The Producers That Made Me

Alternate title: The [record] Makers That Produced Me

2019, Flowers Studio Minneapolis

I’ve been thinking about Brian Wilson and Sly Stone this week, feeling their loss, reflecting on the incalculable influence of their work. I’ve read so many inspired and inspiring essays about each, and in some cases about both. I don’t have much to add, except that each of their music has inspired me more than I can express. They’re all-timers for me, even as I have quite a few all-timers.

For me, a musician and a music obsessive, great musical performances are one of the highest expressions of our humanity. It’s a magical glue that connects us, makes us feel alive, and builds community. As we hand more and more of that process over to the computers, I believe we need to keep an eye on why, fundamentally, music matters so much.

It’s a strange feeling when someone passes whose records are a big part of your life. We connect with the creator’s humanity even when we can’t connect directly with the human. I understand that the person is gone, but the recordings sparkle with life - it’s a form of immortality. My relationship is with the record, not the person; but the record is a reflection of the creator’s humanity.

That’s the magic of audio. A group of people with a common purpose gather in a room with gear and a technician or two, set up some mics, tune up, dial in a sound.. and make something that delivers value for generations. A simple performance, a moment in time, captured forever. If it’s a great one, like Everyday People or God Only Knows (and so many more by these particular geniuses), it’s a gift that keeps giving. Its value is measurable in economic value, but also in cultural value, influence, inspiration, and infinite joy and inspiration. It’s magic. It’s the thing I’ve been obsessed with since I could form a thought.

It must have been amazing to make records in the 60s, a time of such dramatic change. Pet Sounds was recorded on a 4-track machine, state of the art at the time. I’ve spent thousands of hours listening to the Pet Sounds box set, which breaks down the component parts of vocal stacks and music beds, trying to understand the alchemy. There’s very little studio trickery - it’s all right there - but it’s a mystery how it all works to form the final piece. By 1968, when Sly and the Family Stone recorded Everyday People for its album Stand, commercial 16 track tape machines were in commercial operation. Nevertheless, these recordings are largely if not entirely live performances captured in the studio, grooves so deep they resonate at the center of the Universe.

I had the privilege of spending a decade of my life with record-making as my professional focus, having other people pay for me to make records of my own creation. I took it for granted at the time, but now I understand what a blessing it was. I studied engineering during my first attempt at college, and I spent some time recording other people’s music in addition to recording my own records. I learned the old fashioned way, because the new way didn’t exist. We recorded to tape. We couldn’t “fix” a performance. We edited by cutting and splicing magnetic tape. I learned how to edit 2” tape with a razor blade, which is truly one of the scariest things I’ve done.

I also learned that I don't really have what it takes to be a great engineer; it’s a very specific skillset. My brain isn’t wired right for the job. Being a lawyer is 1,000 times easier for me than being an engineer because of my particular wiring. Being a producer engineer requires a continual balance of creative and technical skills. Even if I could master the technical skills, my creative brain inevitably interferes. I’d get ideas and go down rabbit holes, as cables became a tangled mess and I’d forget to keep a track sheet. It takes a virtual Zen master to be a great producer engineer, the ability to keep multiple ideas and outcomes in mind to stay focused on the technical and creative outcomes at once. For me, it’s a difficult a task as composing a melody while I do math problems in my head.

At least that’s how it used to be. Now it’s all simplified, laid out on a grid, automated to the point where soon we’ll make records with spoken prompts. It’ll be a conversation with our workstation with the workstation doing almost all the actual work. I think I’ll enjoy that, or maybe I’ll stubbornly stick to the old ways because of this idea I have about music as an expression of our humanity.

I spent literally thousands of hours through the late 80s and 90s making about a dozen albums, with much more on the cutting room floor. I’m proud of all that music. I’m proud of [most of] the songs and performances. I’m prouder still that all of those records have aged pretty well and still sound great by today’s standards. For that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the producers and engineers who spent so much time, attention, talent, love, and patience helping me make those records. I had so may 14-hour days where I got to do what I love, with someone by my side setting the mics, rolling the tape, and giving me real time feedback, sharing their immense talents. They weren’t getting rich off me, that’s for sure.

As the art of capturing performances gradually becomes the craft of getting computers to imitating performances, I gain more and more appreciation for the studio magic-makers of my life. While most of those records are far off the beaten path of streaming algorithms, I’m deeply grateful that their enduring quality justifies the time and effort we spent. In my profound gratitude to the dear friends who’ve opened so many doors for me in my creative life, I want to pay tribute to a few who have had the biggest impact and have inspired and mentored me in the most transformative ways.

Paul Mahern

In a way, Paul was my first rock star hero I met in real life. His band, The Zero Boys, changed my life as a directionless 14-year-old kid, and it my way forward from the hardcore scene to the world I’ve built. Paul got his start recording Midwest punk and hardcore bands in Indianapolis. He became sufficiently proficient to work in a commercial studio as he recorded many albums for regional bands.

When Blake Babies decided to release a few extra tracks we saved from the sessions for our Sunburn album, we called Paul on a tour stop to cut a few additional tracks for what became our final release, the Rosy Jack World EP. Paul recorded every note for my post-Blakes project Antenna, and the RCA Records debut for Freda’s post-Blakes project The Mysteries of Life. In 2000 we called Paul to help us with our final Blake Babies album, God Bless the Blake Babies, which is my personal favorite.

Paul became the longtime engineer for John Mellencamp, as he continued to produce many notable projects. When I told Paul I wanted to revisit audio engineering as a potential career path as my musician career stalled, he generously encouraged me to shadow him on projects and taught me basic concepts I’d failed to fully grasp in my short-lived Berklee education. His mentorship gave me the necessary skills to engineer much of my first solo album, Caledonia, which Paul mixed. Paul mixed and mastered my most recent project, Something To Look Forward To, in 2023. He’s a lifelong friend, my most trusted and longest-standing collaborator, and a constant source of inspiration and influence for me. Hire Paul to mix or master your record, you will be grateful for both the world-class quality and the big savings over the usual suspects.

Gary Smith

I tell people all the time I don’t believe in the showbiz myth of “the big break.” Big breaks come after years of effort. The break is an illusion, the culmination of many smaller things lining up, leading to a breakthrough. That’s the Blake Babies’ story.

It took us a couple years to get to that serendipitous moment when we met Gary Smith and became a real band. We had played a couple dozen shows and fumbled our way through cutting a series of demos, eventually taking a stab at professional recordings. Our friend TW Li and his audio engineering student Tracy Chisolm, who I’m just now learning has had a robust engineering career, with credits including Belly, The Meat Puppets, and Body Count. Then, however, none of us really knew our ass from our elbow and it shows on our self-released debut, Nicely Nicely. And yes, I am proud of that record. We were flying nearly blind, but we did our best. It got things rolling.

It took us a full year of humiliating audition nights to get a Saturday show at legendary Boston rock dive The Rat. The talent buyer showed her appreciation for our grind by giving us a great show: opening for Throwing Muses. Gary was The Muses’ first producer; naturally he was there. He walked in to our opening set to catch the last few songs, and then he as I exited the stage, a stocky, slightly older guy in horned rim glasses and a wool cap walked up and stuck his hand out. “I’m Gary,” he said. “I love your band.” I quickly introduced him to Freda and Juliana, as the high-profile owner of Fort Apache studio, he didn’t need an introduction. After a moment of quick fire compliments about our songs and style he asked, “Have you recorded? Because I’d love to work with you.” Just that easy.

He helped us load our gear into a station wagon taxi (that’s how it was done) and invited us to the newly-constructed Fort Apache studio in North Cambridge. The room was a perfect representation of Gary’s vibe: stylish yet welcoming, and absolutely state-of-the art. We made ourselves at home and stuck around to make the albums that defined our band.

Gary and Juliana

Gary did a great job of producing those albums with the help of world-class engineers such as Paul Kolderie and Steven Haigler; but I believe he did an even better job of encouraging us and showing us how to become a real band. From the day we met he unflinchingly and absolutely believed in our band and believed we would become an important cultural force. He communicated to us that our work was important and that we should be completely dedicated to a higher purpose to make the world better. He believed in music at that level, and it’s an energy I’ve tried very hard over the years to carry forward. We proved by working with Mahern that we didn’t need Gary to make great Blake Babies records; but by the same token we couldn’t have become the band so many people cared about without Gary’s constant motivation and inspiration.

Sadly, we lost Gary in 2023. I hadn’t seen him in many years. In many ways, our friendship didn’t survive the band’s divorce. He maintained his commitment and enthusiasm for many years managing Juliana Hatfield’s career. It was hard to process at the time, but now I completely understand. I’m sure I’d do the same. Back when we made those records, when Gary was riding high on the success of The Pixies, it was just fun to be around someone with so much belief in his own musical path. It was infectious, and it’s a huge part of the music we made.

Ed Ackerson

In a way, meeting Ed for the first time felt a lot like meeting Gary Smith. In 1990 I was bumming around Bloomington between Blake Babies tours, staying in my dad’s limestone cottage near the I.U. campus while he spent a summer abroad. One night some friends and I went to see a buddy’s band, The United States Three, at local joint The Bluebird, opening for some Minneapolis band on Twin/Tone called The 27 Various. After my friend’s set I was riding a festive buzz so I decided to stick around for the headliner instead of bounding across the street to the Video Saloon as usual.

The band’s heavy psych, Anglophile sound blew me away so I decided to introduce myself to the singer, Ed. I helped them load out and asked if they had a place to stay. Ed said they planned to drive a bit, but they had a couple days off. On a whim I invited them to stay with me on their days off, enjoy the Bloomington summer. They readily accepted. In those couple days, Ed and I became lifelong friends. We had so much in common we decided to start looking for any opportunity to make music together. He joined my band (Antenna), and I helped him start his next band, Polara. For the rest of the 90s, End and I talked on the phone at least a few days and hung out as much as we could. If I had a best friend through that period, it was Ed.

By the end of the 90s I was losing confidence in my future as a professional musician. The Lemonheads had been the closest thing I’d had to a day job, touring for long stretches as their hired guitarist. The band broke up in 1998, leaving me without much to show for a career. I decided to throw everything I had into making one more album, and I called on Ed to produce in his brand new Minneapolis studio, Flowers.

When I met Ed, I assumed since he had a successful band that he wasn’t as skilled a producer engineer as Paul or Gary. As I got to know him, and especially after I sat by his side for the entire process of producing the wildly underrated self-titled Polara album, I realized he was more or less on the level with those guys, and in some ways his approach was more adventurous and experimental than either of them. If I had one shot at an album to chart my career forward, Ed was my guy.

A year later I was in law school; obviously my album Vestavia didn’t set the table for another phase of my artist career. In a way it’s perfect, because it was time for me to move on to the next phase of my life. It’s the album I wanted and needed to make, regardless of the audience. I loved the experience of working with Ed and Peter Anderson, his Polara bandmate, and it’s my only 90s-era release I still listen to for enjoyment. It did what it was supposed to do: it gently moved me to the next square in my own Game of Life.

Ed and me in 2019, our last session together

We lost Ed in 2019 to Pancreatic Cancer. We remained as close as ever until the end, as I was one of only a few friends with whom he shared his diagnosis. Everyone else found out when Ed’s hero Pete Townshend announced his illness from stage during a concert by The Who. Sometimes truth is stranger - and infinitely more awesome - than fiction. Even now, six years later, I feel a sudden urge to call Ed every time something good happens.

Before he got sick but after I moved to Nashville in 2011, Ed and I had been slowly sending tapes back and forth to give shape to some songs I’d been working on. As Ed neared the end I went to visit him, his wife Ashley and grade school-aged daughter, Annika. Through failing health, loss of motor skills, and extreme pain, Ed insisted we record a song. With that track in hand, the title track to the album Something To Look Forward To, I had to finish the album. It went from a hobby project without direction or focus to a tribute to my dear friend, something he couldn’t wait to mix. He didn’t live to mix the album, but that’s when I knew to call Paul Mahern. He admired Ed and approached his own work as a tribute. I’m so grateful we finished the album, and I owe it all to my next topic…

Gregory Lattimer

Although I barely knew Gregory in the 90s, our paths crossed. He was the wild man singer of a NYC scumrock glam act called Thin Lizard Dawn. They signed to RCA Records, and their A&R guy introduced them to Paul Mahern. They cut their album in Bloomington and frequented all the shows and parties while on the scene. I had a couple fun hangs with Gregory, but we didn’t know each other well.

Gregory moved to Nashville and settled into a more sober, domestic life with his wife Alice Carrière, an author. Gregory produced some impressive titles in his wild New York days, including Albert Hammond, Jr. from The Strokes. In Nashville he built a bare-bones garage studio called Make Sound Good and started recording a variety of local acts. One day in 2017 Gregory invited me to come by to talk about a publishing deal. He showed me the studio. Sensing an opening, I boldly asked if he’d be interested in recording a song for me. He graciously offered to help.

We did a few sessions and finished a half-dozen tracks, with input from Ed and a few other friends. I loved working with Gregory. He’s a calm, light-hearted presence in the studio with a steady flow of good ideas, but with the humility to move on when his ideas don’t take shape. His taste and his instincts are consistently on point. Recording with Gregory is the first time since the Vestavia sessions that I felt someone captured what I wanted, with the added bonus that he put his own stamp on it. He’s an extraordinarily creative producer who made the process incredibly fun.

I tried to record my songs a few times prior to reconnecting with Gregory. I could theoretically record myself, of course. But for the same reason I wasn’t a good engineer, I don’t enjoy working alone. I love to collaborate, to have someone take the wheel while I focus on performance. Gregory showed me the way back home. When the purpose shifted to paying tribute to Ed, Gregory made time to see the project through to completion. I’d let go of the desire to make another record, and then the record made itself - with the help of Gregory. And Paul.

Gary Paczosa

All of the producers in this article are my dear friends, but Gary Paczosa is the one name on the list that hasn’t worked on my own records. Nevertheless, Gary is one of the most rewarding creative partners of my life. As you’d expect I have mixed feelings about my entire experience as a label head at Rounder Records between 2017 and 2022. I have no regrets, however, because it’s an education I couldn’t have gotten any other way. I worked with many incredibly talented artists and business people during my time. The most satisfying aspect was working with closely with Rounder’s head of A&R Gary Paczosa in developing the label’s roster of talent.

Gary is acknowledged as one of the best engineers in the business, with wide-ranging credits that include Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, Nickel Creek, and Sarah Jarosz, whom he signed to Sugar Hill Records as a teenager. A big part of the value proposition at Rounder was (and is) Gary’s production and engineering services. some of most (creatively and commercially) successful projects we signed, Billy Strings, Sierra Ferrell, The War and Treaty, Katie Pruitt, and others, utilized Gary’s production and/or engineering skills. I tend to focus on the business side of artist development; however, even the best marketing is worthless without creative development in the form of great production. If Gary had a vision for a project, I knew the album would work.

If you think about what a record label should provide, that sort of high-level creative development is more than a value add. In the old days in-house producers made the records. Think of Lenny Waronker, Russ Titleman, or Ted Templeman at Warner Brothers. Or Tom Wilson, George Daly, Terry Melcher for Columbia. A label signed an act and produced in-house. It’s an old fashioned concept now that A&R at the major label level is almost entirely data analytics. As the head of Rounder with Gary as a partner, I knew we had something rare. As long as Gary remains on Team Rounder, that will continue to be the case. If I ever pursue another executive job, I’ll be looking for a similar setup; but I seriously doubt I’ll find it.

In addition to being a world-class engineer, Gary is a great creative A&R guy. I wanted to work at a label specifically because I wanted to develop my own A&R skills under real life conditions.¹ Gary built up my confidence and competence by treating me as a partner and equal in our process. I spent a lot of time in Gary’s studio making those records. Even if I didn’t insinuate myself very often, I always felt encouraged. I don’t miss the job, but the one thing I’ll always miss is working together on so many amazing projects. My executive experience transformed my thinking and approach, and Gary has a lot to do with it.

If you want proof, go back and listen to Sierra Ferrell’s debut album Long Time Coming. Listen on a good system. I still laugh to myself when I think about some of Sierra’s inner circle at the time who believe the album that launched her career - which Gary produced with Stu Hibberd under the worst Pandemic conditions - somehow missed the mark. Now that Sierra has become an acknowledged world-class artist, her artistry has grown and evolved in substance and stature to vindicate the album. People wanted the album to reflect the scrappy, lo-fi street musician Sierra was at the time, as seen in that incredible Gems on VHS video we all fell in love with, rather than the cross-genre transformative global superstar she’s since become. A true artist advocate encourages an artist’s growth and evolution. Gary’s made plenty of great records, but in my opinion that’s the one that should cement his legacy as a genius among geniuses and a visionary among visionaries.

What’s Next?

Who knows, maybe the future of recording from voice prompts where the computer does the hard work will open a new creative era for me. I’m open to that, just so long as the AI shitheads pay the creators for making their machines work. Even if old fashion record production comes to occupy a similar cultural space as blacksmithing, I hope that people continue to learn that sacred skillset.

I’m paying tribute to my friends here, which is something I’ll do at any opportunity. It’s more than that, though. These are some of the people (there are many more) who have blown me away and inspired me with their skills, insights, and deep passion for music. It’s devastating that two of them are already gone. The others are still kicking ass and inspiring me on a regular basis. I know that all creative people who’ve lived as charmed a life as I have will have their own list like this. If they don’t keep such a list, they should count their blessings and remind themselves of all the generous creative souls who have paved their way. In an era where “producer” can mean just about anything, raise a glass to the real ones who dedicate their lives to the art and craft of record making. They’ve enriched our lives in so many ways.

1. This is the way I thought as a young lawyer. I was frustrated because I felt like I was doing most of the job of A&R in finding and developing artists, but I felt it was lower-stakes and lower risk. I don’t think that way anymore - law practice is a fantastic tool box for A&R, in some ways better than a label. Working at a label - and working with Gary - gave me that insight and confidence.