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| Of Thee I Sing, excerpt, live studio recording |
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| Of Thee I Sing, radio musical
A Pulitzer Prize winning Kaufman/Gershwin that opened in 1931 that was adapted to audio theater by Yuri Rasovsky in 1984. I recorded and mixed the musical numbers only, with a hundred musicians (Chicago’s Grant Park Orchestra and Chorale) and dozen principle actors all assembled into Universal Recording’s great Studio A. This version was broadcast the following year on NPR but is now "out of print". The original staging received a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1932, a first for any musical, and is filled with political satire that remains surprisingly relevant today. In this excerpt we join the newly elected President’s marriage ceremony just as it is interrupted by the French ambassador, who proclaims the President must instead marry a jilted French descendant (Miss Diana Deveraux) OR ELSE!
A summary of the entire play may be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Thee_I_Sing.
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| The Odyssey of Homer, excerpt Isle of Circe |
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| Odyssey of Homer, radio series
8 episode series that first appeared on NPR in 1983 and was my introduction to modern radio drama. Adapted and directed by Yuri Rasovsky, re-released by Blackstone Audio in 2003. It was considered a groundbreaking revival of the audio theater art form and won many awards including a George Foster Peabody award. This excerpt joins Odysseus as he lands on the Isle of Circe, where he is seduced after his crew is turned into swine. We recorded the actors onto reels of 4 track tape for preliminary editing, subsequently assembled with music and sound effects to 16 track analog 2 inch wide master tapes, and eventually mixed to stereo masters. Those mixed masters were apparently lost and I was horrified to discover the play’s 2003 re-release was actually taken from poor quality cassettes! It is my wish that audiences will have a chance to hear once again the pristine quality that Mr. Rasovsky and I worked for so many months to achieve, I have therefore offered the publisher free use of my clean copy for all future dubbing and sales.
The audio book is available here: http://www.blackstoneaudio.com/audiobook.cfm?id=3065
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| Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia, live |
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| Late Night With David Letterman
Filling in as the "A1", on-air mixer, for NBC’s Late Night With David Letterman show in 1987, was unforgettable. It is hard to describe the experience of mixing a show like that in a room barely large enough to hold a heat-belching SSL console with outboard equipment, an intercom headset on one ear (to speak with my audio crew on the floor), the director’s intercom blaring from a speaker at the opposite ear, all the while mixing the show. With no retakes and no stops, successes and mistakes were preserved forever. Every minute "on air" was totally exhilarating. Fridays were special days with different musical guests joining Paul Schaffer and the band. We got a 20 minute music and tech rehearsal with them just before the studio audience was seated, then the show was performed "live to tape". Poor quality video from the broadcasts are easily found online, I have provided links to these two songs below if you wish to view them. My audio recordings were taken directly off of my console. The higher quality and clarity of my copies are obvious even though they are the same mixes of the same moments in time.
Online Video Clips
Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia, September 17, 1987 off-air copy. YouTube (sound quality poor)
Joe Walsh and David Sanborn, 1987 off-air copy (sound quality so so)
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| Joe Walsh, live |
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