Russ Titelman: "There was no school for this."

I had no idea Rickie [Lee Jones] made a new record [Pieces of Treasure]. She’s one of my all-time favorites. It's a beautiful album!

Yes, it is. We did it live in the studio with a band.

Was it done to tape? It's got a real smoky vibe.

It wasn't done to tape, but it was done at a studio where it's all vintage gear. Everything went through old limiters and beautiful, old microphones.

What studio was that?

Sear Sound [Tape Op #41]. It's still going. It's one of the last remaining old studios – well, Power Station is still there because of Berklee NYC. We did [Eric Clapton's] Journeyman at Power Station. Ben Fowler [Tape Op #127] was our assistant. He was like the best assistant that ever existed on earth.

Ben Fowler was my mentor in Nashville, and still a dear friend.

No kidding? Wow. He's amazing.

And you did a Michael McDonald record [Blink of an Eye] together too, right?

Yeah. That's a great record.

"East of Eden” – what a song.

"East of Eden" is such a beautiful song. I get chills now just thinking about the song and lyrics.

Did you do that at Power Station too?

We mapped it out at Power Station with Jimmy Bralower [drums] and Jeff Bova [keyboards]. We also did some work in L.A. at Westlake [Recording Studios]. Michael would play his parts, and then we basically overdubbed everything else. Manu Katché played the real drums, and some of it is a drum machine. David Williams played guitar. I made a live record [Stompin' at the Savoy] with Rufus and Chaka Khan, and he was the other guitar player on that too. He’s just so great. We recorded it here in 1982 in New York, when I was still living in L.A. I was born and raised there, and then I moved here to New York in 1983. Then we had the studio part of the record [side four], which opened with "Ain't Nobody." For the studio part of the album, I had suggested that we do "Don't Go To Strangers." We cut that track live in a studio in L.A. We had the horns and the strings live in the studio with the Rufus band. That's John Robinson on drums, Bobby Watson on bass, Joe Sample played the piano, and Hawk [David Wolinski] played the Rhodes. And Tony [Maiden] did the kind of Freddie Green-like thing [on guitar]. It was fantastic.

Did you make a conscious effort, specifically on "Ain't Nobody,” to leave a ton of space to let Chaka sing her heart out?

Yes. The track is very, very strict. It's all Hawk's arrangement; he played all the keyboard stuff, including the bass. That wasn’t a sequencer. He didn't play it into a computer; he played it live. We had the track, and then I came to New York and put her vocals on. First, she did the background parts. We’d put a part down, double it. Then the harmony and double it. Then the other harmony and double it. And then she sang the lead. I just let her do whatever she wanted for about four takes. Then I said, "Now just do one, but stick closer to the melody." So, she did that, and we had all kinds of choices to make a comp out of. When somebody asks me what this job is, I always say it's exactly the same as a movie director, only we have a different terminology for it. It's like you're working with an actor. When you make a movie, you have these bits of a performance that you have in order to make a cohesive performance.

You were a musician first, and you've played on a few records you produced, but mostly you’ve stuck to producing.

I wasn't an engineer. I learned how to use the board because I was around it a lot, and I'd ask questions. I found out all these tricks, and then I knew how to make things sound a certain way – like getting a vocal to sound real crisp without fucking it up. When we were coming up, there was no school you went to for this.

You also worked a lot on movie scores. Was that via your connection to Randy Newman?

Some. I already knew Randy, but the Performance soundtrack was the main thing that brought us together. He was the conductor, and he played [Hammond] B3 on "Memo from Turner," the Mick Jagger record. All the rock 'n' roll stuff that's in that movie is me and Ry Cooder and Jerry Scheff, except for "Memo From Turner." That was Bobby West [on bass] and Gene Parsons on drums. I was very close friends with Jack Nitzsche, who did the music for the film. I sort of followed him around. Jack produced Buffalo Springfield's Neil Young song, "Expecting to Fly.”

Which you played guitar on, right?

I played 12 string rhythm with David Cohen, who was one of the L.A. Wrecking Crew guys.

That's around the same time that you got to know Lenny Waronker?

Well, I think I met Lenny and Randy at the Screen Gems/Columbia office in 1965 or '63. I don't remember. It was a community back then. Lenny was a publisher at Metric Music, and we'd go hang at his office. He became a friend. Nitzsche and I went over to his office once, and he played us the acetate of [Jackie DeShannon's] "What the World Needs Now is Love." He had the acetate weeks before it came out. Stuff like that happened all the time. And then Mo Ostin [chairman and CEO] hired him to run the A&R department at Warner [Bros. Records]. Then we'd go and hang at his office at Warner's.

Mo gave both you and Lenny room to experiment and try records out, without the pressure of it needing to be a hit. Just go make something you think is cool.

Yeah, that's true. It was his philosophy, "Hire somebody really good and let them do what they do." There wasn't any of this cult of the executive. Mo was modest, and the smartest guy in the room. He had this vision and hired people who shared the same point of view. Lenny signed Van Dyke Parks [Tape Op #145], Ry Cooder, and his best friend, Randy Newman. Lenny produced Randy’s first two records. One of them [Randy Newman] was with the help of Van Dyke. Randy, Cooder, and Van Dyke didn’t sell many records in the beginning, but they were all great artists.

Did you scout out talent for Warner, or were you a staff producer who would work with an artist once they were signed?

Oh no, we all brought in stuff. The first album I ever made was Little Feat's Little Feat. I brought Lowell [George] and Billy Payne to have a meeting at Lenny’s office, which had a little spinet piano. Billy played the piano, Lowell played guitar, and he sang "Willin'," "Truck Stop Girl," "Brides of Jesus," and maybe "Strawberry Flats." We were in this meeting in Lenny's little office, he heard Lowell sing these songs, and he said, "Go upstairs and make a deal with Mo." He didn't even hear the whole band.

Wow. How did you get connected to Rickie Lee Jones and start working with her?

I was in Henley-on-Thames, making an album with George Harrison [George Harrison]. Lenny called me and said, "There's this girl in Los Angeles, and there's a big buzz on her. I'm going to send you a cassette. This is something you and I should do.” This was in 1978. Lenny and I had already made the [Randy] Newman Live record, Sail Away, Good Old Boys, and Little Criminals. We'd made a Gregg Allman album in 1977 [Playin' Up a Storm] that's fantastic. He sent me this cassette, and "Chuck E's in Love" was on it, along with "Youngblood," "Weasel and the White Boys Cool," "The Moon is Made of Gold," and “Easy Money.” Then, there was "Company" on the demo. Just piano and voice. I burst into tears when I heard that song. I called Lenny and said, "This girl's as good a singer as Roberta Flack!" I got done with the Harrison record, came back to L.A., we had a meeting with her, and we went into the studio right away. Lenny and I hired the musicians. We had Steve Gadd [drums], Andy Newmark [drums], Willie Weeks [bass], Neil Larsen [keys], Buzz Feiten [guitar], Victor Feldman [percussion, drums, keys], Milt Holland [drums], and [George Sylvester] "Red" Callender [bass]. The single off that record was “Chuck E’s in Love,” and she went on to win the Best New Artist [Grammy] that year.

I have to ask you about a specific song on her next record, Pirates. "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" starts off like some rag-tag kids jamming in the studio, but by the end it's a fully fleshed out arrangement with horns. It's one of my all-time favorites.

Indeed. David Kalish co-wrote the song with her and is playing guitar on the record. That groove and that guitar part is him. It is probably his most known song, I would guess. Anyway, it's [Steve] Gadd on drums, playing this part that bounces like nothing else. It's just got this vibe. The bass player on that record is Chuck Rainey. Rickie did all of that stuff in the beginning. When we overdubbed the handclaps, all of us were around a microphone – Gadd, me, Lenny, her, and the other musicians, all clapping and making noise. She started out with “Hey Bones,” and it was her buddy, Sal Bernardi, who goes, "I didn't even know what city I was in." I hadn't made a record in a long time, and, luckily, she called me for this latest record and said, "I want to do an American songbook record. Standards." We started sending each other song ideas, and a lot of them coincided. She wanted to do "Just In Time," which opens the record and is the perfect thing to do.

The vibes on that are beautiful! Who is that?

That's Mike Mainieri. It's like having Lionel Hampton on your record! We sent him the track to his apartment, and the next day he sent back that performance. He came up with the intro, and I think he might have played an alternate solo. But that was the take – one take. It sounds like he's on stage with her, listening and responding to her.

I was hoping to discuss James Taylor. We could talk about Gorilla, but there's not a lot of info out there on October Road. How did you get reunited with James again, and how did that album come together?

Yeah. I kept in touch with him. I wanted to work with him again. I even went to Montreux, Switzerland, to see him perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival. He started sending me demos of the songs he was writing. We hadn't started recording yet, but he had all these great songs, and he had a demo of "Mean Old Man" without the lyrics. He whistled it, with just the guitar. But, in any case, here's the big story on the beginning of this record. He came down to New York to do something. He was with his wife, Kim Taylor, and they stayed at a hotel in Columbus Circle. He had his notebook with all the lyrics in it, and they went downstairs to breakfast. When they came back to their room, he went, "Where's my book?" And the computer was missing – somebody had broken in! And it had to be an inside job, because you couldn't get in without a card. He had to rewrite all the lyrics, so that took time. And then once we decided to do the record, we went up to the Studios at Linden Oaks in Rochester, [NY]. He didn't want anybody around, so we got out of town and did a couple of weeks and cut pretty much all of the tracks.

How live was that?

Well, not with vocals, but he was playing guitar, Steve Gadd [drums], Jimmy Johnson [bass], Michael Landau [guitar], and Cliff Carter [keys]. Then we came back to New York. We were going to cut "Mean Old Man," and I said to him, "We have to have Larry Goldings on this record." I don't think he knew who Larry was.

Oh, that was their first connection?

Right. I wanted Larry Goldings, as well as John Pizzarelli, because we needed a rhythm guitarist. I knew they would get along. He said, "Okay." We got in the studio, we ran it a couple of times, and it was okay. We did a couple of run-throughs, and I walked by Larry and said, "Fats Waller." And the next take was the take. When James heard him play the solo like that, he was in the band. He was looking for a guy who could do stuff like that since...

Don Grolnick?

Since Don, yeah. Larry's been with the band ever since. Dave O'Donnell was the engineer, and Dave became his main engineer. It worked out really great. Then I suggested that we get Dave Grusin to write the string parts. Dave did a chart for that, and I think also for "Caroline I See You."

And you also snuck in "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

Oh, yes, we did that on that date. We did "Mean Old Man" first, and then that.

That's what probably led to Dave Grusin producing James' A Christmas Album?

Yeah, exactly. On that October Road, Larry played the piano, Cliff did the synth, and then we added real strings on it. Rob Mounsey wrote a string chart for that, which we did later in New York.

And all the horn arrangements were overdubbed later?

Yes. There was a lot of overdubbing. Careful overdubbing. Michael Brecker did all the horn stuff, and we got Ry Cooder to come in L.A. and play on "October Road." Stuart Duncan played the fiddle.

Was that intentional to give October Road a kind of folksy sound? Especially coming off of Hourglass, which had a much slicker, direct sound.

You're absolutely right. Part of it is because of the songs that he wrote and how we approached it. Like, Stuart's playing on the song "October Road" is fantastic. And then, as usual, there are these beautiful personal songs. “Traveling Star” and what's the other one?

"Carry Me on My Way"?

Exactly. And James did all the background [vocal] parts. Lenny and I got him to do that on Gorilla, as well as In the Pocket – though he wouldn’t always do it. We just tried to get him to do as much as possible. Like, James would be the horn arranger, working with Michael [Brecker]; but basically it's him. He was extremely careful about those parts. He’s a master at that. On Gorilla, Lenny and I said, "Well, let's have a marimba and mandolin ensemble." Then he'd sing the parts to the mandolin players. It's his arrangements. It's the thing that makes those records the way they are. "Baby Buffalo" is my favorite song on October Road. It's like a Beatles record. It's like a dreamscape, and it's because he said he had this dream.

Oh really? And you can tell he must be a deeply funny guy.

Oh, he's hysterically funny.

Do you work much with new artists or anything, these days?

You know, I don't really, but I heard something that I thought was just unbelievably great. And in fact, they're playing here Saturday night. It's a group called Fievel Is Glauque. It’s this guy who lives in Brooklyn – he's fantastic – and a female singer who lives in Belgium. The reason that I found them is one of the songs that I wrote with Gerry Goffin is called, "What Am I Gonna Do With You (Hey Baby)". It was cut by The Chiffons, Lesley Gore, Skeeter Davis, and The Fleetwoods; a bunch of people cut this song, and The Chiffons have this fantastic version of it. There's actually a demo of it on YouTube with Carole [King] singing this song. Anyway, it pops up on my YouTube feed: A new version of this song, and I go, "Who's this guy?" He played everything on it. I sent him a note, and he wrote me back. I'm interested in that.

Rickie Lee Jones said in an interview, when she was thinking about who should produce her record of standards, there are producers who are good at running a session, getting the right musicians together, etc. But then she said there are the great professional producers, and the biggest difference is the great producers listen. That's what made her think of you. Are you one of those people who listens to music or lyrics first? What are you listening for?

Well, I mean, like anything else, when you listen, you have to listen to the whole thing. I mean, there might be somebody who may not be a great lyric writer but with a fantastic melodic sense, and maybe you're drawn to that. But the song is the thing. You're always looking for a great song. And they don't come along that often. In the old days, oh, it's Jimmy Webb, or Barry [Mann] and Cynthia [Weil], or Carole King and Gerry Goffin. You knew you were going to hear something great. Have you heard that record, Ten Easy Pieces? Jimmy Webb's record, which is mainly just piano and voice? It's very good. And then there's "Do What You Gotta Do" by Roberta Flack. It's one of the greatest records ever made, in my opinion. The song is just so heartbreakingly beautiful.

Did I see somewhere that you were involved in overseeing reissues of old jazz records?

Well, I did get asked, some years ago, to oversee the mastering of this Louis Armstrong box set, called Satchmo [Ambassador of Jazz]. What a thrill it was for me, because my favorite records are the Louis and Ella [Fitzgerald] records. I oversaw that. I'd go in the studio with the mastering engineer, sit there, and we'd go, "Okay, maybe this can have like the tiniest bit of high end added.” Steve Berkowitz had done Louis' Hot Fives & Sevens record, and I think a lot of that might have been done on metal parts. There's a roar like, “Haaaahhh.” We’d try to get rid of some of the roar without affecting any of the instruments. As soon as you start to lose the piano, you can't do it. We just did the littlest bit to clear it up. We went in like a surgeon.

This reminds me that I never even brought up working with Lee Herschberg [Tape Op #154]. You got to work with him on so many records!

He was the chief Warner Bros. engineer. He was Sinatra's guy! We'd hear Sinatra stories from him that were really great. Lee was the main engineer on Randy's first two records, and on Ry Cooder's early records.

And Gorilla.

And In the Pocket, too. James used to say, "This is the studio system." Warner Bros. artists, Warner Bros. producers, Warner Bros. studio, and Warner Bros. engineer. It was like the studio system in the movies. We'd go in at 11 o'clock and be done around 7 p.m. Every day, for two and a half months. Weekends off, until we were mixing!