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NOWHERE MAN
This track was one of a
number of demos that Karen recorded in Joe Osborn's garage studio in 1967. Not too long
after Joe and his family moved to the Nashville area in late 1974, all of their
possessions (save Joe's prized 1959 Jazz Bass prototype, given to him by Leo
Fender), were lost in a fire that destroyed the Osborn home. All the 4-track
tapes, except one given to me, perished as well. As a result, the few copies of
this track extant are mono acetate reference discs. We had one denoised, and
transferred it to the 48-track, leaving me 47 tracks with which to play. Of
course, I didn't need that many, but did get to complete the rest of the
arrangement I visualized years ago. For as much as I appreciate the Beatle's
original of this song, I still feel it makes a great ballad: Karen's alto is
particularly resonant on it. I just wasn't happy with my original intro, so in
1999 I rearranged and recut it. As the original piano on the demo was a spinet
and locked into the mono mix, engineer John Hendrickson had the unenviable task
of making the beautifully recorded concert grand sound a fraction of its size. I
then tailored the strings to cover the bar where the two pianos overlap. With
the string chart completed, along with oboe and harmonica, I found myself in the
peculiar situation of mixing the additions into an already mixed mono demo. As
Karen's lead is not on a track of its own, we had to exercise more caution than
usual in making sure not one word was lost in the mix.
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