By Brown Burnett
MemphisMojo.com editor
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Don Nix
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The end result of the music-recording process is considered more attractive and interesting than the process itself. As someone who has spent most of his adult life around all aspects of the music business, I beg to differ. I enjoy the process MORE than the result. And I always jump at any chance to watch it.
So I get a phone call at 11:45 the other night from producer / songwriter
Don Nix whose first words after my “
hello” are
“I’ve just recorded the best song I’ve done since ‘Goin’ Down’.”
Now first of all, I don’t get many calls from my old friend and second, his
“Goin’ Down” is one of the very few songs that can be called a ‘modern blues classic’. Written more than 3 decades ago, “Goin’ Down” has been recorded many times by many artists, ranging from Jeff Beck to, well, myself. Don’s next words are
“Be at Ardent tomorrow night at 8.”
The last time I got a call like that from Don was 20 years ago and that call came at 1 a.m. –
“Be at Ardent in an hour – I’ve got somebody I want you to meet.” And I ended up eating ribs and drinking Pepsi with a sober and extremely personable
Joe Cocker.
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Ardent’s Studio C
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I show up at Ardent Studios as requested, and while I’m waiting on Don to arrive, I look around Ardent and, despite not having been there in years, am not surprised at what a beautiful, first-class facility they have there – a quiet Memphis landmark if there ever was one.
No wonder artists such as ZZ Top,
Bob Dylan, 3 Doors Down, Marty Stuart, Evanescence, the Gin Blossoms – the who’s who list goes on and on – have made this their studio. A bulletin board has a printout of an MSNBC.com story about
John Hiatt’s new album,Master of Disaster, which was recorded at Ardent and produced by Jim Dickinson.
I greet Don, who’s accompanied by his lovely, savvy fiancée, Veronica. I last saw Don around Thanksgiving week when I had lunch with him and his brother Larry (one of Ardent’s wizards and considered one of the world’s top mastering experts). Don had a bad cold then and wasn’t feeling well, but this night he looked fine, a bit sleepy (musicians keep the same hours as bats, you know) but ready to get to work.
“I’ve already got 11 songs down,” he grins, pointing to the fruits of major comeback effort on his part. Don has spent the better part of the past 20 years raising a family in middle Tennessee, until music and Memphis called him from the woods and fetters of domesticity. So here he is again, with a new life that resembles the best of the old one.
We walk into the studio and an engineer named Matt Martone is hard at work checking over what he and Don had done the previous night. The recording studio is Don’s kingdom and he is a benevolent ruler. He seems to feel more at home in the studio that I do on my own couch. After all, he’s produced and worked with artists such as John Mayall, Delaney and Bonnie, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, the late great Freddy King, and that doesn’t include all those years he worked at
Stax, both as a writer and producer. He also was a member of the seminal Mar-Keys group who had the first Stax mega-hit – “Last Night.”
His self-produced solo albums remain collector’s items, as well as masterful recordings, and he hasn’t done a solo album in more than a decade. Yet he seems to have not missed a beat. When asked if he’s seen the Stax Museum (which has several Don Nix-related items on display) he says,
“Yeah I have. It’s kinda sad to see things you used to wear, on display in a museum. I mean, those used to be my clothes.”
But he says he’s going to go back for a visit and might even perform there some time –
“that would be a blast,” he adds.
I then hear the song he was raving about, “Memphis Man” and it is indeed a fine song but the song that he’s working on at that moment – “Smack Dab In the Middle” –catches my ear. I look at the chord progression chart – and it’s very ordinary looking except for one small, seemingly insignificant variation.
“I learned that from Leon,” Don winks, giving a nod to his old music partner Leon Russell.
“He knows all kinds of stuff like that.”
And, of course, it works – brilliantly – taking the ordinary and makes it interesting and ‘different’ is what it’s all about.
Kenny Brown, a guitar player hired for the session, is in the studio, doing his best to put down a slide track for “Smack Dab”. Don Nix didn’t become Don Nix by being a jerk. A good producer has to get the best out of everyone and since time is money, he has to do it quickly. Kenny is frustrated with making the solo fit and so is Don, who eventually hears enough, and says,
“thanks, Kenny Brown. I’ve got what I need.”
Kenny is given a check and a thank-you handshake. Don isn’t that thrilled with what he received and Kenny beats him to the punch, apologizing for “not hearing it.” Don assures him that he can use it and he is happy, no doubt relying on his own expert ear and Matt’s engineer skills to cull what he needs.
Don then looks at me and asks,
“Can you play harmonica tonight?” I mumble, “Sure, if you really need one.” It seems that the harmonica player Don hired has had trouble getting to the studio and I’m to fill in. I remind Don that he’s the guy who taught me how to PLAY harmonica years ago and, of course, he doesn’t remember, but I do.
We listen to more tracks from the in-progress album and I’m a little frustrated because Don hasn’t really put down the vocals yet – you can faintly hear his singing and that’s what I really wanted to hear this night.
“Oh, I’ll do that last,” he says.
“Still got a ways to go.”
When Memphis session keyboardist
Rick Steff shows up, the entire mood brightens. Rick is one of Memphis’ best players and one of the most under-publicized, yet musicians and producers know all about him. He rolls in and quickly puts both piano and organ tracks down on a couple of songs. Don is
knocked out by him and says through the glass,
“Man, I’d forgotten how you good you were. I KNEW you were great, but I’d forgotten just HOW great.”
Rick politely shrugs off the praise and when he’s finished, Don pulls out his checkbook. The two go back and forth for about 10 minutes over money. Except Rick is insisting that Don NOT pay him.
“Hey man, this is a labor of love for me. Just to be part of this is enough for me,” he says over and over. He finally turns to Veronica and says,
“will you make him (Don) stop?”
He finally takes a check from Don, saying,
“I don’t care what you put on that check – how much doesn’t matter.” Don asks Rick to play on more tracks, they plan dinner together for next week to talk about a solo album for the keyboardist and now it’s on to the harmonica.
By now, Don’s contracted harmonica player is there, an eager young fellow who, like everyone else, seems thrilled just for the opportunity to work at Ardent and with Don Nix. Then Don puts me on the spot, insisting that I ALSO play harmonica.
“No, no,” I say. “Let him play it. He’s your guy. I’m fine with it. Let him do it alone.”
Yet, as only he can do, Don pressures, cajoles and convinces me to play a track also.
His harp player does fine and I’m not sure how I did. It’s late, everyone’s tired and I’m having trouble with my headphones. I emerge from the studio, listen to my track and the other fellow’s track, and once again try to insist that I be left off of the album in favor of the guy who was hired. But Don says he has a better idea.
“We’ll put BOTH tracks on there,” he says in a moment of inspiration.
“What do you think?”
Now who am I to second-guess the man I (and many others) consider to be one of the top producers anywhere, who has written and published hundreds of songs and who can write successful songs on his way to the grocery store?
So Don plays back the two harp tracks SIMULTANEOUSLY, is happy, happy about it and says,
“I’ve never heard anything like this before. This is GREAT !”
So now it’s time to leave, well after midnight - actually an early end for a recording session. Don says he’ll call me when they go back in the studio within the next couple of weeks and continues to try to assure me that his dual-harp idea will work fine. He says Sam the Sham will be in next week to do some backing vocals and invites me to visit the studio again.
I cross Madison, dodge a couple of speeders, get in my car and leave. 4 hours with Don Nix always flies by like lightning. And always an education and privilege.
