Mike Post Lawrence Sumulong
A need to “try something hard” is what led fabulous tv author Mike Post to make the initial all-originals cds of his 60-year occupation.
Message From the Mountains & & Echoes of the Delta, which appeared in April, was simply that for the author. Post became part of the Wrecking Crew as a teen, won the initial of his 5 Grammy Awards at age 24 and has a résumé of styles and ratings (actually ratings of ’em) that consists of The Andy Williams Show, The Rockford Files, Hill Street Blues, the Law & &Order franchise business and The Greatest American Hero ( numerous of which won Grammys and led to songs that strike different Billboard graphes). He’s additionally created and co-produced a couple of cds, consisting of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs and Van Halen III, along the road.
“It’s not time consuming, but it’s what I’ve been doing all these years, making records or producing other people,” Post informsBillboard “My day job, I work around the TV season; I go to work in September and I’m off the end of May. So I’ve just been busy with other people’s stuff.”
The Message task, Post claims, was motivated by a drive via the desert throughout the very early days of the pandemic. “I’m down a Spotify hole, and I’m listening to bluegrass,” Post remembers. “This idea struck me, ‘I wonder if anybody’s really tried to do a big piece with a five-piece bluegrass band and an orchestra.’ And I thought, ‘that would be really hard, because bluegrass players don’t read (music) and orchestras don’t jam, so how do you get them to talk to each other?’ Then I kinda laughed at myself; ‘C’mon, you haven’t done anything hard in so long.’ Not that making music for television or doing a score every week for show is easy, but it’s right there for me, it’s intuitive. So I thought, ‘Y’know, you’re the guy who did “Classical Gas” as an arranger and a manufacturer when you were 23. You can do this. Get to function!'” (That solitary, done by Mason Williams, hitNo 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won 3 Grammys.).
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Post developed Message from brief opus made up on a preparing table in the house. As he continued, he increased his vision to consist of blues right into the mix too, though that part of the item’s 2nd fifty percent additionally discuss prog rock and jazz combination. The resulting 25-track job consists of gamers such as banjoist Herb Pedersen, fiddler Gabe Witcher, dobroist Mike Witcher and Patrick Sauber on guitar and mandolin from the bluegrass side; and on cries side, it consists of guitar players Sonny Landreth and Eric Gales, bassistAbe Laboriel Sr and drummerAbe Laboriel Jr and keyboardists Robert Turner and Jon O’Hara Amy Keys offers vocals in addition to the cd’s initial spoken-word item.
The orchestrations, on the other hand, were corrected 2 days with an 80-piece set Post put together on the Sony racking up phase in Culver City, Calif., after pandemic constraints raised. “That was jaw-droppingly satisfying,” remembers Post, whose tv items are normally put together with synthesizers, examples and various other modern technology. “Literally in the first two or three chunks we recorded I was like, ‘Holy sh-t, these people are players!’ They had no problem with the time. They had no problem taking licks that are not classical, that are rhythm section oriented, bluegrass or blues, and playing the hell out of them. I was blown away, (it was) more than I could have hoped for.”
Message starts with a, well, message– created by Mark Wilding (Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy) and told by Keys– concerning American migration from Europe, Ireland, Latin America and Vietnam and explaining that “getting to the United States has never been for the faint of heart.” It had not been something Post expected, yet the Pan-American technique of the item made it a suitable point of view for the songs.
“(The album) is about how this country is so different because of its diversity, because of where everybody came from and how much they gave up to get here,” Post discusses. “Art reflect life, always — that’s cliché, but it’s true. Do we really care about our fellow man…or are we just selfish? These are complex problems, and with no simple answers. We’ve really got to look to our humanity to figure out what’s right and what’s proper.”
With Message out, Post claims “there are some discussions” concerning offering it live yet no company prepares yet. “I don’t have that performance gene,” he recognizes. “I don’t have that thing where I’m dying to go out and play in front of an audience. However, these pieces are pretty unusual, and if there is an audience that wants to see them live, I’m interested. It would be very hard to do — and probably very expensive — but it would be worth doing because it’s so unusual.”
The undertaking has actually additionally sharpened Post’s cravings to do even more job of his very own. He points out mixing Middle Eastern “fierceness” with “an aggressive rhythm section,” or diving right into Irish tastes with a band. “There are other genres that would be interesting,” he claims,“and I’ve just scratched the surface of these two lanes, bluegrass and blues. There’s a lot more melody and harmony and rhythm where that stuff came from, so maybe I’m not done.”
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