The Sound of One Man Recording Steve Beatty records legendary musicians the world over, but he'd rather stay home by D.Also Knocking gently on the door, Steve Beatty steps in wearing shorts over long underwear, an oversized sweatshirt and a knit hat that looks like it's getting ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. This is the man who recorded Burnside on Burnside. He assisted on the recording tour for Bonnie Raitt's Road Tested album. He's recorded albums for Keller Williams, The String Cheese Incident, Precious Bryant, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey and on and on. On the top of his client list is a credit stating live recording and sound engineer for His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Well, in the year of 1986 I was introduced to live recording at Grateful Dead concerts and I thought it was one of the most interesting and innovative ideas to spread music around-to spread music, spread experience, spread vibe to other people. As corny and as hokey as that sounds, it is that in and of itself where I fell in love with live recording. My experience wanting to make a good, live Grateful Dead tape led me to an evening at my friend's bar in Winston Salem, North Carolina that we'd helped build. It was called Ziggy's. He owned it for about 6 months, and had a sound engineer that worked there. And he had a bluegrass star known as Tony Rice playing a solo show there. Well the sound engineer wasn't very talented and was having massive feedback problems that was causing Tony to not be able to play. The people that had paid high-ticket prices were getting really upset and everything. After 3 or 4 tries and an inability to play, Tony said, "I'm gonna stop the show and let the sound man get his act together and see if we can't do it again in about 15 minutes. If not, they'll be happy to give you your money back at the door." So, with that sentence alone, Tony turned 800 people against my friend and my friend had 15 minutes to act. My friend begged me to jump in there, see if there was anything I could do. Through just turning all the dials back to zero and just returning all the eq's to normal type settings I was able to pull it out of the fire. From that day onward I decided that I wanted to do live sound. So that's how I got my start.. You learned a lot in one night. I was able to garner that I had a talent for it and I knew what I wanted to do, but at the same time couldn't just jump into someone else's business and expect to learn on the job. So I had to figure out a way to gain that experience. And unfortunately that's one of those markets where the only way you're going to gain the experience is to do it for free-To try to offer or provide a service for people that they know they want but they know they can't afford. And you've got to just get your chops giving it away.. So how did you go from giving it away to making money at it? It was several years. There was an artist that was fairly popular, on the west coast, more in his earlier days than in his later. Through [working with him] I was able to work in clubs that had high end equipment and gain experience-while at the same time there were only a few people coming out to his shows. You were an assistant to Ed Cherny on Bonnie Raitt's live album. What was that like? That was fantastic. Ed has got to be one of the most energetic and exciting engineers to be around. You can literally feel the art just flowing from inside of him. He's got a total command of the board. Ed was very very particular about what he wanted simply because he knew what he wanted before we even started the project. He had been working closely with Bonnie before the recording tour and was very knowledgeable of the music. Don Was was the producer on that record as well, and he and Ed had been working together for quite some time. Their partnership was magic, and was really something to witness. After he was done every night, I would go look at the board and look at the settings on drums especially. Invisibility almost seems to be Ed's hallmark. If you listen to that Road Tested album, I think its hallmark sound is its softness. It's definitely a pillow of an album-for a live recording especially, I think that's pretty rare. I think Ed did an incredible job.. What was your job? I handled the audience micing and audience recording. This was back in 95, middle of 95. The new recording technology on the market was the digital multitrack recorder, the Tascam DA-88. We had several of those in the back workroom that were functioning as backups to the (also, at the time, new technology) Sony reel to reel digital recorder, the Sony ?348. I was learning all about the DA-88: how to disassemble one, how to clean, how to fix the wiring panels in the back, running all the back-ups and the audience mics to those. Literally, the experience was just off the charts. I mean, talk about fortunate. How did you get the RL Burnside gig? I'd been visiting RL out in Tullahoma Mississippi since the early 90's. My friend JoJo Herman plays piano for Widespread Panic. I was living in Athens, Georgia at the time, and so was JoJo. He introduced me to work he'd been doing at the University of Mississippi in Oxford with these older blues artists in a genre known as the Mississippi Hill Country Blues. Well, I was just absolutely enthralled with it from the first time I heard it. The first artist I heard was Jr. Kimbro. JoJo said, "We're gonna start this little label in Oxford, and it's my way of giving back to some of the artists I met when I was in school there." I thought that was the greatest thing I'd ever heard. Hearing the music just blew me away. It was a live recording of Jr. Kimbro at the Juke Joint that Jr. and RL shared on Highway 4 in Tullahoma. So I said to JoJo, "When, where, how can I see this?" We went out 2 weeks later. When did you first meet RL? I think it was that first night back in January of 94-when we first went out there... What's he like? RL is a true American icon. RL is supernatural. His presence, his being, his reality-the space he occupies in the world just makes everything around him glow. Is there any blues in Portland that you like? I haven't really had the opportunity to get involved with the local blues scene as I had hoped. But my company recorded a record for Bernard Purdie called Purdie Good Cooking. It was recently released and the reviews on it have been very very solid. It featured several of Portland's blues and jazz folks, including Linda Hornbuckle and Thera Memory, but Thera's more jazz for sure. I think Portland's got a fantastic local blues society: The Cascade Blues Society has done wonders for blues events that I've attended. Why is live recording such a specialized field in Portland? Live recording doesn't seem to appeal to many of the Portland based bands, as live recording is often a statement to longevity and is really only relevant if a band has an extended career. In the independent music culture that seems to thrive in Portland, I think often times you find members of bands-they drop out for one reason or another, whether it be to return to school, move south to Eugene or maybe join a different band. I believe that part of the independent music culture that thrives here in Portland-that doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with longevity. I do believe that live recording finds its true niche in music that has a long lifespan. If we were just to use the Burnside On Burnside as an example, people 40 years from now might want to hear what that blues sounded like live. I think that for live recording to really have an impact it's got to be something that is representative of a specific vibe or culture that needs to be preserved. Do you think that bands who see themselves as having the potential for longevity could benefit from what you do? Absolutely. I think one of the most overlooked uses of live recording is the initial-after the first studio record or the first gathering of 4 or 5 songs to an EP-I would highly recommend that if a band is ready at that point to say to each other, and themselves as individuals, that we're ready to pursue this-absolutely the best thing that a band can do, in my opinion, if you plan on playing anywhere besides the neighborhood pub is to have one of your shows, or a weekend's worth of your shows recorded live and produce a short-run, full-length disc.s Just to be able to prove your ability on-stage? Yes, and it's to give a true representation to your regional booking agent, and management possibilities, of what your band is truthfully all about. What's the most difficult aspect of live recording for you, the engineer? Learning a band's music. It's not micing the drums vs. the bass, but being able to jump in and- [shaking head]-and learn the band's music. That's a surprise. I guess it makes sense, though. So, ok, you're in demand all over the world. Your work has put you in touch with some of the biggest names in music and politics. You also have a wife and a small child. You're also putting in new floors at your house. How do you balance all the different aspects of your life? Right now it's pretty full throttle. As a matter of fact, we had a little heated discussion yesterday. I was finally, like, "I haven't had any rest in a couple of months, and I don't want to do the floors any more right now." So it does come down to it...but at the same time, if you told me 10 years ago, that this is what we'd be talking about today, I never would have believed you. I'm eternally grateful for every fortunate turn of events that's come my way. And if this is as hard as it gets-if this is what I need to learn to do is balance all this fortunate stuff-my beautiful daughter who's 6 months old now and a promising career...How do you balance it? Well, you just do. You get less sleep. You learn to breathe deep. What are your goals now? I just want to be able to make a living for myself and my wife and my daughter. My goals are to enjoy recording beautiful, wonderful music for posterity's sake. The things like RL Burnside, Precious Bryant, STS9 is extremely important music in the overall make-up. I guess my goal would be that these artists-that I'm able to help these artists maintain the level of honor and respect-and be cherished the way that they should be-in a more historical sense, 40 or 50 years from now. What does living in Portland offer you, and what do you offer Portland by living here? Living in Portland right now offers me a wonderful home base. As I think we've touched on, I've not found many avenues to work locally. But my wife and child and my dogs and horse enjoy living here very very much. In terms of my lifestyle, living in Portland allows me to eat and commune and socialize with people that I'm honored to know and feel strengthened by. The level of local community support in Portland amongst organizations that represent just the different 15 block neighborhoods I've always found very endearing. Also, the Western culture as a whole in the United States I find to be much more enlightened in a societal sort of-a fuller view of society. Maybe more of a holistic view, instead of just an immediate governing view. Sort of a total impact thing that the Western culture embodies. I love Portland for everything it offers me on a leisurely scale, but would love to develop a working career here as well. That would be the ultimate goal I suppose. I certainly believe that we have the music going public-the diverse collection of folks-Portland's always been fantastic for that. I just don't think that we have the venue that supports the quality of music-goers that we have. Steve is: Real Image Recording More on RL: www.fatpossum.com |
At the time, the Burnside and the Kimbro families were sharing a large stretch of property on Highway 4. Every Saturday and Sunday nights there were huge parties at the Juke Joint and Sunday included a fish fry, barbeque type gathering. Selling dollar beers and 5 dollar half-pints of moonshine. You could ride out there. And certainly the first time we got out there, we were the only folks of lighter skin in sight. It was really interesting because one could be as afraid as they wanted to be or not. And going out there, of course I felt secure because JoJo knew everybody, but still-there'd be times you'd be dancing by yourself or just hanging out, and realize that you were as far out of your element as probably people got in that area. But, it was exactly what you brought into it. Your feelings allowed you to have whatever sort of time you wanted at the Juke Joint. And it worked that way for everybody. As friendly and social as you wanted to be, that's how you were met.