CBLL028 Le Roy Jackson "Every Time" Version + Vocal Reeltape Demo
“After the well deserved and long awaited season holidays there’s nothing like a good new release to set the new year off to a great start and oh man if this is good, oh man if this is new! Here we come with the 2nd drop of our program that took the obligatory head title of “Detroit Reels Project” after Cannonball Records joined Phil Dick and Brad Hales in this preservation plan of the musical heritage of an area that keeps on giving in terms of new discoveries. Nothing surprising if you think that, in those 2 magic decades of the 60’s and 70’s, Detroit and its surroundings were home to a jaw-dropping number of roughly 400 record labels. Of course a good 70% of that figure is private labels with barely one or two releases in the catalogue but the actual question is: if the labels were 400, how many were the bands? How many recording studios in the area, whether professional or basement set ups? These unanswered questions give you a rough idea of the potential quantity of music that was put on a tape at the time. Comin to the release in question, oh boy if that was fun! The vocals from Le Roy barely supported by a guitar were wrapped up by tons of reverb givin it a blues-ish feel that still remains in the completed version we pulled off in the studio. So the challenge this time was: how that song would have been developed to a release stage by arrangers and producers of the time? Assuming this was one of the very early takes (otherwise you would hear at least a piano and a rhythm section sketch in the background) we needed to be respectful but at the same time cut a version reflecting these elapsed 40 years. Beside recreating part of the vocals to extend the duration, we have been lucky to identify the guitar used in the demo was a Gibson 325 and we took it from there. When it came to record the drums we used condensers and ribbon mikes placed at different distances in order to recreate in the arrangement that natural reverb in the rhythm section to match the native reverb of the vocal demo. On the plus side modern plugin technology allowed us to carefully tune the reverb in and get to an acceptable overall balance. Special mention due to my men Cesare Barbi, Zannoni Luca and Daniele Andinetti of MUSIC INSIDE for the deep dive into the particular sound they undertook to decode my needs. Of course we think we did a good job but we have no secrets so to make you aware of the process and for philological purposes we have placed the original vocal demo (B.1) and the plain instrumental (B.2) on the flipside so you can judge by yourselves. As usual, if you like it please support us and get your copy off our website or your usual trusted reseller, it will be of great help to keep on restoring and bringing to the public this huge wonderful archive Phil and Brad have brought to light from the darkness of the ancient Pyramides of Soul Music.”