HiRez Poll King, Carole - TAPESTRY (5.1) [SACD]

[Uncle Obscure]

Here's an excerpt from a Library Of Congress interview with Lou Adler conducted in 2015 about the production of Tapestry. It's more philosophical than technical, but it is none-the-less fascinating.

“LOC: Did you work with her on finding her singing voice as a recording artist?

Carole’s voice was developed as far as it was going to or needed to be. She had a natural sound. She never sounded like she studied.

I remember the first review we got--it was horrible. I always remembered it, some writer out of Long Beach. He said she had a screechy voice and sang through her nose!

But [with her voice] there was nothing to develop. Technically, Hank Cicalo, our engineer, and I were always conscious to NOT do anything that would take away from her natural sound, or try to enhance it.

LOC: Did Carole’s singing voice and voice as a songwriter influence how you produced the album?

As a publisher for Carole, we would send out her demos, that were just her piano and voice, and we couldn’t get them back from the A&R men, producers or artists! They all wanted to keep them! So, I knew, when we started to record her, we had to stay as simple as you possibly can. I always wanted to make it sound like, whoever was listening to it, that it was just them listening to Carole singing and playing the piano. That was my direction for “Tapestry.”

LOC: What were those “Tapestry” recording sessions like?

Carole’s amazing. The most prepared of any artist I have ever worked with.

Before going into the studio, we went over the songs she had written or was writing, with an album of 12 in mind.

Obviously she plays piano and any other keyboards but then she also did the arrangements. She also sang on most of the backgrounds. Virtually anything I asked of her. I would say “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had...” and then we would have it! Not many artists are that complete. Joni Mitchell is. Maybe Neil Young. Total and complete.

LOC: For an album that has been one of the biggest, continuously selling in record history, I was surprised to learn that it didn’t cost much or take much time to record, did it?

I think we did the whole album for $22,000, around the time that was medium to low [cost]. We recorded three to four weeks, again, that was a medium to low amount of time. Carole’s very conscious of that. She doesn’t waste time. We were there to work. It’s not that she’s not loose enough to have a laugh with the musicians but she was right there, where we should have been.

It’s not always that way but we were both that kind of artist and producer.”

 

[4-earredwonder]

I always that that the microphone she must have used had some weird wind screen on it. She sounds so muffled to me.

Apparently NOT as evidenced by this photo taken at the Tapestry Recording session [from a PBS Special on the making of Tapestry]

 

[jaybird100]

Carole can do no wrong! This album rates a solid 10 from me. Yes, the surround mix could have been better, but they might have been going for a more "intimate" sound. I wish her other quad release, "Music", had also gotten the SACD treatment. The first record that bore her name as artist, that I remember, was 1962's "It Might as Well Rain Until September". Carole had written the song, and recorded the demo, to present to one of the girl groups of the day. When they balked at it, Carole was convinced to release the demo itself. It was very well received; here in South Florida, both top 40 stations played it heavily. Recently, our friends at Eric Records included it on one of their "Stereo Explosion" series CD's (Vol. 10) in DES stereo. Ya gotta hear it! I believe that's the song that put her among the ranks of singer-songwriters of the day, and she's still up there.