dee lannon still kills me

I've produced a great many many records for not very much money, which means I had to work with great musicians if I was gonna get the job done. people ask who are my favorite singers i've worked with. katy moffatt is the obvious first choice, given that we've recorded about an album's worth of stuff together over the years, and it's a really nice mini-body of work. but i always feel like katy doesn't need anyone else.

there was one singer that i always felt i got the best out of and who in turn got my most inspired playing ever.

one day in 1997, the great art fein -- who i was then kind of new to -- gave me a videotape of what he thought were the highlights of the show. they weren't always the most famous, but they were all really unique. and towards the end of the tape was this clip. i was floored. i'd never heard of dee lannon, but i immediately became her biggest fan.

as it turns out, she was gone from los angeles by that point, living in san fran. oh well.

soon after, she was down in hollywood, playing the barn dance. the hot shots were backing her. as i walked in, she was kicking off barbara pittman's "i need a man". and she blew me away.

we spoke afterwards. she said she was thinking of doing an ep. would i be interested to produce?

of course.

of course, but...

there were a lot of politics about who not to hire. this continued through the whole process. dee felt she owed a lot of favors around LA to musicians she'd played live but never recorded with. there was also that i couldn't get dee to record a version of her (other) best song, "until you're mine". about the only thing she signed off on easily was the studio and engineer, painted sound and steven bardo.

that dee was in s.f. and i was here in boss angeles didn't help things move quickly. but we finally got a great rhythm section together, russell scott (seen here) and howard greene, with whom dee had gotten to play on some gigs with ray campi. at the last minute, dee decided not to play guitar, so my idea of doing it live was dashed, and there was no talking her out of it.

dee was adamant on every point, and there was one other hurdle to deal with: she decided she absolutely had to record "and the angels sing".



"and the angels sing", for those who don't know, was a 1939 hit for benny goodman, based on an old jewish song called "der shtiler bulgar" (the quiet bulger). its centerpiece was a jewish trumpet solo played by ziggy elman. ziggy's solo -- he's onscreen here, but mannie klein is actually playing the solo on the soundtrack, cuz ziggy's health was troublesome -- was a masterpiece in every way. it was alternately swinging, dramatic, traditional... it's a canonical solo, up there with "west end blues". the record was the first jewish to jazz crossover hit and paved the way for a follow-up, "bei mir bist du schoen", which was ever bigger.

to have to live up to this in a rockabilly band with a stratocaster was asking a lot. also, as a jewish musician with a deep respect for the legacy of yiddish music, i was hesitant. it's a big deal. and while my note choices and ornaments in all of my guitar playing are totally jewish --whether i'm playing bluegrass, blues, country -- i would never offer myself up as somebody worthy to replace Brendan Seabrook in the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

somehow, though, we got it together. there were three other songs, the jean shepard classic "jeopardy" (i took my best imitation tony gilkyson solo to date on that one), and an original of mine that dee liked, "miss you much".

the day of the session, everything was going wrong. howard and russell got to see dee and i argue. she'd written a new song on the way to the session and insisted on recording it. i wanted to kill her. even worse, it was a pretty good song. i sent everyone to eat while i arranged it, and russell slipped me a couple of the valium he'd brought back from his fishing trip in mexico. this helped immensely. but i felt like dee was changing every goddam thing at the last minute, and dee felt like i was the most inflexible asshole of all time. looking back, it was clearly a tie.

dee and i were pretty pissed at each other by that point, but the finished takes came out great. but we were so angry at each other it wasn't funny. i told her i'd take a pay cut if she could get someone else to mix it. she paid me the original amount on which we'd agreed, but hired someone who left the kick drum up too loud, made the electric guitar too low, and added vocal harmonies that were just wrong.

when russell heard it, he said, "i remembered it being better than this."

i played him the rough mixes. he and howard swung grandly but with a lightness more like hank thompson's band, and russell's slapping was in your chest and up close. dee's phrasing defied gravity and her way of wrapping herself around my guitar obbligatos was almost a rockbilly reinvention of sarah vaughan singing in front of trumpeter freddie webster. and my playing has never come in luckier. i've never sounded better than i did on those four tunes.

"yeah! that's it!" russel exclaimed, "why didn't you just use those, you jimmy bryant motherfucker?"

rockin' ronny weiser said the same thing, although his language was even more colorful. and he punctuated his opinion by leaping onto his desk and screaming that it was like drugs.

(correct way to mix rockabilly: crank the bass and lose the kickdrum. then make the vocals and guitar solos in your face. when in doubt, use johnny burnette's "train kept a-rollin' or wanda's "funnel of love" as guides. that's always how i rough mix rockabilly.)

so the record wasn't as good as it could have been. dee and i didn't speak for ages. the record had my name on it, but the performances weren't at all well-served by the mixes.

oh well. that's records for ya. about ten years after the fact, i visited dee and her husband and son in austin. i hadn't seen her in however long, but we stayed in touch. she hadn't played or sung in years. her guitar was in the closet, with old strings. she asked if i'd sing for her son, then about two years old. she brought out the guitar, i tuned it.

i started singing the children's song "abiyoyo". dee joined in, and the kid lit up like he'd just tasted his first ice cream.

"he's never heard me sing, i don't think."

it was magic to me. to hear dee sing again, to play behind her, and to see her husband watching his son glow at the sound of his mother's voice, to know that there was gonna be music in that house for the whole family from then on (as dee married a better guitar player then i'll ever be.)

maybe someday i'll post the rough mixes, because i think dee's greatness -- which is considerable -- is not reflected at all accurately by anything of hers you can buy.

i wish, even more, we'd recorded that little fragment of "abiyoyo", because that was the greatest. i hope she makes a children's record.

i've played with rockabillies from wanda jackson and rosie flores to ray campi, sammy masters, and a million others. and i've played with all kinds of great singers, and everytime i go play with a singer, i hope for the kind of musical chase i always enjoyed with dee lannon.