Technology (narration) - Jimmy Buffett

Wow, now that’s an ending, I made it and all the chords sound

like they should go there, nothing to punch in and fix

I was thinking about how we’ve all been jaded a bit

by the technological advances that now are part of the

process of writing songs and making recordings

To start with, you don’t have to go to a studio to make recordings

anymore you can do it at home or in a hotel room on the road

Right now I’m on tour and recording these notes,

ironically enough in a rented waterfront

condo in Perdito Key, Florida 3 miles East of the

Florabama bar

The rally point of my misspent youth

The gear I’m using is a long way from the Garrick Production Sound

It fits into a small carry on suitcase, I use a studio these days

more for rehearsals than recordings and so it goes

I guess the main reason I have loved listening

to these old tracks is that they have really

come from another time and place

Like any treasure worth its salt should do

The cool thing to me about listening now, in the age where

you can cut and paste, tune and loop, sample, copy and quantise

is how simple and fun these tracks sound

Your first studio experience is

simply a wonderful discovery experience

for a would be singer

I was a nightclub entertainer and a product of Bourbon Street bars

Making records was something real stars did, real stars played

on the radio and millions of people heard their songs

We were club players, copying the hits that were popular at the time

I’d never set foot in a studio up until the time I set foot inside

Product Sound Studios

I did have a Sony reel to reel machine that my

Uncle Bill had brought me back from Japan

That we played around with recording our rehearsals

and some of our shows in New Orleans but that was it

So although it was a small studio in a small town, known more for

Mardi Gras than music

Product Sound was still a studio

Hell they even recorded on new tape

in boxes sealed in plastic wrappers

that had never been opened

Luckily in years up the road the

studio got bigger and better but I never

have forgotten that first time I

stood in front of a studio mic and put

headphones on mhy ears and in my mind I was on the way

to becoming a recording artist

And I did not care how long and how hard I would have to work to turn

that dream into reality, from the moment I stepped in that booth

I was fully committed to trying for the brass ring

on the merry-go-round I had chosen to ride for life

Here is another song from the Mobile

sessions, I can’t be your hero today