Taking duets with the dead too far

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 4 Jun 2004 10:32 am

Studio trickery is just as much of an art as playing the instrument is. The better you are at the techno stuff you can do then the better your project will turn out.

The snobbery of the classical ilk never ceases to amaze. This week here in Atlanta I am working with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with Howard Shore conducting his music from "Lord Of the Rings". I have a 12 string and hi string Nashville tuning guitar part to play. Last night when Shore walked out he got a standing ovation before he even got on the podium. The classical geeks were just stunned. This music has reached an entirely new group of kids who would never have the desire to come to the concert hall to hear ONLY classical music. Their lack of appreciation for the steel guitar does not suprise me at all.

Tim Whitlock · Post by **Tim Whitlock** » 4 Jun 2004 10:35 am

Thanks for the clarification, Mike. I wasn't quite sure of your meaning. I'm not a luddite and I have no problems with using technology in art, but I think this example is an abuse.

By the way, I do admire your work. I never dreamed that the Firebird could be interpreted on the steel guitar, with or without studio enhancement. I'm glad you did!Had to laugh at the kazoo remark. I can see what you're up against.

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 4 Jun 2004 1:09 pm

I think this example is an abuse.

I think we're all in agreement on that. This is sort of like grave robbing. It seems ghoulish.

Franklin · Post by **Franklin** » 4 Jun 2004 1:43 pm

Conway fans may not object as much as you might believe. I would certainly rush out to buy "Jaquin" and "Bird" together on the same songs. Taking the keyboard off and substituing another instrument is easy to do these days.
A purist would probably drop dead and Steelers would love it. What you gonna do when guys get crazy ideas like this?

How bout Buddy and Jaquin? Day and Buddy?

Paul

Joey Ace · Post by **Joey Ace** » 4 Jun 2004 1:50 pm

Marvin Gaye and George Strait ?

erik · Post by **erik** » 4 Jun 2004 4:36 pm

I suggested a few years ago on this forum the idea of cutting snippets of Pete Drakes's playing and pasting into an entirely new song (like mine, that's why I thought of it). I like this Conway idea but generally I'm not a big fan of the two-star duo concept.

[edit]I found the thread http://steelguitarforum.com/Archives/Archive-000003/HTML/20011227-1-010360.html [/edit]

-johnson[This message was edited by erik on 04 June 2004 at 05:43 PM.]

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 4 Jun 2004 4:45 pm

Resectfully, Mike, even if it was excellent, would you approve of someone taking digital snippets of your playing, piecing it together and presenting it as a new work by Mike Perlowin?

Actually, that's how Mike creates his own albums!

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 4 Jun 2004 5:37 pm

Not quite. Both CDs were recorded on analogue tape, and each little snippet was individually recorded rather some of them being copied and pasted.

But both CDs were in fact recorded a few notes at a time (sometimes only one) and painstakingly edited together.

Jimmie Misenheimer · Post by **Jimmie Misenheimer** » 6 Jun 2004 10:41 am

Look at it this way - if this don't prove that there ain't nobody around today that's worth a damn, I don't know what does...

Jimmie

Janice Brooks · Post by **Janice Brooks** » 9 Jul 2004 3:20 pm

In todays Tennessean
Twitty 'duet' touching or tacky?

By PETER COOPER
Staff Writer

Late legend's part on new song created from old vocal snippets

Technology cannot raise the dead, but it can make them sing.

Music Row long has known of such grave-defying, cash register-ringing power. Years after their fatal plane crashes, Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline's voices were spliced together to create a hit posthumous duet. In 1989, producers blended Hank Williams Jr.'s voice alongside his long gone, lonesome daddy's on There's A Tear In My Beer.

But a new country single takes that process a step further: The deceased can now sing brand-new lyrics and melodies. Just ask Country Music Hall of Famer Conway Twitty.

Actually, Twitty won't answer. He passed away in 1993. But his disembodied voice recently recorded a new duet with country singer Anita Cochran, on a number she penned in 2002 called (I Wanna) Hear A Cheatin' Song.

''Every time I hear it, I get a big smile on my face and chills go through me,'' said Cochran, whose Twitty-assisted single is No. 57 on the Billboard country chart. ''It's the greatest thrill in the world. I saw him perform when I was a little girl.''

Over many months, Cochran and her co-producers — David Huff and (since-retired) Warner Bros. Nashville label chief Jim Ed Norman — combed through the recordings Twitty made on Warner Bros. from 1982-87. Words and syllables were clipped and pasted together in a computer-assisted process that ultimately created the illusion that Twitty was singing along to Cochran's song.

''The technology that allows things to be done today is amazing,'' said Twitty's widow, Dee Jenkins, who approved the duet at its conception and, months later, when she heard the final product. ''Jim Ed called me a year and a half ago and said he had a strange idea. Knowing Jim Ed and the type of person he is, I knew it would be done well. I know Conway would be flattered.''

Co-producer Huff said the process was neither simple nor efficient, but he was pleased to participate in a first-of-its-kind project.

''When she was asked 'Who would you like to do a duet with?' Anita's first response was 'Conway,' '' Huff said. ''In the old days, he's deceased, so there's no option. You'll get differing views on this, though, and some people think you're opening Pandora's box, like, 'Can we get Hank Williams Sr. to do all of Shania Twain's new hits?' I think you can misuse the technology.''

No one is claiming the Cochran-Twitty duet is akin to Williams and Twain joining for a generations-bridging Man, I Feel Like A Woman!, but opinions differ as to whether this use of technology is ethically pure and sonically believable.

At present, computers and engineers are unable to fully replicate the nuance and phrasing that are the hallmarks of a great singer, though Huff said that a few more years of progress could significantly improve the process' speed and outcome: ''When old black and white films were first colorized, it looked pretty cheesy,'' he said. ''A few years later, it started to look really natural.''

Jenkins is pleased with her husband's musical revival, and Norman said Twitty's part — which is only a few lines near the end of the recording — ''sounds natural.'' But, to country artist Vince Gill, the Twitty part does not convey the depth and richness of the Hall of Famer's earthly, earthy voice.

''It's bizarre,'' Gill said. ''I heard the song and I didn't recognize him. Taking a word, tuning it and placing it like that, I think it's really, really, really wrong. I love Conway, but I think he's got plenty of legacy for people to remember him by.''

George Jones, often called country music's greatest living vocalist, was impressed by Cheatin' Song's believability, but he does not hope for his own voice ever to be similarly transported.

''I'm amazed it could sound as good as it sounded, but I don't really think it's right,'' Jones said. ''I think we should let an artist rest in peace, and remember them by playing their music.'' But the record companies ''are going to do it if they can do it. It's one more way the (expletives) can make a dollar.''

After three weeks on the Billboard chart, the song is in regular rotation at relatively few radio stations, but it is getting some spins throughout the country (including, sporadically, at Nashville stations).

Julie Stevens, the program director at San Jose, Calif.'s KRTY, said, ''I can't see adding it (to the station's regular rotation), but how cool an idea is it that you could be dead for years and record a new song?''

Stevens is hardly alone in her enthusiasm for the idea, and Cochran said that Twitty's family's approval was the ultimate barometer of the single's good sense and good taste.

''These people know his voice better than anybody,'' Cochran said, of Twitty's wife and children. ''I would never want to do anything that would be distasteful, and we would never have done this if it hadn't been approved by his family. This was about getting Conway back out there. At times, he hasn't gotten the recognition he deserves.''

Country singer Jeff Bates' voice is at times eerily reminiscent of Twitty, whom he considers a musical idol. He was heartened by the new duet.

''I think it's the sweetest thing Anita could have done,'' Bates said. ''She did it because she really loves to hear him sing. It sounds exactly like what it is — like you took bits of vocals and you pieced 'em together and made him sing a song he'd never sung. You can tell that, but it's neat to get to hear Conway again. I think he would be flattered at the amount of love and work that went into this project.''

Grand Ole Opry star Jeannie Seely was untroubled by the notion that she might sing things in death that she never sang in life. ''To me, that is no different than, say, donating organs,'' Seely said. ''I would take it as an ultimate compliment. All of this technology could be a thing of the future. I guess if anyone has a problem with that, they might as well be changing their wills right now.''

Related story: The process of producing the Cochran/Twitty duet

Peter Cooper can be reached at 259-8220, or by e-mailed at pcooper@tennessean.com.

Janice Brooks · Post by **Janice Brooks** » 9 Jul 2004 3:22 pm

http://www.takecountryback.com/editorial22.htm

Bill Llewellyn · Post by **Bill Llewellyn** » 9 Jul 2004 7:20 pm

I guess this technology might trouble the deceased performers (if it could reach them) if it were to have them sing material that they didn't like. They are, in a word, out of control of what others have them doing posthumously.

A real gray zone, this one. I'm fascinated by the technology (I'm a techie), but you have to wonder how appropriately it will be applied.

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Bill, steelin' since '99 | Steel page | My music | Steelers' birthdays | Over 50?

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 9 Jul 2004 7:57 pm

Mike P. does a great version of "Danny Boy." I suspect with todays technology he could be paired with any of the great Irish tenors who sang the song and it would come out fresh, as if it had been recorded live yesterday.

With the advances in Video they could be at Loch Ness with the creature singing third part harmoney.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 10 Jul 2004 1:46 am

Maybe we will get a new duet by 2 Dead people soon !

t

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 10 Jul 2004 7:52 am

I have been very heavily criticised by 3 people for using studio trickery to create my CDs.

and how do these folks feel about Glenn Gould?

Lem Smith · Post by **Lem Smith** » 11 Jul 2004 9:05 pm

I just listened to the song on Rhapsody. While it is a good sounding song, with some good steel playing by, I'm guessing PF, it really did creep me out when I heard Conway's part. Maybe that's because I know he was already dead when it was done. I dunno. One thing about it tho...it's certainly COUNTRY music, with no pop style to it.

This type technology, along with what's able to be done with video really scares me. It's now WAY too easy to "say something you didn't say" and "be somewhere you never were"!

Lem

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 11 Jul 2004 10:43 pm

how do these folks feel about Glenn Gould?

They probably think he's "cheating".

Their thinking is that the recording studio should function as a sonic camera, capturing a moment in time the way a camera captures an image. They feel that the ONLY way to make a recording is to turn on the tape recorder and play the piece live, and anything else is bogus.

Up until a year or two ago that was a classical music record company called Nimbus that would only release CDs that were recorded live in one take.

These are the same people who insist that there is no such thing as an electrreic musical instrument, and as soon as the element of amplification is added, The resultant music is not valid. They also feel that the pedal steel guitar is nothing more than a musical toy, on the same level as a kazoo.

How can (presumably) educated people be so closed minded and ignorant?

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 25 Jul 2004 8:35 pm

While I am a die hard Twitty fan and I like Anita a lot, I was a little put off when it got to the Twitty part. I didn't know when I heard it, that Conway's parts were pieced together. I do know that it didn't sound right to me. I was listening to what I thought was a real good song and WHAM. I don't know why Anita thought she needed to do that. She is a great artist in her own right. I hope this bringing up the dead stops. I would still probably buy her CD though.

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Mark van Allen · Post by **Mark van Allen** » 28 Jul 2004 11:17 am

I saw a video clip on the recording of this project, and a large part of it was interviews with Conway's wife and daughter going on about how pleased they were, and how much Conway would have liked it. I suppose they knew him better than I did, but I still have to wonder. After all, he hasn't had a hit in a while, perhaps they're thinking about that. But I bet they also are pleased that he's in the public eye again, as creepy as it is. On the classical end, I remember reading about the furor over the work of Todd Dockstader in the 50's/60's with his "concrete music" compositions entirely made up of snippets of machines, animals, anything but classical instruments. I remember listening to his "Luna Park" about the life of the amusement park in New Jersey, and it was every bit as evocative as the best traditional classical, conveying the ideas and moods of the passage of time and it's effect on the park. All of this can be a real minefield. I'm of the "each on it's own merits" school. I do wonder what Conway would think.

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