Sam Myers: The Blues is My Story

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

114-115

text excerpt

The best studios I worked at back then were J&M in New Orleans and Chess in Chicago. What made them special was that the vocalist was separated from the band. You had headphones on, and the vocalist would be closed off from the band in a little booth. Everybody had headphones so you could hear what's going on. That way, you didn't have any bleed-over tracks in that soundproof booth. Everybody could hear one another, and the engineer would just turn up his mic and his headphones to where he could hear himself along with the band. In a case like Elmore's, when he was singing and playing guitar, they had him either of two ways. They could have him out with the band. They had these things they'd put around his head, kind of like baffles, where the other instruments wouldn't bleed into him. Course, they wouldn't be right up under one another, they'd be spread out. But with everybody wearing headphones, they could hear what the next man was doing. And then the other way, Elmore might be in an isolation booth. When I was playing drums over at Chess I had a booth. They couldn't fit nothing in there but me and my drums. They'd close the door and mic everything. Like, "The Sky Is Crying" and stuff like that, they had it mic'd real good. On "Set a Date" and "Can't Hold Out," they had a little echo thing going. It was really nice.

excerpt from 'Sam Myers: The Blues is My Story' pp. 114-115 (249 words)

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1432899196207