Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music (7 page)

Sometimes Liberty DeVitto would join us, and he and Billy would experiment with tempos and grooves. When they had a couple of ideas worked out, they’d start polishing them—but not enough to stop the process of allowing the whole band to work out a spontaneous arrangement later. Every once in a while, Billy and Liberty would lay down a demo with piano, drums, and vocals.

During our prep session, Billy would occasionally stumble upon a chord progression or simple melodic phrase that he thought had potential. When that happened, he would try to develop it further, right then and there. If for some reason the idea didn’t seem to be going anywhere, he would say, “I’m going to let this simmer for a few days.”

Then, when he and I met again a day or so later, Billy might say, “You know that phrase I was trying to flesh out? It’s a piece of garbage—it doesn’t work.”

I took comments like that to be a sign that Billy was too close to what he was writing to see the overall picture, so I’d offer an objective opinion. I’d make him sit and play it at the piano; many times, I found myself encouraging him to reconsider his decision to discard the song. The conversations went something like this:

After this dialogue Billy would say, “Okay, what should we do?”

“Let’s start recording,” I’d suggest. “Do you want me to book the band?”

Frequently, the ideas that Billy laid down on cassette felt uncomfortable when he got to the studio and the band started playing them. If after giving them a fair shot Billy deemed a tune unacceptable, it was set aside. Since I recorded virtually every note of Billy’s sessions,
we would relegate unused songs that had potential to what I called the “spare parts reel,” and file it for future reference.

I can’t tell you how many times we went back to those tapes. “Remember a few weeks ago when you played that great riff, and you couldn’t come up with a chorus?” I’d ask Billy. “There was definitely something there. Let’s go back to that session’s work reel.”

One such instance was a demo song called “The Prime of Your Life,” which Billy and the band recorded at the end of 1981.

Billy finished most of the melody and a good portion of the lyric, but for reasons I’ve since forgotten, it was never completed.

Not long after the demo was made, Billy was searching for ideas. He vaguely remembered the demo of “The Prime of Your Life,” and we rummaged through the work tapes until we found it. Eventually, the opening chords of the demo became the main melody for “Don’t Ask Me Why” (
Glass Houses
), and its chorus turned into “The Longest Time” (
An Innocent Man
).

Frequently, songwriters are asked about what they do when their ideas run dry.

It’s daunting for a songwriter to confront his or her emotions and share them with the world. The reluctance to share, however deep in the subconscious, can be paralyzing. At some point, fear hits every songwriter, regardless of stature.

With every new album, Paul Simon fears that he’ll hit a wall, but he doesn’t beat himself up. He rationalizes his fear by saying, “It’ll come when it comes.” Paul tries to motivate himself: “Try a little harder—maybe you’ll get something, and then a little more.”

I’ve watched writers like Paul, Billy Joel, and dozens of others grapple with a melody or lyric, so I can assure you that writer’s block is real, and that it perpetuates a vicious cycle of fear. When the mind is focused on writing it can stump you, and once stumped, you can’t write a blessed thing.

Here’s how Paul described being blocked: “Your mind says, ‘I have nothing to say.’ [It’s more likely] that you’ve had a thought that
you’d prefer
not
to have, and you’re not going to reveal that thought. Your mind is protecting itself. Once you find a less negative way of dealing with the thought, you can probably deal with the subject matter you’re trying to write about.”

Every writer struggles to find a way to address his or her impediment.

For some, confronting the fear head-on does the trick. For others, it’s physically moving to a different environment that refreshes their thinking.

To help stimulate his writing, Billy Joel retreated to small writing nooks: a loft in the Puck Building in SoHo, a place on Long Island, a studio at his house. We called these places Billy’s “think tanks.”

During the making of
The Bridge,
Billy explained how his downtown getaway helped inspire “Big Man on Mulberry Street”: “If I was writing at my studio in the Puck Building and I got stuck, I’d pace the room—it had big windows and a nice view. Sometimes I’d leave the building; I’d go down to Little Italy to get a little food, a little wine, and some espresso. The walk I took on this one night was on Mulberry Street, and I just kind of invented this character that was like ‘Mr. Cool.’ The character is a nebbish, but in his own mind he’s the ‘King of Mulberry Street.’ When he walks by, the old ladies sitting on the stoop wave to him. It’s just one of those things I invented.”

Billy’s song “Baby Grand” also didn’t come without suffering. The agony, however, resulted in pure musical ecstasy.

I knew the profound influence that Ray Charles and his R&B roots had had on Billy’s style, and one day Billy confessed that he’d written “New York State of Mind” with Ray in mind. Paying homage to Ray was one of Billy’s goals, and when we were making
The Bridge
in 1986, “Baby Grand” became their shining hour.

Billy and Ray had never met, but Billy idolized Ray so much that he named his daughter (Alexa Rae) in Ray’s honor. When he asked
me if I thought Ray might consider doing a song with him, I called Quincy Jones and got Ray’s private number.

Billy was nervous the first time he spoke with Ray.

Getting Ray Charles on the phone was one kind of thrill; Billy’s telling Ray that he wanted to write a song for them to sing together was another. It amused me that Billy was so anxious. “This is what musicians do,” I reminded him. “Remember: You and Ray are both on a playing field that few people get to play on.”

“Yeah, but Phil—what do I say to
Ray Charles
?” he asked.

“Well, you can start by telling Ray how much you admire him,” I suggested. “If you want to say something about how you wrote ‘New York State of Mind’ with him in mind, say it.”

I couldn’t imagine Billy
not
telling Ray about it—I knew he’d be thrilled—and when they spoke, I was happy to hear Billy sharing his secret with Ray. He then said something titillating, and it caught me by surprise. “Ray, I’d like to write a song for us to do together.” Ray was receptive, and asked Billy to send him a demo. With the phone call over and the big question out of the way, the only thing left for Billy to do was sit down to write the song.

Billy went on his way, and called me a short time later. “I’ve got the basic premise for a song, but I’m still not sure how to develop it. I just want to write it, and get a tape out to Ray right away,” he said.

I don’t recall exactly how much time elapsed, but it wasn’t long. The night before we were scheduled to make the demo, Billy was still searching for a way to corral his thoughts. The pressure on him was tremendous.

“I’ve got to get this right—I’ve got one shot,” he said.

He headed down to his retreat in the Puck Building, but nothing came. Billy took a break. He ambled around the city, and grabbed a bite to eat. Then, he went back to the apartment.

When he arrived at the studio the next morning he looked exhausted. I offered him some coffee and asked, “Have you got a song?” Billy pulled a few sheets of paper from his jacket pocket and
showed me the chords and lyrics he’d hastily scribbled only hours before. The name of the song was “Baby Grand,” and it blew me away.

I scanned it. “When did this come to you?” I asked. “About two o’clock in the morning,” he said. “I just went over to the piano and wrote it. It came to me all in one shot.”

In a promotional interview for
The Bridge
in 1986, Billy spoke at length about writing “Baby Grand”:

“I was sitting in my house and I said, ‘Jeez, I have an opportunity to make a record with Ray Charles. If I write the right song and Ray likes it, he’ll actually be singing on my record.’

“[When I was looking for inspiration for the Ray Charles song], I began looking around at things that have been consistent in my life, and in this age of synthesizers and electronic keyboards the piano has almost become an old-fashioned instrument,” Billy continued. “I glanced at the baby grand piano and realized that I had a lot of love for that thing. The piano has provided me with a nice living, a career, and happiness. It’s gotten me women, and it’s gotten me through some strange times.

“Sometimes at night I’d sit down and give myself a concert, and it’s almost like the piano did it—I didn’t even have anything to do with it. When I was thinking about a theme for Ray and me, it seemed apropos: you know, Ray Charles, piano player. Billy Joel, piano player. Let’s talk about a real love in our lives—the baby grand. ‘Baby Grand’ is really a love song to an instrument,” Billy explained.

Building the song around something they had a mutual affinity for was masterful. Billy empathized with Ray Charles. As a celebrated musician, he’d suffered through many lonely hours, and believed that, despite his raucous life, Ray had probably had his share of loneliness, too.

When Billy was in a funk, he’d go to his hotel room—or to a quiet room backstage—and play the piano. When you’re a songwriter and you’re feeling down, you pray that a unique melodic line
will emerge from the gloom. Billy imagined that like him, Ray found relief by releasing his angst behind the piano. It turned out that Billy was right.

I thought “Baby Grand” was brilliant, and we immediately made a demo and sent it to Ray in Los Angeles. Billy was brimming with anticipation—and I was, too. We were sure we’d get a call from Ray within a few days.

Two weeks went by, and we didn’t hear a thing. Billy began second-guessing himself. “Does Ray not like it?” he wondered aloud.

The lack of a response from Ray was odd, and after the second agonizing week I said, “Let me call him to see if he received it.” I dialed, and Ray picked up the phone. “Ray, it’s Phil Ramone. Billy and I were wondering whether you received the cassette.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Clever!”

As he listened to my end of the conversation, Billy motioned furiously. “Is it thumbs-up, or thumbs-down?” I gave him a thumbs-up.

When I handed the phone to Billy, Ray was equally cryptic.

“Did you like it, Ray?” Billy asked.

“Very clever!” Ray said. After the call, Billy looked at me quizzically. “What does that mean, ‘Clever’? Does he like the song or not?”

I smiled. “That response is typically Ray,” I assured him. “He loves it.”

When we finally got Billy and Ray into the studio to cut “Baby Grand” it was pure bliss. We recorded Billy, Ray, and the orchestra together, with Billy and Ray playing the two pianos and singing while Patrick Williams conducted the orchestra.

Billy was extremely grateful to be working with Ray, and went out of his way to make sure that Ray was comfortable, and that the session ran smoothly. But after they recorded the first take, Billy discovered that there was a misprint in Ray’s Braille lyrics, and he became worried. He knew that the error needed to be corrected, but he felt awful about having to put Ray out.

“How do I explain an error like that to Ray Charles?” Billy
asked. “Now you’re getting a taste of what it’s like to be the producer!” I said. “Just apologize, and tell him that there was a mistake in transposing the words.”

Billy explained, and Ray seized the opportunity to kibitz with us. “Yes—the mistake is right here,” he said, as his fingers scanned the page. “You wanna read it yourself?” Once the problem was fixed, they did another set of vocals—this time in front of two stationary mikes.

You could see that Billy and Ray shared a warm bond, and the reason that “Baby Grand” works is because it’s heartfelt and simple. It’s just two giants who admire each other, singing and playing together.

As “Baby Grand” demonstrates, for songwriters with the gift, inspiration—and the moment of unblocking—does come. It takes time, patience, and faith.

Billy Joel and Ray Charles, “Baby Grand” session, 1986
Courtesy of Sam Emerson/Redbox

With Gloria and Emilio Estefan
Phil Ramone Collection

It all starts with a phone call.

The discussion and planning phase of a record project begins long before the artist and I meet in the studio, and the call can come from a manager, the record company, or the artist himself.

For example, I bumped into Tony Bennett backstage at the Grammys a year or so after we made
Playin’ with My Friends
and he said, “I’ve been meaning to call you. I think it’s time we did another album together.” Not long after Tony
did
call, and we began work on his Grammy-winning
The Art of Romance.
We recently followed it up with Tony’s eightieth-birthday celebration,
Duets: An American Classic.

Sometimes, it’s me who makes the call.

My introduction to Gloria and Emilio Estefan came in 1988 when I called to congratulate her after hearing Miami Sound Machine’s “Conga” on the radio. Gloria’s voice was prominent and strong, and the record had a pulsating energy that was out of this world.

My intent was to say hello, tell Gloria how much of a fan I was, and pay her a well-deserved compliment. She was delighted that I
took the time to call and invited me to meet with her, Emilio, and the band when I was in Miami. I did, and that simple phone call—made from my car—turned into a productive, fulfilling association and an enduring friendship.

Emilio had always produced Gloria’s records—with great success. But after we met he asked me to remix several of her singles, and called on me when he was looking for an objective producer to help Gloria make her holiday album,
Christmas Through Your Eyes
. Later, I produced her duets with both Frank Sinatra and Placido Domingo.

Regardless of how it comes, I love getting “the call.” The ultimate compliment is having someone you respect ask you to collaborate. It’s flattering to hear someone say, “We love the album you did with so-and-so, and this new project would be perfect for us to work on together.”

But what happens after the artist and I hang up? How do we get the ball rolling?

The way I began working with Billy Joel is an excellent example of how an artist and producer meet and forge an alliance from the ground up. Between 1977 and 1986, Billy and I made seven albums together:
The Stranger, 52nd Street, Glass Houses, Songs in the Attic, An Innocent Man, The Nylon Curtain,
and
The Bridge.
Those records—and the close friendship we still enjoy—occupy a significant place in my life.

The first time I saw Billy perform was in the spring of 1976, at a Columbia Records convention in Toronto. Columbia’s conventions were legendary: raucous, fun-filled, and occasionally bawdy. My favorite part of the annual event was the evening concert, which was a showcase for the label’s new and established artists.

For the Toronto gig I was working with two acts: Paul Simon and Phoebe Snow. I was backstage when Billy opened the show and knocked the audience out. My former wife—who was in the audience—ran into the dressing room while we were waiting to go
on and said, “I want you to see this.” I went out front and sat with her through at least thirty minutes of Billy’s encores and watched him energize the room. I had no idea who he was—I hadn’t seen him perform, and I hadn’t heard any of his records. Billy’s performance that night was stupendous, and I was impressed.

A couple of months later, Mickey Eichner and Don DeVito from Columbia Records called and said that Billy was looking for a producer. They invited me to see him perform at Carnegie Hall. Before the show, I went to the sound truck to see what the engineers were doing, and then watched the concert. Again, he amazed me. He’s a remarkable songwriter, I thought. I went home and listened to his first four albums.

What bothered me was that the power I’d seen twice onstage was missing from Billy’s records. A lot of people perform well, but for some reason their dynamic stage presence doesn’t carry over to the recordings. I could tell this was happening with Billy; I told Mickey and Don what I thought, and a lunch meeting was arranged.

During lunch I discovered that making
Turnstiles
(released in 1976) had been traumatic for Billy. Over his objection, Columbia had assigned Jimmy Guercio—the wunderkind who’d made a string of successful records with Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears—to produce the album. Billy was especially frustrated because Jimmy insisted on recording at Caribou Ranch in Colorado, with Elton John’s band. While Billy adored Elton, he felt that by using Nigel Olsson and the others he was copying Elton’s sound and forsaking his own. He was right.

After haggling with Columbia and rejecting the Caribou session tapes, Billy remade
Turnstiles
at Ultra-Sonic Studios in Long Island, producing it himself using the core musicians with whom he’d record and play for the next twenty years: Russell Javors (guitar), Richie Cannatta (saxophone), Doug Stegmeyer (bass), and Liberty DeVitto (drums).

Although it wasn’t his most well-produced album (by his own
admission Billy doesn’t have the inclination or patience to produce),
Turnstiles
contained some of his best songs, including “Say Goodbye to Hollywood,” “I’ve Loved These Days,” “Miami 2017,” “Prelude/Angry Young Man,” “Summer, Highland Falls,” and “New York State of Mind.”

I told Billy that I thought his songs were outstanding. Before I said that, I sensed that he was sizing me up to see whether I was bullshitting him or if I actually knew the music. By now I’d seen him perform twice, listened to his albums, and heard the frustrations he’d vented over lunch. I knew exactly what was missing from Billy’s first four records: his band. Billy’s musicians were a tight group, musically and personally. Until he remade
Turnstiles
he’d been forced to use studio musicians who lacked the intensity of what I’d seen the Billy Joel band do onstage.

Was Billy’s group perfect? No—but that’s what I loved. They were a real band that worked together night after night, playing his music with passion. As Liberty DeVitto has fondly said, “We were a garage band, arranging songs as we played them—on the spot.”

It was the unconstrained energy of Billy’s live gigs that had hit me between the eyes, and that’s what I wanted his records to reflect. I knew we could keep him in a live studio setting and still make vital rock-and-roll records. He showed me some of the new songs he was writing, we committed to making an album together (
The Stranger
), and our partnership was born.

Here’s the twist: although I didn’t know it at the time, Billy was also auditioning
me
. Producer George Martin was also under consideration. Why was I chosen over the distinguished Sir George, better known as the “Fifth Beatle”? Years later Billy told me that like his previous producers, George wanted to use session musicians, and not the guys in Billy’s band. Every so often, luck is on your side!