The making of "Americana"

Welcome to The making of "Americana". The creating of any professional quality CD is quite an undertaking. Creating your FIRST professional CD is quite an experience! This is where we show you some pictures and share with you some details about how the CD "Americana" was created. How we got started, etc.

It all started in Dallas at a Piano bar in the Wyndham Anatole hotel in July of 2000 where I met Gleni Tai...

After hearing me sing a few songs at the piano, Gleni started to encourage me to do more with my music. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Gleni (I know I was) she has had quite a musical career including singing backup for Elvis and Neil Diamond, singing backup on the recording "My Sweet Lord" with George Harrison, singing what have become known as the "PAMS" jingles for WABC and being vocal coach to major recording artists. So encouragement from her, meant a lot to me.

I explained to her that while I would LOVE to do more with my music, I don't really live in the center of musical activity and that I would appreciate any suggestions she might have as to how I should proceed. She and her husband, recommended a book and gave me some other things to think about. She said that I should create a demo.

Going back to Dallas in early 2001, I visited her again at the Mirage bar at the Anatole hotel. After singing a few more songs, the idea for creating a demo came up again. This time, she offered to be the producer of the CD if I could get down to Dallas to do the recording. (For those who don't know, a "Producer" is someone who gets paid to coordinate all aspects of the CD production.) The original idea was to have the CD finished by May 2001. After I went back home though, I realized that my schedule was too tight for that and had to postpone it.

I guess that Gleni thought that my postponement indicated that I had developed "Cold feet" about the whole thing and had written me off. But I was back in Dallas again in July and I assured her that it was nothing more than a schedule conflict. After all, at this point, I am not making my primary income from music! This is when things really started to move forward.

What had to be done now was mostly up to Gleni. I had to get my flights and hotel arrangements and to rehearse everything so that I would be ready in the studio. Gleni had to work with me to finish the song selection, get the arrangements made, put them in the right key, find the musicians, locate a studio and engineer, coordinate schedules, etc. Well that is what a producer is suppose to do!

At this point, I am getting a bit anxious. As you can imagine, people to whom I relate this story are all asking me, "Are you sure she's for real?" I mean I only met her a while ago and what do I really know about her? There is a sum of money that needs to be exchanged here and I am the one that has to come up with it! Thankfully my Dad funded most of the production costs but it was still quite a chunk of money at risk here, all based on the my belief that this was going to work out!

Well, I went through (And put my wife and secretary through) quite a bit of anxiety over the whole thing as Gleni and I communicated long distance about the project (It really would have been a whole lot easier if I had lived in Dallas!). Was it on? Would we ever reach contractual agreement? Am I really going to Dallas to do this? Am I up to it? All of these things went through my mind. After all, the picture I have of myself at this point is quite the New England bumpkin trying to do something that no 45 year old should be thinking about!

Well, I am not one to give up on this crazy idea so I kept following it through no matter what my vivid imagination (And the imagination of others) would have me think!

After much work, getting the right songs selected, arranged, etc. we finally set the date, Nov 15th, 2001 to go into the studio. Flights were reserved. Hotel accommodations were arranged and on Nov 14th (My 45th Birthday) my wife and I flew off to Dallas, Texas to record this CD!

On the evening of November 15th at about 6:00pm, we went into the studio for the first time, to record the instrumental tracks. "Scratch" vocal tracks were also recorded that night. Impressed? I was! 10 songs with Guitar, Bass, Drums, Harmonica, Piano, Pedal Steel Guitar, Mandolin, Fiddle, Trumpet, Scratch vocals and Trombone were all recorded that night! These musicians (Some of whom had been in LeAnn Rimes' touring band, as well as many other impressive credits) were working from charts they had never seen and the whole thing got laid down that night before midnight.

Here are some pictures from that evening

The engineer (Kent Stump):

The band (Back row: Andrew Frye, Sean McCurley, Kevin Bailey, Jerry Matheny):

General Session shots:

On Friday Nov 16th, we basically rested up for the vocal session that was suppose to take place on Saturday the 17th. Gleni and I got together that evening to work out some of the final details for the Saturday session.

On Saturday Nov 17th, we got a call saying that the session scheduled for today would have to be postponed. The wife of the engineer had been in quite a car accident and while she was basically OK, she was pretty traumatized and we would have to wait until Sunday to do the vocals.

After regrouping, it was decided to do the photo shoot on Saturday instead of Sunday. This proved to be a good thing as the weather was perfect for it. Photos were taken in downtown Dallas in the area where the life-size Longhorn sculptures are. Also some shots were taken on a train engine that was idling on a track, just outside of downtown. The shots that you see on the CD were a result of this photo shoot.

The Photographer (Spook, Rob and Gleni):

After shooting the photos Gleni, Amy (my wife) and I went off to find some good old fashioned Texas barbeque. Lunch at the Hickory House was the result.

After that, it was back to the hotel to rest up for the next day's session

Sunday Nov 18th 11:00am recording of vocals. Starting with the Backup vocalists (Pam, Lynn and Gleni), Gleni worked with them to lay down their tracks.

The backup singers (Pam Musgrove, Lynne Rutherford and Gleni Tai):

Of course I had to have a picture with them too (Rob, Lynne and Pam)!

Then basically Gleni and I worked in the studio with Kent engineering in the booth and all (we thought) of the additional tracks were laid down.

Rob recording vocals (Gleni & Rob):

Some of the tracks from the "Scratch" vocals that were recorded Thursday evening with the band were good enough to be used as well. Recording was finished up at about 3:30pm and it was off to a Mexican Restaurant for a late lunch.

Sunday evening 7:00pm Amy and I were sitting in the Mirage Bar at the Hotel discussing this incredible voyage we had been on. Amy asked me what my favorite song was (which of course I couldn't say) and then what my least favorite one was. Thinking about that forced me to start going through all of the songs that we had recorded that day. I suddenly realized that we hadn't recorded the vocal track for "Wabash Cannonball"!!

At this point we were scheduled to leave tomorrow (Monday) morning from the hotel about 8:00am to catch our 11:00am flight back home. Everyone had left the studio. What to do?? Well you call the producer of course! She can fix anything!

Well she tried calling the studio. No answer. She tried the engineer's place. No answer. Amy had gotten a card of someone when we first walked in to the studio last Thursday evening. She thought that it was the card of the engineer but looked at it anyway. It turned out to be the card of one of the owners. We gave that name to Gleni and after calling all of the people in the Dallas phone book with the same last name, Gleni was able to schedule in a session on Monday morning. This of course would mean that we would have to reschedule our flights but we were still able to leave the same day.

Monday morning around 11:00am, as planned, we went back into the studio to lay down the tracks (No pun intended) for "Wabash Cannonball". All went well and we were out of there in about an hour. One last stop at "Mama's Daughter's Diner" for some great pie and we were off to the airport!

What an experience!!! A real dream come true for me! I think this proves that it is never too late to go after your dreams! We hope that you like the CD. We had a great time making it for you.

Live Your Dream!

Rob Oxford