Sam Myers: The Blues is My Story

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Making a record back in the old days was a lot different than it is now. I liked recording in Chicago or New York better than I did anywhere in the South. For one reason, I never did like it if I had written a song and somebody were to tell me how to sing it, and they can't carry a tune in a bucket. The next thing is, if you got your music set to a song the way you want it to go, you're not supposed to let nobody in the studio change your format around. If you want to add instruments and they're playing the right thing, that's fine. But, man, don't take away anything. I don't like that.

The engineerman was the one calling the shots, or it would be between him and the guy who was handling the record. He would tell you to play it until it sounded right, then you'd go to your next one and you'd do it the same. It may be that something might stand out a little stronger than what you would put into it. That would be good, but don't change the whole thing around unless you know the music. Now, all that was fine, but I do not like a lot of today's sessions, the way people do them. They even got to where, instead of doing stuff raw and clear in the studio, they've gotten into this computer-type thing[. ...] Now the reason why that is, there used to be a time when you could still find a good engineer. Now, you might want it done this certain way, but the producer has got the money. During the early days, the musicians would tell the producer to get the hell away with his money. But now the producers want something done the way they want it done, and they don't respect the music. Like when Elmore recorded, they never did tell him how to play it. They would say, "Well, what you played, you played too much." Or, "You didn't play it strong enough." Or, "You was a little off the mic when you was singing it." But other than that, he would just run it off. Bam! Do it!

excerpt from 'Sam Myers: The Blues is My Story' pp. 113 (373 words)

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