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Pastimes : Deadheads -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SIer formerly known as Joe B. who wrote (21042)	6/16/2000 11:48:00 AM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Respond to of 49843

Getting Persuaded, III sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/06/15/DD57064.DTL THE PERSUASIONS HAVE two basic modes for recording a track for an album. The first is to make it as close to a live performance as possible, all five in the studio together singing a cappella. They listen to the playback, do it a few more times, then each singer does small fixes on the phrasings and pitches. The second mode, more common on ballads, is for Jerry Lawson, the lead singer, and Jimmy Hayes, the bass, to record the song by themselves. When they get a version they like -- and that rarely takes long, because they are prepared when they arrive -- then the two tenors (Joe Russell and Raymond Sanders) put in their harmonies, one by one, followed by Jayotis Washington, the baritone. The second method was in effect for the recording of ``Ripple,'' an early Grateful Dead song from the ``American Beauty'' album. (For those who came in late: The Persuasions are recording an entire album of Grateful Dead songs, to be called ``Might as Well'' and to be released in October.) Some of us who enjoy the Grateful Dead only selectively and occasionally think of ``Ripple'' as being perhaps a little too far toward the ``Desiderata''/haplessly hoping/sandalwood-candles end of the spectrum, despite Robert Hunter's fine lyrics. But I had already heard the Persuasions open up other Grateful Dead songs. Jerry Lawson had picked ``Ripple'' as one of the 14 songs for the album from a list of 35 or so submitted by producers Rip Rense and David Gans, as well as by Hunter himself. So he had an idea. JERRY LAWSON IS a large man in every way, but his voice can be delicate and even modest, serving the lyrics by letting them fall clearly against the melody line. I watched in the control room with the others as he started singing, supported and urged along by Hayes' gentle bass. ``If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine,'' he started, and the silence in the room became deeper. It was like watching a cathedral being built. At the end of the song, the silence was so long that Lawson finally said, ``Was that OK?'' David Gans pressed the talk-back button. ``We're all just stunned in here, Jerry. That was beautiful.'' Rense said: ``You know what we should do? We should leave it just like that. No other parts. It's perfect. Why mess with perfection?'' AND THAT'S MORE or less what happened. In the final version, it's just the two voices for the first three verses. Then, two-thirds of the way through the song, at ``There is a road,'' Russell joins in with the first harmony part, and two lines later Sanders comes in on a higher line. By the words ``Ripple in still water,'' Washington has joined the mix, and it's a Persuasions song. Over the next few days, Gans and Lawson added other elements to the last 45 seconds of the song -- a taste of dobro, a pluck of mandolin. When the all-woman a cappella group Mary Schmary came into the studio to add tracks to ``Might as Well'' (which includes a voice-generated trumpet solo from Alyn Kelley), they also recorded harmonies for the last 15 seconds of ``Ripple,'' which is mostly ``la la la . . .'' Mary Schmary are not backup singers; they do not sound like the typical trio that stands at the edge of the stage doing little fills for the star. Their blend is not angelic; in this mix, they sound more muscular than the Persuasions. It's a collaboration that sounds like a collaboration; it is infected by its own process. Its final line, sung by nine voices, is both a promise and the fulfillment of a promise: ``If I knew the way, I would take you home.'' All that in three minutes and seven seconds. Magic. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth; sometimes it's like drinking honey. Reach out your hand if your cup be jrc@sfgate.com. ú Printer-friendly version ú Email this article to a friend Backflip this page to find it again Jon Carroll's Fine Home Page Getting Persuaded, III 06/15/2000 Getting Persuaded, II 06/14/2000 Getting Persuaded 06/13/2000 Jon Carroll Archives: Feedback ¸2000 San Francisco Chronicle Page E12