Tom Dowd and the Language of Music

[lukpac]

http://www.thelanguageofmusic.com/

This is currently playing on the Sundance channel, and I just finished it. In a word: great. Basically the film is a lot of recent footage of Tom interspersed with interviews with Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin, Ahmet Ertegun, Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, several members of the Allman Brothers, etc all and bits and pieces of archival footage. A lot of the anecdotes are nothing new (going to Stax to fix their machine, Eric and Duane meeting, etc), and a few bits weren't 100% correct, but nevertheless, it was great to see these guys talk.

One of the highlights is Dowd sitting in front of the console mixing Layla. "Ok, let's just hear Eric and Duane's solos now." It literally brought a smile to my face.

There's quite a bit of talk about 8-track, albeit nothing about the Atlantic fire

A minor quibble, although one I think is important - Tom really looks great throughout the movie, and the only mention of his passing is a memorial screen at the end of the movie. I think that might be a bit jarring to someone who watched the whole movie not knowing he had already passed away.

At any rate, the movie is still great. My hope is there will be a DVD sometime in the future with additional stuff cut out of the movie.

[Chris M]

Slightly off topic but does anyone know if the multitracks and outtakes of the 1st Stephen Stills LP were lost in the Atlantic fire? This is of interest to me becuase of the unreleased Hendrix-Still material recorded at the session.

Chris

[Rspaight]

Sounds good -- I'll try to catch a reshowing.

Ryan

[lukpac]

Slightly off topic but does anyone know if the multitracks and outtakes of the 1st Stephen Stills LP were lost in the Atlantic fire? This is of interest to me becuase of the unreleased Hendrix-Still material recorded at the session.

They *should* be around, for two reasons. 1) It wasn't cut in Atlantic's studios, 2) It was cut after 1969. As far as I know, the tapes that were lost were the multis recorded at Atlantic prior to sometime in 1969. This is why stuff like You Keep Me Hanging On by Vanilla Fudge still exists - it wasn't recorded at Atlantic.

BTW, a few random tapes *did* survive, as they were taken out at some point and not returned. I've heard some Coasters outtakes, complete with session talk, for example.

[lukpac]

FYI, I just got an e-mail back from the director. The hope is that a DVD will be out in the spring of 2004 and that it will include a bunch of additional material. Let's hope.

[Chris M]

Thanks for you help Luke. I just noticed that in the Black Gold: Lost Archives of Jimi Hendrix book a mention of a second Atlantic Records warehouse that was apparently untouched by the 1978 Atlantic/Atco fire. I was looking for info on the 4/66 King Curtis/Hendrix Atlantic session and the author thinks the tapes are in this second warehouse. Anyone know if this is hogwash or is there really a second warehouse full of Atlantic stuff?

Chris

[lukpac]

The fire was in 1976, not 1978, as far as I know. As far as there being another warehouse, as is my understanding, ALL* of the session tapes up through some time in 1969 were in said warehouse and went up in smoke. Mono and stereo masters were stored elsewhere and were not touched.

* As previously mentioned, there are exceptions when tapes were taken out but not returned. It's possible the session you speak of is one of those, although without knowing more, the odds are against it.

http://www.billholland.net/words/vault.html

One of the most devastating vault losses in modern industry history occurred in February, 1978 [sic] in a fire in a non-air-conditioned Atlantic Records storage facility in Long Branch, N.J.

The warehouse fire destroyed virtually all of Atlantic's unreleased masters, alternate takes and sessions tapes by artists who had recorded for the label and its offshoots throughout its classic 1948-1969 first golden era.

Thousands of performances by nearly a hundred of America's most acclaimed r&b, soul, pop and jazz artists were lost in the fire. According to several sources, between 5,000 to 6,000 reels of tape were destroyed or damaged. Just a handful of the artists names reads like a short-form Who's Who in Mid-Century American Music.

To compound the dimension of the losses, most of the material--all but the first few years--had been recorded in stereo. Atlantic was an industry leader in recording in the new mode as early as 1952.

Several former senior executives and staffers at Atlantic told Billboard that news of the fire was kept quiet. "It was very hush-hush; I'd ask for tapes and they'd just say 'they're not there,'' remembered one producer. "I didn't find out until a year later."

In a few instances, reissue producers and archivists have discovered a few of the lost tapes, reels that had been removed years before from the warehouse and not returned or perhaps consciously squirreled away.

"When we were doing the (Rhino-Atlantic) John Coltrane box set," said industry veteran and former Atlantic producer Joel Dorn, who now runs 32 Records, "they told us all the session reels and outtakes were gone, supposedly destroyed in the fire. I'd heard the stories. But I came over to the old warehouse to look anyway. Eventually, some young man who'd been watching me grumble said, ' You know, I think I might have seen something in that area over there,' pointing to high shelf. Up on the shelf were reels piled up, semi-alphabetical.

"So I searched through all these boxes and finally found what I was hoping for--supposedly destroyed alternate takes from (the seminal 1959 Coltrane album) 'Giant Steps.'

"Now, by all rights, they should have been stored in that warehouse," Dorn said. "I found other amazing things, like Bobby Darin's first Atco demo of 'Dream Lover' (circa 1957), with Fred Neil playing guitar."

Some of the other recovered lost treasures since recovered by Atlantic archivists include unreleased masters, alternate takes and rehearsals by Ray Charles, tunes by R&B Foundation awardee Van "Piano Man" Walls, and outtakes by jazz legends Ornette Coleman, Lenny Tristano and Lee Konitz.

Luckily, Atlantic had stored its master tapes in New York at the time of the '76 fire.