there are no formal, well-equipped recording spaces here. My own studio is a compact, acoustically-treated mixing space with Pro Tools HD, a collection of vintage outboard gear, ADAM monitors and room enough to record overdubs. In January 2013 Bill and I agreed that we'd like to make a record together. My aim was an exciting, simple, studio album that would include two specific songs from Bill's live set and reflect the power of his stage performances. Bill wanted his vocal to sound great and to have horns on a song or two, but otherwise he made very few requests. Otherwise, we had no discussion about the music and I didn't hear any of the other songs until we were in the studio. That's Key West for you! 

Looking for somewhere to record initial rhythm tracks, I was directed to a space on Stock Island run by Michael Sweeney. The set up is basic; a large live space 40 by 20 feet with a separate control room that doubles as Mike's bedroom! Mike has Pro Tools 10 on a MacBook, 16 PreSonus mic preamps, a pair of KRK K-Rok monitors and a collection of mainly dynamic microphones and that's it. There is also a cupboard in the studio and a bathroom behind the control room where we could isolate some guitar amps. The first session was in late January 2013 with "Drummer Dave" Baron on drums. Bill had played with him in 2012 at a Jimi Hendrix birthday gig, and liked his dynamic style. On bass was band member Francois Gehin, Nashville session guitarist — and Bill's friend — Michael McAdam played second guitar while Bill played guitar and sang guide vocal. I brought a selection of my mics to supplement the studio's collection. We positioned the band in the live room and placed guitar amps in the aforementioned cupboard and bathroom mic'd with Shure and Audix microphones. The drum kit was mic'd with an AKG D112 on kick, [Shure] SM57s on snare top and bottom, a small Beyer electret on hi-hats, [Shure] SM58 on rack tom and an old AKG D202 on floor tom. Overheads were Rode NT1s and I set up a Shiny Box ribbon mic about 10 feet in front of the kit for mono room ambience. From behind a baffle, Bill sang into my Neumann TLM 103 and the bass guitar was both DI'd and mic'd through an Ampeg rig. I believe we used Francois' own [Electro-Voice] RE20 to mic it."

All in all the first session wasn't a resounding success. Firstly, Key West is a busy gigging town and so we didn't have a lot of recording time before musicians had to leave the studio late afternoon to play shows. Secondly, trying to get separate headphone mixes proved to be time consuming and problematic. Thirdly and, arguably, most importantly, there was nothing to eat or drink in the studio and nowhere nearby where we could get a sandwich, coffee, or food fuel for creativity. People were getting tetchy! As this was the first time working in Sweeney's studio with Bill and this group of musicians I didn't wish to be heavy-handed. Rather, I preferred simply to listen to the songs and how the band would treat them, gently guiding if necessary. We left the studio with takes of four songs that sounded well played but hadn't captured the kind of magic that makes a great record. A few days later Bill came to my studio with Michael McAdam who re-recorded some of his guitar. We all felt lukewarm about these first four songs and it was time for a re-think."

In late February Bill and I scheduled our second recording session at Mike Sweeney's studio. We invited Francois Gehin and Bill called in Richard Crooks; an ex New York session drummer and producer Phil Ramone's favourite for many years. Richard has an impressive list of credits, including playing on the New York sessions for Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks , and playing with Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon. By great good fortune Richard lives in Key West and was available to play with Bill! My good friend, ace London session guitarist, Matt Backer, was also scheduled to be in Key West in February to work with me on his own album. Matt is an amazing guitarist, able to play in many different styles and is something of an expert at "da blues" so we invited him to join our session.

The second time at Mike Sweeney's studio I was much better prepared. In addition to bringing microphones, I brought crackers and homemade dips, fruit, muffins, tea, coffee, and a kettle. A well-fuelled session is a happy session! I decided that we would use only one headphone mix, something that I did successfully for 15 years at my Fulham studio in London. Only Francois and Richard would be in the live room. Bill and Matt would be in the control room and play in front of the monitor speakers. In fact, after three songs, Francois joined us in the control room where he could better hear his performance. We ditched the bass amp and DI'd. When I'd been playing with the audio from session one I'd noticed that the drums sounded great on the Neumann and not so good on the ribbon mic, so, instead of the Shiny Box as an ambience mic, I used the Neumann TLM 103 set up in the same place where Bill had been singing. 

With a simpler set up and a great set of musicians, the session really came together. Bill called the changes and gave Matt Backer the nod for each solo. Matt is such a great guitarist that all but one of his solos were recorded live that day. We belted out seven songs, no click tracks and many of them first takes, like "Barbecue Store," which doesn't have a real intro, and "Ain't it Funny," which disintegrates at the end. We did try alternate takes, but none had the energy or excitement of the first ones and I wanted that rough and readiness on the final record.

Richard Crooks is a terrific "pocket" player and doesn't hit the drums very hard. I've always found that a lighter touch tends to produce a great tone and Richard's raw sounds were really full. Given the unrehearsed nature of the sessions there were remarkably few timing corrections. Richard comes from an era when the drums weren't all about the kick drum so he doesn't slam it like modern drummers do. Later, using SoundReplacer, I added a sample to the kick drum and this gave it more punch and definition. After the session, back in my studio, I prepared the drum tracks for overdubbing. First, I ran the stereo overhead mics through my vintage 33135 Neve EQs with a boost at 10 kHz and some high pass filtering. This warmed up and coloured the very clean PreSonus mic preamps and gave the kit more sizzle. Next, I added compression to the kick and snare with 1176 plug-ins, or sometimes, depending on the song, with Waves Renaissance compressors. Weight was added to the snare with a Renaissance EQ, and compression was added to the overheads. To introduce a little distortion for excitement, I routed the room mic through a 1176 set to the Pump preset and a SoundToys Radiator plug-in. I ran the same channel through a Lexicon reverb set to either Drum Room 1 or Drum Room 2 and we kept this drum sound set-up to the end of mixing. 

On a couple of songs, Matt Backer did some tremolo guitar overdubs at my studio, at which point I made a rough CD of both sessions for Bill to hear. After listening to it we agreed that the two sessions didn't work together. The second session with Richard Crooks was far more vibrant and was what we wanted so we decided to ditch session one altogether. 

Bill's original guitar parts and solos were less focused than they might have been, because Bill was busy guiding the band. Bill replayed his parts in my studio using a Blackstar Artisan 15 through a soundproof box with a Celestion Blue speaker inside it mic'd with a Shure SM58. I usually record electric guitar through a chain of outboard. The mic goes into one channel of a TLA EQ1, then through a channel of Neve set flat, sometimes into a Culture Vulture by Thermionic Culture for a little more grit and finally into an old MXR Dual Limiter Compressor for some gentle compression.

We put the album aside for a couple of months because I had other projects scheduled. In early May we resumed with another live session at Sweeney Sound to re-record the songs from the first session plus two new numbers. This time it was a guitar roast with Bill, Mike McAdam from session one, and Matt Backer, plus Nashville bass player Drake Leonard and Richard Crooks on drums. In my studio I applied the same processing to the drum tracks and Bill re-recorded his guitars. 

So that as many of Bill's band members as possible could play on the new record Francois Gehin graciously allowed us to replace his bass parts. I invited local bass player and band member Dan Simpson to play on a couple of songs. We re-recorded the bass that I DI'd through my TLA/Neve/Culture Vulture/MXR chain. Dan is an accomplished engineer and producer in his own right and has been working in Key West for many years. We had an easy afternoon session and I was amused to discover that Dan had not previously been recorded by anyone — he's only ever recorded himself!

We chose to record Bill's voice early in the evening. Bill would turn up at 6 p.m., have a beer and a chat and then, over a couple of two-hour sessions, Bill gave me two takes of each song without needing much direction from me. After all, Bill has been singing the blues for over 50 years! I recorded Bill's voice using my Neumann TLM 103 through the Neve and MXR compressor. The vocals sounded great to me, but Bill wasn't entirely happy. He felt he could give a better performance, as he does live, either holding or getting right up on the mic. We tried recording Bill's voice this way, using an SM58, but there wasn't enough detail in the sound. I'd previously had success recording vocals with a Shure SM7, so I bought one, and it did the trick. So, on "Guitar Whore" where, by chance, Bill held the Shure SM7 and covered part of the capsule, the vocal has a slightly megaphone/transistor radio quality that suited the song so well that we kept it. 

By 8 p.m. Bill would be back home on his houseboat! He decided early on that he wouldn't drive himself crazy listening to takes in the studio nor would he take home a CD of the day's recordings. Bill was kind enough to trust that I'd make it sound great. Indeed, he heard some of his vocals for the first time when I played him the final mixes!

Working with a great natural singer who is master of his craft makes comping the vocals a breeze! Only very occasionally would I need to nudge a phrase into tune. I find that tuning packages introduce a glassy tone, so, I prefer to use the Pro Tools Pitch Shifter and adjust errant notes by ear. Fortunately the Pro Tools plug-in is transparent, and because I have near perfect pitch, adjusting by ear comes naturally to me. Once I'd comped the vocals, I ran them through my Culture Vulture to add some valve-warmness to Bill's voice. Bill and I wanted a raw, live-in-the-studio approach so we kept overdubs to a minimum. Keyboard player Ericson Holt added some sparse piano and Hammond, Deb Hudson sang backing vocals and local guitar hero, "Caffeine Carl" Wagoner — a regular in Bill's band — played some great solos and also rhythm for "On The Road For Big Boy." Carl's part on this really tightened up the song. 

Although there are good individual horn players in Key West they aren't used to playing pop/rock as a section. Serendipitously, just as we started to record, I met Rob Cutts, a New York sax man who was playing a week's residency with his band, the Young Rebel Goombas, at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. Rob mentioned that his horn section in New York would be happy to write arrangements and record them for us. So, once we'd finished the vocals, I sent tracks to Rob with a few sketchy ideas for three songs. On one song — the only cover on the album — "Brand New Man" by Eddie Hinton, I wanted a Stones-meets-Faces vibe. Again, by great good fortune, Rob knew Kent Smith, a horn player who'd toured several times with the Stones, and Kent kindly agreed to write the arrangement for that song.

Whilst waiting for the horns to be recorded I played some tambourine on "I Ain't from Mississippi" and Bill added a little blues harmonica to "Guitar Whore." We recorded a few quick acoustic songs with Key West guitarist Larry Baeder. Bill played acoustic and resonator guitar, DI'd through a Mama Bear processor and mic'd with an ancient AKG C28 valve mic. Once again he sang into the Shure SM7. Larry played an arch top semi-acoustic, mic'd with a Beyer Opus 53 and DI'd through Pro Tools Eleven guitar plug-in. We recorded the traditional "Poor Boy Blues" and "Who Let That Stranger In?" fast, live and without overdubs. Then, when we received the horn parts from Rob Cutts we were ready to mix. 

I wanted the mix to be simple and without much processing in order to preserve a raw sound for the finished record. Preferring to mix analogue rather than in-the-box, I routed the instruments and vocals through the 16 channels of my Neve 8816. This has the advantage over most summing boxes of having recall should one have to tweak the mix. 

The drum set up was as previously described with the addition of a new Steven Slate Virtual Tape Machine plug-in, through which the overheads, particularly, sounded great. It seemed to add some glue and more honesty to the kit sound. Bass was compressed with an 1176 plug-in and occasionally I added a Sansamp to liven up the DI'd sound. A Waves API 550 plug-in provided any EQ needed to bring out definition and I also used a Waves RBass to add more depth to the sound. Matt Backer's guitar parts had some gentle compression added by a Waves Puigchild, on blues guitar preset. I used SoundToys Radiator on the tubeamp setting to make the guitar sound bigger and grittier and if EQ was needed, I favoured the Joe Meek Meequalizer. I used similar processing for Bill and the other guitarists.

Bill's vocal was mixed through my Neve 33135 set up as a hardware plug-in inside Pro Tools using my second Avid 192 unit for the insert. I added more 10k or 15k and a slight boost at 820 Hz and 180 Hz. For colour I dialed in a little more compression through a Puigchild and a SoundToys Radiator. For clarity I used a Digidesign EQ4 to give Bill's voice a slight boost at 8 kHz. I finished the vocal sound with a splash of plate reverb from a Waves Rverb. 

The horns were double tracked but as the section was four and sometimes five piece, it sounded much better and more authentic using single tracking. Again, I compressed using an 1176, sweetened using an API EQ and added a smidgeon of Lexicon reverb set to horn room.

Across the mix bus of the Neve 8816 I had my Roll Music Systems Super Stereo compressor at a ratio of 2:1, occasionally 4:1 and set at slowest attack, fastest release. I always put the Culture Vulture at the end of my mix bus chain. I used to find that mixing to tape added a final cohesion that can be replicated using the Culture Vulture. The Vulture also adds a bump in the bass end, warmth and a grunt of attitude. Typically, I'd use a triode setting with drive set at 4 to 4.5 and bias set anywhere between 3 and 4. I printed mixes through the Neve 8816 into Pro Tools. Bill listened to all the mixes in my control room and I burned us a couple of "drive around in the car" CDs. I made one or two tweaks and that was the album.

The wonderful Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering in Scotland, who has mastered my records for over 20 years, did the voodoo that he do. I wanted the overall sound taller and wider and Bill's singing and guitar playing to sound epic and to explode out of the speakers with all the raw guts of the blues.

The original meaning of mojo is "medicine man possessing the art of casting magic spells." Ladies and gentlemen please welcome Bill Blue and his Mojolation ! 

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