Craig Inanen
How Sweet the Sound
I’ve never claimed to be friends with Hubert from Cotton Pickin’ Records. We’re business associates, I guess you could say. I make music; he records it and sells it. We’ve both done what we do for a long time and have a certain respect for each other.
Hubert comes across as kind of a down home laid-back guy but he’s succeeded in a cut-throat business and hasn’t done it by being easy going. He knows music and the music business, what sells and what won’t. He started out buying a little two track recording studio with money he’d earned working as an electrician on Chicago’s South Side. Now he runs a modern studio and company.
Me, I’m KJ Butler. I sing and play the Blues, mostly with Old John Otum. I also handle the rest of it, bookings, transportation, scheduling, the money end of things, all the essential behind the scenes stuff. If you look long enough and close enough you can find my name on some albums. Usually it’s in fine print, listed after guitar – additional vocals. I sang and played with Lucille Tucker on the road and in the studio for years. I broke into the music business back in 1968, performing with Redbone Newton on Maxwell Street in Chicago after he’d been reduced to playing for quarters and dollar bills. They found him frozen to death on an Elevated platform years later, clutching an empty bottle of MD20/20. If you’re thinking I’m an old-school Bluesman, you’re right.
So I was surprised when Hubert called me up in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. He got right to it. “KJ,” he said, “I need some help and I don’t know who else to turn to.”
“Yeah?” That was a safe response. Right at the moment I was in his good graces. The way to do that with Hubert is to make music that makes money for him. Old John and I haven’t done that in a while but I did put him in touch recently with a promising harmonica player and was instrumental in getting our drummer, Ruby Blue, to record a song called “Angry Sea” for him. It had gone to Cotton Pickin’ Records #1 catalog spot, staying there for a while, 11 weeks or so. It topped out at #21 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart.
“I had a girl walk in this morning, no session, no appointment, no nothing. The only reason she got in, she followed the FedEx man through the front door when Chantel unlocked it.” Cotton Pickin’ Records is in an aged building on the far South Side of Chicago in a bad neighborhood off Cottage Grove Avenue. “Chantel talks with her a little bit,” he continued, “and bless her heart she has the sense to send her back to me.”
“Yeah?” I said again. When you’re singing the Blues and you get a line that works, repeat it.
“So this girl walks into my office. She’s 21 years old, carrying a mandolin that has to be two or three times as old as her. Straight out of the hills of Kentucky and she sounds like it. She says, “Are you the boss man?” I tell her yes, that’s me. She says, “I wonder if you’d like to record me singin’ and playin’ on this here mandolin?” I don’t know, I tell her, what do you sing?”
“Songs,” she says. “Like this one,” and starts in playing that mandolin. She begins “Barbara Allen.” She’s not bad. Then she starts to sing and it’s the damnest thing I’ve ever heard. Her voice is good, pure and sweet and she moans. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“She moans?”
“Yep,” Hubert told me. “It’s like the weight of the world is on her shoulders when she does it. Bring tears to your eyes. I ask her do you do anything other than traditional songs like that. She says that’s about it.”
“So she plays and sings old time songs. Folk songs.”
“Appalachian tunes,” Hubert clarified. “I tell her sing me another one and she sings “I Gave My Love a Cherry.” If anything it’s even sadder and sweeter.”
“That sounds good.”
“I need a guitar player for her. You can play that Carter scratch style, can’t you?”
“Oh man. I don’t know about this.”
“You used to play it for Lucille Tucker.”
“Sometimes,” I agreed. “A long time ago.”
“KJ,” Hubert said. “Help me out here. I’m afraid she’s going to go back to Kentucky.”
“Go back?”
“That’s right. I told her that the studios were all in use and we’d record tomorrow.” I hunted up my old Gibson acoustic guitar and some extra strings and called John Otum.
“I got a call from Hubert over at Cotton Pickin’ and he asked me to come in tomorrow for some session work.” John has got me under a personal services contract so technically he has to OK anything I do so far as music goes. He’s pretty free and easy about it.
“Why you?” His curiosity was apparently aroused.
“Some girl from Kentucky. He wants someone who can play Carter scratch style.” That was when I realized I didn’t even know her name. “Appalachian songs, probably some Child stuff.” The Child Ballads are traditional ballads from England and Scotland and their American variants which were collected during the 1800s.
“Interesting, you never know what Hubert will get up to. Have fun.” I played around with it the rest of the day, picking some old Carter family songs I hadn’t played in 20 years. By the time I was ready to go to bed I was confident I could still play like that. Actually it didn’t sound too bad.
The next day I showed up at Cotton Pickin’ Records at 7:00. I don’t like to be late although recording probably wouldn’t start until 10:00 or so. Hubert hadn’t told me. Nafe, the sound engineer arrived a few minutes later. He parked around back, like me, in the alley by the dumpster. He drives a van like I do too because he hauls around a wheelchair. I’ve got Ruby Blue’s drum kit in the back of mine. I made certain to lock up. It’s that kind of neighborhood. I don’t know why Nafe is in a wheelchair. He never said and I never asked. He’s as good a sound engineer as I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen some good ones.
“Morning Nafe.”
“Morning KJ. Why are you here so early? We don’t have anything scheduled.”
“I’m going to play guitar for some girl.”
“Oh yeah, that must be that folk singer. She’ll be here with Chantel, she’s picking her up. Nobody tells me anything,” Nafe grumbled. “Rosemary, that’s her name, Rosemary Lee. You bring your acoustic?” Nafe knows just about everything, he just likes to complain. I knew better than to offer to help with his wheelchair, too. That’s an offer that wouldn’t be appreciated. “I’ll put you in studio 3. You’ll have about 2 hours to practice.” Studio #3 is also a practice room. It’s what’s known as a “dead room,” it’s got acoustic panels all over it and there isn’t a window looking onto it from the control room. It’s small, too, I think it used to be a janitors room or something like that before the building became a recording studio.
Nafe got the lights and things turned on and got me situated in studio 3. “Go find a couple chairs,” he told me and then rolled away, apparently contemptuous of people who don’t come equipped with their own chairs, like he does. I found two in the lunch and break room. There’s a sign in there reading, “Your mother doesn’t work here. You will have to clean up after yourself.”
Chantel arrived with Rosemary Lee, who didn’t look as if she was 21 years old. She looked about 14, had freckles and carried an old mandolin. The finish was worn away in various spots down to the bare wood.
“This is Rosemary Lee,” Chantel told me. “She’s from Kentucky.” She went on, “Rosemary, this is KJ Butler, he’s a famous guitar player. He’ll play for you today. It’ll be a couple hours before we start recording so you and him can practice together a bit.” That’s unusual, normally when I play studio guitar I don’t get that opportunity. Studio time is at a premium, you better be ready to play when the session starts.
“You really famous?” Rosemary asked me.
I was stumped how to answer that. “Probably not, I’ve been playing for a long time, though.”
“I generally play with my uncle, my mama’s brother. Cost too much for him to come up.” She looked around the dirty room. “They sure are nice here. That Chantel took me to breakfast in a restaurant this morning an’ she pick me up. That’s a pretty name, Chantel. The big boss Hubert got me a taxi yesterday too. Yeah, they’re real nice.” I agreed they were real nice and thought to myself there must be something special about this girl to warrant that sort of treatment. That wasn’t like Hubert at all.
“What would you like to play?” I asked her.
“You know “The Riddle Song?”
“Sure,” I told her. I played a little bit and sang, “I gave my love a cherry that has no stone.” I’d practiced that one last night.
“You got a nice voice,” she told me. “You want to sing it along with me?” She smiled and looked hopeful.
“Thank you,” I told her. “I think Hubert wants you to sing by yourself. Go ahead and let me hear you.” I have to admit I wasn’t prepared for the clarity of her voice, crystal clear with a silvery undertone. It was nearly without vibrato, equalized in all of its registers. She didn’t force her tones, they came clearly and naturally. Although she spoke as an alto she sang as a soprano with a three-octave range. I was amazed; all I could think was how sweet the sound was.
“Is that all right?” she asked.
“That’s good,” I told her. She sang “Lord Gregory” and “One Morning in May,” a short song. When she did “Farewell to Tarwathie” I heard what Hubert was talking about when he said she moans. Playing and singing the Blues I’ve heard singers moan before. Sometimes you’ll hear someone hum and sometimes a cross between the two. Screams and shouts are not uncommon. What Rosemary Lee did was something else. I was shaken.
Then she sang “Barbara Allen” and moaned throughout that one. “In Scarlet Town, where I was born, there was a fair maid dwellin', made every youth cry well-a-day and her name was Barbara Allen.” It tells the story of a young man who dies of unrequited love for Barbara Allen and the curse he lays upon her. That’s my interpretation anyway.
I was concerned. Her voice was so delicate and fragile sounding, like some rare Chinese vase. With that much singing I began to worry she wouldn’t have anything left for the actual recording. I doubted that she was trained as a vocalist, practiced perhaps, but not trained. Rosemary Lee herself didn’t seem fragile. She appeared healthy, full of life, the kind of girl who skinned her knees and kept on playing, climbing apple trees or something. If anything she was brimming over with life and enthusiasm. Most recording sessions last 3 hours and there’s a reason. A person’s abilities and capabilities degrade after that.
Instead of singing whole songs I began having her sing first verses so I could learn the rhythms and melodies. I knew “Amazing Grace” and “Pretty Polly.” That’s an old murder ballad which comes from an even older song, “The Gosport Tragedy.” I’ve heard it sung as Molly instead of Polly. I guess that’s the way it goes with songs that are passed down orally from generation to generation. I didn’t know “The Bonny Ship the Diamond” although when I heard it, it sounded familiar. Maybe I knew a song related to it. That one sounds better chorded rather than picked. When Rosemary Lee sang it she unleashed a power in her voice I hadn’t heard before. I was intrigued and would have liked to hear her sing the whole thing. I stopped her, though; I’d get my opportunity when we were actually recording. I’d heard variations of “The Mossy Banks of the Lea” as a banjo song. There were others tantalizingly familiar and some I’d never heard at all before.
“Have you ever heard this one?” I asked. I played and sang “Long Black Veil” which sounds like an old ballad but was originally recorded in 1959 by Lefty Frizell.
Apparently she hadn’t. She listened, transfixed as I spun out the tale of a man falsely accused of murder and executed. It centers on the visits a woman pays to his grave, wearing a long black veil. “Oh, that’s a good ‘un,” she told me after I finished, “She visits my grave when the night winds wail.” Then she asked, “Kin you teach me?”
I have to admit that’s one of my favorites. My voice is well suited for it, too. Deep and low, a newspaper reporter once wrote, “He sounds like he’s singing from the center of the earth.” I began teaching her, line by line.
Hubert came in and was immediately dismayed. “What’re you doing? You’re not supposed to be singing.”
“Teaching her a new song,” I told him.
“It’s a good ‘un,” Rosemary Lee chipped in. “A real corker. It’s about this man…”
Hubert cut her off. “I know the song.”
We all looked at one another. “Giving her voice a rest,” I explained. “We’re all set.” He was instantly mollified which didn’t make sense as she was singing each line after me. Maybe it was hearing we were all set or maybe he had some of the same concerns I did. After a brief exchange of “good mornings” and idle conversation we moved to studio #1. Hubert joined Nafe in the control room, standing behind him, watching over his shoulder.
“See those lights?” I asked Rosemary Lee. “When the red one blinks twice, when it flashes, they’re ready to start recording. When the green one comes on they’re actually recording. When it goes out and the red one blinks again the recording is stopped and it’s OK to just talk.”
“What’s that white one?”
“They don’t use that any more. Back when they actually rolled tape they used it.”
Nafe’s voice came over the studio speaker. “I need your set list.”
Rosemary Lee and I looked at one another. Finally I said, “We don’t have one.”
He shook his head in annoyance. “What you’ll need to do is say the title of the song clearly when the red light flashes. I’ll introduce it as Rosemary Lee, the song title, then the take number. You got it?”
“You do that,” I told her.
“I think so,” she said. It was obvious she’d never been in a recording studio. “Just any song I want?”
Hubert leaned over Nafe’s shoulder. “Start out with “Barbara Allen” then sing the ones you’ve been practicing. Any order you want.”
The red light blinked. Rosemary Lee said “Barbara Allen” and it flashed.
Nafe’s voice intoned “Rosemary Lee, “Barbara Allen” take #1.” The flashing stopped, the green light came on. We began. Thirty seconds into it he told us, “Stop.”
She looked at him and then at me. “Did I do somethin’ wrong?”
“He’s going to reset the microphones,” I told her. Nafe wheeled into studio #1 and did that. He also moved some tall acoustic panels on wheels from against the wall so they surrounded us. A shorter half panel was placed between us. Hubert leaned on the control panel, watching through the glass.
Finally Nafe told us, “Rosemary Lee, “Barbara Allen” take #2” The lights sequenced and we started again. This time it apparently sounded satisfactory. She sang it all the way through, moaning as she had done before in the appropriate spots. When she was done singing the lights flashed. Hubert gave us two thumbs up as a signal. I don’t know where that comes from, maybe old-time railroads.
The session went well. When she announced “The Bonny Ship the Diamond” I chorded it, rather than picked it. I could see by the expression on his face Hubert was surprised when she unleashed the power of her voice on that one. He and Nafe looked at one another but kept recording. I knew Nafe’s talented hands, out of sight through the window and behind the control panel were busy adjusting.
We continued at a slow deliberate pace. Very few instructions came from the control room. A couple of times Nafe asked for a second take. We’d been recording for nearly three hours when Rosemary Lee asked me, “You want to sing that black veil song?”
Might as well, I thought. I knew we had something really special already and we’d run through all the songs we’d practiced. “Sure,” I told her.
“I’ll join in,” she said. I nodded. She spoke, “Long Black Veil.” Hubert’s eyebrows raised and his brow furrowed. She did that moaning thing over the top of my singing. Somehow she’d figured out that would be more effective than singing in parts or in harmony. The wonder on Hubert’s face was apparent. When we finished the final notes drifted away. She said, “That’s all we got.” Hubert gave us the double thumbs up again.
He came into the studio, escorting me out by the arm. “I’m going to take Rosemary Lee to lunch and talk some business. Good session.”
“You didn’t say much,” I commented. Hubert and Nafe are normally not hesitant to give artists instructions.
“I don’t know how I could have improved on that,” he told me. “I’m just glad we were able to capture it.”
