#steve hoffman

I love Nat and reading everything Steve Hoffman posts there.

That being said, I will start dumping information here as well.

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Last comment about the old days at Capitol and the Nat King Cole albums. The "producer" was also called the "A&R Guy" back then (that meant he was in charge of artists and their repertoire). Lee Gillette was Nat's producer for most of his career. He sat up in the booth and listened carefully to the recording process, stopping the session if he felt there was something wrong. He stopped the songs a LOT.

For example, during the LOVE IS THE THING sessions, the song "I Thought About Marie", he stopped the session 15 times in 8 takes. Harp was too loud, drummer playing on the wrong beat (written wrong in the manuscript), string lines too obscure, weak, too strong, etc. He overrode both the conductor and arranger because he was hearing it as it would sound, with all studio processing being added live as recording was taking place (in mono). Lee really was a wonderful producer and his great voice and sardonic manner of speaking really tickled Nat a lot. You can hear this on the AP SACD and 45 RPM vinyl we did at the end of the AFTER MIDNIGHT bonus tracks or on the 45 RPM vinyl version of "I Thought About Marie" where he and Nat exchange a few words. I kept those in because I wanted to preserve Lee's voice and because there is not enough understanding what the old A&R guys did in the studio. A hands-on producer in those days had to do everything to insure the album or single was as perfect as possible, usually with a live take, no overdubs. It meant they had to read music, be able to read a chart and be able to make snap decisions that could not be undone later in mixing because there WAS no remixing. He had to be right, on the spot. And he had to do it without pissing anybody off. Egos are fragile.

Most of the session reels and "outs" have been dumped over the years (thousands of outtake reels) but a few have survived intact (usually because there was a song on the reel marked "HOLD"). The reels show that the one person in charge was the producer. He always had the final word. Even on a Frank Sinatra session.

A great bunch of A&R guys at the record companies in those days.

Photo below: Producer Lee Gillette with Ray Anthony listening to a 78 RPM test pressing of Ray's smash "Theme From DRAGNET". "