That guy can sing!

When I arrived home last Friday, after a long day of tracking, my daughter asked me how my day was.
“Really fun, I was working with a great singer today”, I replied.
“Did you have to, you know… work on his vocals?” she asked. Daisy knows too much about studios.
“Not a bit” was my reply.

I am lucky to work with extremely talented singers and musicians every day, but it is still rare that a singer has such command of their voice as to nail a song 100% take after take (except when distracted by his iPhone ;-)). Such a singer is TV and Broadway actor Matt Doyle. Matt’s Broadway experience includes roles in Spring Awakening and Bye Bye Birdie, and he’s also appeared on the TV hit, Gossip Girl.

Matt and writing partner Will Van Dyke came to Nashville (from their homes in NYC) to track 4 songs for Matt’s new record. After talking with Will and Matt about the direction they wanted to take these songs, I assembled a killer cast of players for the date; Pete Abbott on drums, Chris Donahue on bass, the inimitable Gary Burnette and Pat Buchanan on guitars, and Tony Harrell on keys. They played amazingly together.

To get an authentic “old soul” sound, most everything was recorded with vintage mics and gear. Tony played piano, wurli and B-3 taking advantage of our keyboard arsenal, and Pete used the 1964 Ludwigs (bringing his own matching 14″ floor tom) on most of the cuts.
The custom Ampex 351, Chilton and Altec preamps played a large part in the sound.

As always, I’ll try to post some of the songs when completed.

Lots of photos were taken by Bryan Levay, who was assistant engineer on the sessions, using my new camera. Enjoy.

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