Studio Life: Ups and Downs

This week has been interesting and fun. I'm very honored to be on Wayne Wallace's record and hang out with the cats, as they say in jazz. The band (Rhythm and Rhyme) is as follows:

Horns:
Louis Fasman, Ron Stallings, Melecio Magdaluyo and John Worley (plus Wayne "Doc" Wallace on bone)

Piano/synth/keyboards:
Murray Low and Frank Martin

Drumset/percussion:
Paul Van Wageningen, John Santos, Mikc Spiro

Bass and guitar:
David Belove and David Yamasaki

Voice:
moi

Ron is a very mellow, nice man--he's played with Huey Louis and the News for years. I hadn't met him before.

I just love sitting around and hearing their stories.

The hard part is the singing. There hasn't been much--we're going to do a lot of the singing as overdubs once the basics are done this week. One song I was going to sing has been cut, it looks like, and I'm mostly doing backgrounds, coros and doubling some horn lines on others. Then there are my two lead vocals, Use Me and Afro Blue. I have been shedding these songs for two weeks, and they're getting better, but they present challenges in style, tempo and key!

Yesterday, I told Gary (engineer) as he was setting my mike up, "You do have that button ready for me, right?" "Which button?" "You know, the 'good' button you push when I sing so it won't suck?" "Oh, of course--but I'm saving that for your record." "Oh, is that the idea? I'll sound crappy on this record so people will buy mine instead?"

This is actually helping to motivate me to get my record done and be focused on a project entirely my own. It's just scary, and hard to stay positive when you mess up entrances and aren't sure you're sounding your best. In my head I'm yelling, "Count, Alexa! Why can't you count!" Then I realize I've got to focus on the music or I'll miss my next entrance. Then it's "Oh no--I come in after the percussion solo with no piano to set me up? Hell, what's my note--after 19 bars I'm not entirely sure of it!" It would have been nice to have charts--I'm doing this all by either memory or Wayne's cue. But again, my part is a small one in the whole thing. And it is awfully educational.

Today's the last day--I'm not singing so baby and I will just hang out for an hour or so.