BF: You use the word ‘real’ often. We live in an age of overstatement, where words like ‘genius’ and ‘authentic’ and ‘real’ get thrown around handily. When someone asks you to produce them, they’re looking for the qualities you’re known for. So, in essence, how do you “keep it real”? How do you prepare an environment where something ‘real’ can come about?

BR: Well, I’m a big fan of capturing a performance on tape, or whatever it is now. If someone asks me to produce, or co-produce a record, I just try and get that artist comfortable, find out where they want to work, and make them comfortable so they can perform. And then I like to try and get a performance out of an artist; cut everything, one take, full band.

I don’t what kind of music you listen to, but my favorite records are live performances. The great blues stuff like Little Walter, Muddy Waters…

I just read this thing about Tom Petty and his new record (_Mojo_]. He did it that way. It’s a great piece of work. He did it in his rehearsal space, live off the floor, with no overdubs. Everything was cut live. To me, there’s nothing greater than capturing a live performance. If everybody feels good about it, you capture something that’s special.

There’s a lot of ways to make records, you know? Get a drum machine and build it from there. There’s some good recordings done [that way], but when I put something on and listen to it, I love listening to performances. So, I always try and go for that. I don’t always get it, but I always try and go for that.

BF: When you’re listening to music, it’s obvious that it’s a true experience for you. Do you think that these days, where people are so accustomed to “music as noise” constantly bombarding them, that people have forgotten how to listen?

BR: Well, it could be… There’s so much occupying their airways. There’s so much information going around now, that I think a lot of people’s ears are just shut down. It’s just like overload.

The introduction of ProTools, I’m not so convinced it’s such a good deal. Everybody’s making records in their house, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But ProTools, you can do almost anything with it. You can auto-tune something that’s out of tune; you can put this in, instead of that. A lot of what I hear today, a lot of ‘modern’, contemporary music, sounds like it came out of a computer. It doesn’t even sound like real people in a room, playing and singing. It sounds like a computer spit it out or something. I hear a lot of that, and I’m not a big fan of that. It doesn’t stir up any emotion in me. I put on Muddy Waters singing “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had”, or Marvin Gaye singing “Trouble Man”, I get chills. That’s where it’s at for me, some real people singing about something that they care about.

There’s nothing wrong with pop music, [it’s] like… functional pottery. I can appreciate functional pottery, but it’s not sculpture, you know what I’m saying? I’ll drink out of a glass that somebody made and you can drink out of. It serves a function, and that’s great. But, then it’s not sculpture. You look at a really great sculpture, and you’re moved. It affects you emotionally.

BF: Some of Muddy Waters’ best-selling, highest-regarded albums were produced by Johnny Winter, a great guitarist and producer who totally loved and understood the artist he was producing. Do you think good musicians make better records than non-musicians?

BR: Not necessarily. That’s a good question. I don’t really know. I’m not familiar with all the producers out there, but I think most of them probably play something. “Producing” is a very wide title. I know there are some producers who just come in and run the session. There’s producers that just sit back and are a sounding board for the artists. They’ve listened and maybe they’ve thrown out some ideas. Then there are guys who are hands on the board, get really involved, and have a ‘sound’. Then there’s producers who play in the session. They’re inside of the music.

There’s a lot of different ways. Myself, I’m a player, so I offer that up. Some times I play, sometimes I don’t. I produced a record When the Devil Goes Blind that just came out in July by a guy named Charlie Parr, who is out of Duluth, Minnesota. That was really an enjoyable project. I didn’t play one note, and I enjoyed it as much as playing a session. What I try and do is serve the song. The song is really king. If you listen close to the song, it will tell you, it will guide you.

BF: “Serve the song” is another overstated phrase, but it’s a lifestyle for you. When you go into a session, what do you key into in order to ‘serve the song’? Lyrics? The music?

BR: It’s all of it. The music is big. So much comes out of the music. I try and do everything I can to get the artist’s vision on tape. Now, every artist is different. Some writers, like Greg Brown for example, he hears the songs before he writes them. It’s stunning… it’s a true gift. Pieta Brown, the same thing. She hears the songs, and then writes them [grins].

Lucinda Williams told me one time, “There ain’t very many of us.” And if you listen closely, she’s right. There’s not very many real songwriters. Greg Brown is one, so is Pieta. Real songwriters, they hear it. So, when I work with an artist like that, I just say “What are you hearing?”, and they have a lot to say. So we go from there, if I’m working with an artist like that. And then I work with artists who don’t hear ‘it’, as much.

BF: It’s more of a seed, then you grow it?

BR: Yeah. Like, Lucinda Williams for example. I was sitting at her table and we were playing, and I said, “Now, OK, you just went to the four there.” And she goes “Don’t talk to me about that four and that five and all that. I don’t know anything about that. [I was like] “Wow… okay.”

BF: We are in an age where the Big Studios could become a thing of the past fairly soon. People are self-recording much more, as you’ve already noted. Why do artists still need producers?

BR: I think ‘producers’- a lot of that has gone away. I was producing records, and then all of a sudden, I wasn’t. Now, it’s kinda coming back around, and I think it’s because it’s important for an artist to have somebody that they respect, to just be able to bounce ideas off of. Or have a producer throw ideas at them, or just to open things up and get some ideas flowing.

BF: I know you are trying to make the artist comfortable, but how much of the process is challenging them as well? Say, they like a take, but to your ears, it’s not the one.

BR: Well, ok, you have to speak up. You have to challenge the artist sometimes. I think getting the artist comfortable is just environment; if they’re aware of studios, [and say] “I really like this studio”, then it’s ok, we’ll go there. Or just say, “How about this place? I did some work in here, and I think you’ll really like it.” So you challenge them in that way. I remember when I worked with Lucinda. We had looked at Ardent Studios in Memphis, House of Blues in Memphis, we went to Jim Dickinson’s trailer and spent a day with him. It was all great.

I said “Well, I’m gonna throw something on the table. I’ve done a lot of work with this studio in Minneapolis. I think it’s great, and I think you might really like it. It’s got all the goods, it’s comfortable, the engineer is world-class.” She kinda took my word, and that’s what we did. And we ended up recording there.

BF: You get good tone. Many albums anymore don’t have good tone. What can be done to bring back good tone?

BR: Turn the compressors down, for one thing. I’m not a big fan of compression, but that’s what I hear a lot of these days. A lot of records are over-compressed. And tone, I think, is all about good musicians, playing in a good room, with good microphones. Good players in a good sounding room… the room is big. It’s a big deal. And that’s why those big studios were built. ‘Cause there’s some amazing rooms, [and] I’ve worked in a few of ‘em.

In fact, I’m going to one to make a Greg Brown record, and it’s no longer a studio. It’s an engineering school [Minneapolis Media Institute, owned by Essence co-producer Tom Tucker and Dick McCalley], just out of necessity. The guy had to make a living, you know? It’s not a studio anymore. But at one time it was called Flyte Tyme, which a lot of big records came out of. He’s making arrangements for us to record there, and I’m really looking forward to it, because it’s amazing. It’s designed by Glenn Phoenix, one of the great studio designers in the world. You just go in there and it’s an amazing space, and it just sounds so good. It’s designed to sound good. If you read an interview with T-Bone Burnett, or Daniel Lanois, or any of these producers, they talk a lot about the room.

BF: That’s why they use a small, revolving set of studios.

BR: Absolutely. They’re great sounding rooms. And that’s how you make great sounding records. And tone is one of my favorite words in the English language. It’s just a great sounding word, and it really matches the meaning. And I love hearing things that sound good.

BF: You’ve worked in many genres, with many levels of musicians. What’s the best advice you could give readers on how to improve their sound?

BR: Good tone can mean nasty and dirty, or clean and pretty.

BF: Elmore James.

BR: Good tone! Robert Nighthawk. Great tone. It can mean a lot of different things. I remember this one guy who had a band and I didn’t know them. They came in and we went to work. And I was working with the guitar player a little bit, and I thought, maybe I could offer a few different ideas to get a better guitar sound, If I hear something back and I think “Man, the guy’s playing great, but the sound is not great”, then maybe I’ll offer up some options. That’s what I’ve always worked really hard [at]. I’m a guitar player, so I try and get good tone myself. I’ve studied the gear, the guitars; I work hard at exploring all that.

After doing the Knopfler thing, both Mark and his guitar player, Richard Bennett, were playing Tone King Amps. [Of Bennett] I’m a big fan, he’s an amazing musician. And I’m like “What’s up with these Tone Kings, boys? Fill me in!” [laughs] So we were in DC, and the Tone Kings are made in Baltimore, and the guy came out during sound check and was talking to Mark and Richard. Anyway, I had to get with the fellas and get a Tone King [laughs].

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