THE INVISIBLE ARTIST Arrangers in popular music - Brunel

347 Pages·2013·15.95 MB·English

THE INVISIBLE ARTIST
Arrangers in popular music (1950 - 2000)
Their contribution and techniques
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
by
Richard Niles
School of Arts
Brunei University
2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Foreword 1
Chapter 1 8
Jesse Stone (1901 - 1950)
Analysis of Money Honey (1953) 11
Chapter 2 16
Dave Bartholomew (1920 - 1970)
Analysis of Blueberry Hill (1956) 19
Chapter 3 25
Maxwell Davis (1916 - 1970)
Analysis of Good Rockin 'Daddy (1955) 27
Chapter 4 33
Jack Nitzsche (1937 - 2000)
Analysis of River Deep Mountain High (1966) 36
Chapter 5 44
H.B. Barnum (b. 1936)
Analysis of Help Me Make It Through The Night (1972) 45
Chapter 6 50
Jerry Wexler (b. 1913) - the art of Collective Arranging
Interviews with Wexler, Wayne Jackson
Analysis of I Never Loved A Man (1967) 55
Chapter 7 58
Harold Battiste (b. 1931)
Analysis of I Got You Babe (1965) 60
Chapter 8 68
Arif Mardin (1932 - 2006)
Analysis of Natural Woman (1972) 72
Chapter 9 79
Burt Bacharach (b. 1928)
Analysis of TheLook OfLove (1965) 83
Analysis of Anyone WhoHad a Heart (1963) 84
Chapter 10 91
Brian Wilson (1932 - 2000)
Analysis of Good Vibrations (1972) 93
ii
Chapter 11 .......... 102
The Motown Sound
Berry Gordy,
...........
The Funk Brothers 103
..........
Interview with Harry Weinger, Paul Riser 105
Analysis of My Girl (1964) .......... 107
Interview with Allan Slutsky .......... 109
Chapter 12 .......... 115
David Van dePitte (b. 1942)
Analysis of What's Goin'On? (1971) .......... 119
Chapter 13 .......... 123
George Martin (b. 1926)
..........
Analysis ofPenny Lane (1967) 126
..........
Analysis of Yesterday (1965) 128
..........
Analysis ofEleanor Rigby (1966) 129
Chapter 14 .......... 135
Richard Carpenter (b. 1946)
..........
Analysis of Ticket ToRide (1970) 144
Chapter 15 .......... 152
Nile Rodgers (b. 1952)
..........
Analysis of I Want YourLove (1982) 156
Chapter 16 .......... 164
Jimmie Haskell (b. 1938)
..........
Analysis of OldFriends (1968) 161
Chapter 17 ..........
171
James Brown (1932 - 2006)
and his arrangers Nat Jones,
Sammy Lowe, Pee Wee Ellis, Fred Wesley
..........
Analysis of Out Of Sight (1964) 173
..........
Analysis ofPapa's GotA Brand New Bag (1965) 174
Analysis of It's A Man's Man's Man's World (1966) .......... 177
Chapter 18 ..........
180
Pee Wee Ellis (b. 1941)
Analysis of Cold Sweat (1967) .......... 180
Analysis ofLickin 'Stick (1968) .......... 183
III
Chapter 19 186
Fred Wesley (b. 1944)
Analysis of Get On the Good Foot (1971) 187
Chapter 20 186
Barry Manilow (b. 1943)
Analysis of Tryin' To Get The Feeling Again (1976) . 191
Chapter 21 . 198
Charlie Calello (b. 1938)
Analysis of Eli's Coming (1969) 199
Chapter 22 206
The Philadelphia Sound
Gamble and Huff
Interview with Bobby Eli 207
Chapter 23 209
Bobby Martin (b. 1941)
Analysis of Cowboys To Girls (1968) 210
Analysis of T.S.O.P (1974) 212
Analysis of Love Is The Message (1973) 213
Interview with Bobby Martin 216
Analysis of Me and Mrs. Jones (1973) 219
Chapter 24 221
Thom Bell (b. 1941)
Analysis of Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time? (1971) . 222
Chapter 25 . 227
Michael Gibbs (b. 1937)
Analysis of Paprika Plains (1977) 233
Chapter 26 239
Rupert Holmes (b. 1947)
Analysis of Everything (1976) 240
Chapter 27 246
Anne Dudley (b. 1956)
Work with Trevor Hom, The Art of Noise
Chapter 28 254
John Altman (b. 1949)
Work with Monty Python, The Rutles
iv
Chapter 29 262
Jeremy Lubbock (b. 1935)
Analysis of Shame (1991) 262
Chapter 30 275
Nick Ingman (b. 1949)
Work with Prtishead, Radiohead, Oasis, S Club 7
Chapter 31 2280
Remixing - Steve Anderson (b. 1969)
Work with Trevor Horn, The Art of Noise
Chapter 32 287
Richard Niles (b. 1951)
Analysis of ILost My Heart To a Starship Trooper (1976) . 287
Analysis of Slave To The Rhythm (1985) . 291
Analysis of Left To My Own Devices (1987) . 303
Analysis of Go West (1993) .. 307
Analysis of Overture To Performance (1991) .. 309
Analysis of Somewhere (1997) . 313
Work with Paul McCartney . 316
Analysis of Breakout (1986) . 318
Analysis of Sowing The Seeds OfLove (1989) . 307
Work with Steve Mac - Boy-bands -
'The Ballad Formula' & 'Mythic Structure' 321
Conclusion 325
I
Foreword
This thesis is based on the research conducted by the author for the series,
Richard Niles' History of Pop Arranging, seven thirty-minute documentary
programmes for BBC Radio 2, researched, written and presented by the author and
broadcast in 2003. It also draws on interviews conducted by the author (and other
research) between 2002 and 2007 both for the radio series and for this thesis and on
the author's experience as a professional arranger in popular music working with
many of the genre's significant recording artists including Paul McCartney, Ray
Charles, Cher, Tina Turner, Westlife, Tears For Fears, Dusty Springfield, James
Brown, Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue and producers including Trevor Hom, Steve
Lipson, Steve Mac and Steve Anderson.
Itwill be argued that the role of the arranger in popular music has often been
undervalued and that during a critical period of popular music history (1950-2000)
arrangers played a significant part in the evolution of musical content. This thesis is,
to the best of the author's knowledge, the first time (apart from the above mentioned
documentary) the subject has ever been examined.
The arranger is "invisible" because musical arrangers are often un-credited on
record liner notes or in books or articles concerning popular music. A considerable
amount of research has been necessary to determine who wrote many of the
arrangements considered herein. Motown's Berry Gordy purposely kept the names of
musicians and arrangers off the records because he feared others might 'poach' the
trademark 'Motown Sound'. Other record labels considered the job of the arranger to
be reminiscent of an earlier era, diluting the Rock 'n' Roll image of emotion and
spontanaeity they wished to promote. Some producers and recording artists disliked
sharing credit for their work. Motown arranger David Van dePitte told the author that
arranging was "thankless and anonymous - a very service-oriented profession where
others often take credit for what you've done." Arranging has therefore remained an
intrinsically unseen art created by 'invisible' artists. By analyzing many recordings,
revealing the techniques and concepts they have used in their work to create popular
records, arrangers and their art will be made more 'visible'.
2
Theoretical and technical musical analysis will consist of the author's
transcriptions of recorded music rather than original scores. In score-based classical
and contemporary concert music, the composition and the performance of that
composition are of primary importance in evaluating the music as a work of art. But
in popular music, as Paul McCartney has explained, "The record was the thing. That
was what we bought, that was what we dealt with. That was the currency of music:
records.,,1 Similarly the Director of Film and Media Studies at the University of
Florida, Robert B. Ray writes, "What distinguishes rock 'n' roll from all the music
that precedes it... is its elevation of the record to primary status,,,2 and Theodore
Gracyk, Professor of Philosophy at Minnesota State University, has commented,
"Insofar as there can be a rock aesthetic, a general theory about rock music as an
object of critical attention, Ipropose that it must focus on recorded music ... [and]
specific recordings."?
Thus in popular music, art is artefact. The process of making the artefact (the
pop record) depends on many elements apart from the songwriter's composition and
the artist's performance. These include the contributions of the producer, engineer and
mixer (and the technology they employ), the studio itself, the musicians and singers
who perform on the record and the musical arrangers who create a generic and sonic
environment for the song. A record becomes a 'hit' because the record-buying public
purchase large quantities of commercially reproduced copies of it. This study will
propose that an arrangement can aid the listener in their comprehension of the lyrical
meaning and musical structure of the song by enhancing it in a variety of ways; this in
tum may inspire those listeners to purchase the recording.
For example, Richard Carpenter's arrangement of Burt Bacharach's song Close
To You for The Carpenters has become an enduring hit while Bacharach's own
previously released version for Dionne Warwick failed to achieve success. Carpenter
commented, "So it's a hit song, a hit singer and a hit arranger ... but Burt missed ...
It's a NICE arrangement but it's just not the right arrangement.t'" Because the element
1 Andre Millard, America On Record, A History of Recorded Sound, Cambridge
University Press, 1995
2 Robert B. Ray, Tracking,South Atlantic Quarterly 90, winter 1991.
3Theodore Gracyk, RhythmAnd Noise- AnAesthetics ofRock,I.B. Tauris, 1996.
4 Author's interview with Carpenter, 2003.
3
here that makes one specific recording different from another is the arrangement,
arranging must be considered central to the ontology of a successful record.
As lecturer Timothy Warner commented on my arrangements for the Grace
Jones album Slave To The Rhythm (1985), "The effect of... the orchestral and choral
colours is to broaden the scope of the music, offering not only a rich palette of
sounds, but also opportunities to manipulate musical significance. While these sounds
are often used to add timbral contrast and diversity, they are also used as icons of
musical style.:"
This study will therefore consider a number of questions. What is a musical
arranger and how important is the arranger to the process of making records? What is
the nature of the arranger's contribution - is it significant artistically or merely a
workmanlike job done by a specialist technician? In that making records is a
collaborative art, how do arrangers interact with their colleagues? In that the arranger
uses their critical faculties to intervene at differing points in the process of record
making, what is the nature of that intervention?
What are the specific techniques of pop arranging and how do they affect the
melody, harmony, dynamics and form of the composition? How do those techniques
make a record more effective and affecting - can an arrangement create a 'hit'? How
does technology influence the arranger's work - did technological change lead to
functional changes?
How do the arranger's employers (recording company executives and
producers) influence their work? How do economic, sociological, historical and
personal considerations affect the arranger's work? What are the implications of the
fact that arrangers (those who are not also producers) have no control over the use of
their work? Unlike record producers, songwriters and recording artists, arrangers are
often uncredited and receive no royalties. What does that imply about the value
accorded to the profession by the music industry? How does that affect an arranger's
long-term career?
5 Timothy Warner, Pop Music - Technology and Creativity - Trevor Hom and the
DigitalRevolution,Ashgate, 2003.
4
What is the distinction between a composition and its arrangement - and when
does the arrangement become an essential part of the composition? How do pop
arrangers differ from arrangers in other genres such asjazz? How do pop arrangers
differ from each other in their role and function, and in what ways are they similar?
What influence do arrangers have on each other?
To find answers to these questions, this study will use the following
methodology:
1. The use of the word 'pop' in this work means 'popular music' in all its
forms, including rock, R&B, funk, soul, hip-hop, rap, progressive rock, folk
rock, 'emo', boy bands, disco and jazz-funk. Itdoes not include classical
music andjazz except in the rare cases where a record in these genres has
achieved a "Top 20" placement in the 'pop charts' of music industry
magazines such as Billboard or Music Week.
2. An introductory section will examine and discuss thejob of professional
arranging in pop, the people with whom the arranger works and the
arranger's workplace, the recording studio. Technical terms and slang
commonly used in the profession will be 'translated' where necessary.
3. There will be a discussion of musical techniques specific to pop arranging.
4. Observations will be made based on the author's more than thirty years'
experience in a broad spectrum of genres working with recording artists,
producers, engineers, studio musicians and record company executives.
5. Arranging in pop (like any form of musical composition or performance)
has the specific goal of attaining and holding the listener's interest for a
specific period of time - the length of the 'single', usually under four
minutes. Like the composer or performer, the arranger hopes that the record
will remain in the listener's memory thereafter. Inorder to examine the
arranger's contribution, it is of central importance to this thesis to analyze
how the arranger shapes the listener's aural experience through time. This
will be achieved examining individual arrangers' work by musical analysis
of significant specific recordings.
5
6. Recordings chosen for analysis will be deemed significant because they
have been 'hits' drawn from the genre of popular music from 1950 to 2000.
Although all hits do not necessarily have artistic value, artistic value is only
one of many criteria by which a hit is evaluated. Although musicians may
place artistic value high on the list, record company executives and the
public, based on the author's experience, barely consider it at all. This work
will view as significant the fact that a record that has been ahit has been
both financially successful and effective in communicating to the public.
This work demonstrates that the arranger's job is to facilitate that
communication.
7. The pop arranger enters the creative process after its inception - the song is
already written. The arranger then performs what may be termed as a
'critical intervention' - using his critical faculties to re-conceive and
transform that song. The myriad ways that critical intervention takes place
will be examined to discuss to what extent the arranger has contributed to
the success of the record. The arranging concepts and techniques (art) used
to achieve that success will be analysed. There will be rare occasions where
a selected work (such as Jeremy Lubbock's arrangement of Shame) is not a
hit but recorded by a hit artist and chosen for analysis to demonstrate a
particular arranger's style or techniques.
8. Chord symbols and notation used in musical examples will be those
commonly used by contemporary arrangers and studio musicians.
9. Discussion of form will likewise use language commonly used by
contemporary arrangers and studio musicians such as: 'Intro' for
introduction, 'Outro' for an section at the end of the record, 'groove' to
mean the essential rhythmic pattern of a record, also referred to as the 'feel'
10. Names given to chord voicings (vertical structures of notes) will be those
generally accepted and used in contemporary pedagogy. Some terminology
will be explained where necessary.
11. With a few exceptions, the author has transcribed all musical examples
direct from the recordings. For reasons of space, most transcriptions are
condensed to one or two staves and a certain amount of editing has been
necessary.