Interviews
Tommy "Snuff" Garrett: A Cowboy in the Control Room
By Larry Crane
Hit songs? Top of the charts? These days most of us involved in recording music rarely get our hopes up for having hits or seeing our...
Interviews
Moby: Back home with some help from his friends
By Alex McKenzie
Moby's apartment in Little Italy is simple, clean and economical. Framed gold records adorn one large wall, with the only other...
Interviews
Jackson Analogue
By Matt Frost, John Baccigaluppi
Brothers Jim and Rob Homes have more than a smattering of DNA in common. First up,...
Interviews
Doug Williams: The Avett Brothers, Electromagnetic and more!
By David Seward, Woodie Anderson
You may have seen Doug Williams' name on recording forums, listing frequency response...
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AUGUST 8, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Al Kooper: Hendrix, Dylan, Skynyrd, Stones
Al Kooper's musical resume reads like a rock and roll version of Where's Waldo. Sometimes he's right there staring at you, other times you have to sleuth around to find him lurking in the shadows. But somehow the guy seems to show up on nearly every page of rock history. Ticking off Al's career highlights is akin to making a "Tape Op readership fantasy career wish list." Boldly crashing a 1965 Bob Dylan recording session and ending up playing the signature organ lines on the Highway 61 Revisited album as well as Blonde on Blonde? Check. Founding probably the first horn-based rock band — Blood, Sweat & Tears — thereby ushering in a new type of pop/rock? Check. Discovering one of the top bands of the classic rock era — Lynyrd Skynyrd — and producing, mixing, and playing on the perennial arena rock anthem, "Free Bird?" Check. Playing with Hendrix, the Stones and The Who on Electric Ladyland, Let It Bleed and The Who Sell Out? Check. Producing nearly a score of high quality solo albums with full artistic control, most of which were bequeathed very generous budgets, which are then used to hire some of the modern era's most talented musicians? Check. Being given one of Jimi Hendrix's guitars by the man himself? Check. Discovering The Zombies' nearly shelved Odessey and Oracle album and convincing the label to release it in the U.S., thereby unearthing the potentially lost "Time Of The Season"? Check. Producing The Tubes' "White Punks On Dope"? Check. Writing what is arguably the most entertaining musical autobiography (Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards)? Check. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Starting in the late 1950s, the multitalented Brooklyn native set about making it in the music industry with an intensity and ambition few others could ever claim. From his teenage tenure as a guitarist in The Royal Teens ("Short Shorts"), to co-writing "This Diamond Ring", to a teaching position at Boston's Berklee School of Music up until 2001, Kooper has not slowed down much at all. When I met with him at his Boston-area home, he was just coming off a slew of solo shows and preparing for a tour of Japan with his current band, The Funky Faculty. A gracious host with deadpan humor in spades — when I asked if we could take some photos during the interview, he demurred, "My hair won't look good for days." Al showed me around the house, including a tour of his studio, Subterranean Homesick Studio in the basement (of course) and played me numerous remastered selections from his recently released solo career retrospective album 50/50.
AUGUST 8, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Gerhard Behles & Dave Hill: Behind The Gear with Ableton
Ableton Live is a program that has long been hard to define — is it a DAW, is it a DJ-centric program, is it a tweaker's toolbox or is it all (or none) of the above? A recent major update, Live 8, has brought more tweaks that bring it in line with a DAW while still retaining the features that set it apart from other digital audio software. We talked to Ableton founder and CEO Gerhard Behles and managing director Dave Hill about Live and how it fits into a 21st century production palette.
AUGUST 8, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Tommy "Snuff" Garrett: Johnny Burnette, Bobby Vee, Gary Lewis, Cher
Hit songs? Top of the charts? These days most of us involved in recording music rarely get our hopes up for having hits or seeing our work place high on the Billboard charts. But imagine working in a world where this not only happened — it was expected. In 1959 at the age of 19, Thomas "Snuff" Garrett found himself working in promotion at Liberty Records in Los Angeles. Within a year he was producing top-charting singles with Johnny Burnette and Bobby Vee, soon becoming Liberty's head of A&R. After seven years at Liberty, he left and started Snuff Garrett Productions and its offshoots, Viva and Snuff Garrett Records, with more hits from Gary Lewis and the Playboys and others. Retiring at 30, he sold Snuff Garrett Productions to Warner Brothers Records for millions. But retirement didn't last long, with Snuff returning to cut many hits for Cher in the '70s. In the late '70s and early '80s, Snuff moved into film work producing soundtracks for Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood films (The Cannonball Run, Sharky's Machine and Every Which Way But Loose), followed by Burt's TV shows up through the nineties. A stroke at 45 slowed Snuff down, but when I visited him in his cowboy memorabilia- filled home at his Idle Spurs ranch in Arizona, his cuss-filled tales of rambunctious record wrangling were as lively as could be. Our conversation brought us back to a time when songs were paired to singers (or vice versa), studios booked, arrangers and musicians brought in and hits cut. Here's Snuff Garrett, a producer of more number one hits than Phil Spector, and a former renegade cowboy of the Hollywood music biz.
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ATA delay compensation plug-in for Pro Tools LE & M-P
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