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| Tom Dowd and the Language of Music | | Date Created: Nov 26, 2004, 03:43 PM |
 What do the following great artists and musical legends have in common: Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Turner, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman, Tito Puente, Ray Charles, Booker T. & the MGs, The Coasters, Aretha Franklin, The Drifters, Ben E. King, Bobby Darin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Cream, Eric Clapton, The Young Rascals, Dusty Springfield, Gladys Knight, Derek and the Dominos, Rod Stewart, The James Gang, Diana Ross, The Bee Gees, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Carlos Santana, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers Band, Tina Turner, Chicago, Cher, Kenny Loggins, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Eddie Money, Phil Collins, Popa Chubby, and A Tribe Called Quest?
Each of those - and many more - had recordings engineered and/or produced by Tom Dowd. The documentary "Tom Dowd and the Language of Music" is a love story for music lovers of the past half-century. However, the thing that comes across most strongly is the heart of Dowd. Engineering is a technical endeavor, but Dowd was a master musicologist and psychologist who became entwined with each of the artists he collaborated with. (Although we'll forgive him for Pablo Cruise...)
No matter what career you follow, Dowd is a great role model for doing a job brilliantly, but more importantly doing his job with grace, respect, courtesy and becoming a dear, life-long friend to all he met.
Dowd was a young prodigy, gaining his place at Columbia University at the age of 16, working as a physicist on the top-secret Manhattan Project - the code name for the creation of the atomic bomb in the 1940s. He was an integral part of the first underground atomic test on the Bikini Islands. When the war ended, he refused to go back to school because the professors where still teaching outdated theories. (The secrecy of the bomb project meant Dowd's knowledge was already years ahead of his teachers.)
The film outlines his role as the technical genius behind early jazz, blues and soul records, primarily for Atlantic Records. His career spanned the gap between single-track mono recording directly to disc, to two-track stereo, to eight recording tracks through the new digital age, following a thread from Edison to Einstein to Les Paul into the 21st century.
Dowd was undaunted by the vast array of styles - he focused instead on the pure sound, the pure heart of the music. "The thing that has stayed the same all through is the music as a form of expression," he explains.
The movie focuses on that heart, and it shows most glowingly when Dowd sits down with the multi-track recording of "Layla," one of rock's greatest songs. Hearing the raw pieces for the first time in nearly thirty years, Dowd joyously singles out each instrument on the track - focusing on the nearly magical guitar interplay of Eric Clapton and Duane Allman.
"His ear, and his musicality..." Eric Clapton described Dowd's gifts. "He has a very very very simple approach to making music: finding what works and what's necessary and chucking away what isn't. and that's down to his ear."
Dowd ends the movie at his famous piano (used for an endless list of hits from 'Layla' to 'Free Bird' to Aretha Franklin's 'Respect') musing on his career.
"It's not necessarily the notes you play. It's not necessarily what school you went to or how much you studied or who your teachers were, it's what you can take from your heart and convey it to the other person, " says Dowd, who died in 2002 at the age of 77. |
 Today's Sign of the Apocalypse: (OK, I'm not a big apocalypse guy, so I'll need to come up with a better heading than this, but the cliche seems to fit for now.)
A Dale Jr. snowman globe. Say that outloud. OK, I do agree with the comment someone made that Junior really is very plae skinned, but his face is a little thinner than this rotund lil' guy.
First of all, other than the hat and the SPY sunglasses, it doesn't look ANYTHING like Dale Jr... heh heh And second of all, the collectors, god-love-'em- they mean job security for me - but a Dale Jr. snowglobe? I'm not even sure on what level and in what context this is hilarious, but get your checkbook out and have happy holidays... |
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