Bob DiSalle: Recording in France with Blue Rose

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Since listening for the first time in over 30 years to the cassette shown in this YouTube video, I’m trying to recall the circumstances of the taped conversations. It’s possible – because of the months between my interviewing Bob DiSalle, and the Modern Drummer publication of his feature interview – that I called Bob for an updater: If I was interviewing you today, Bob, is there anything you would like to talk about that we haven’t already talked about?

So, Bob’s updates are the positive influence of friend and mentor, Keith Gilroy (which I posted earlier), and an album Bob recorded in France with the Blue Rose group.

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Owen Hale’s Modern Drummer Profile 1982

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Scott K Fish

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SKF NOTE: The latest news I have on Owen Hale is almost exactly a year old: “‘Now I’m doing what I wanted to do all my career,’ he said, of the new album he started to work on in January at Mandeville’s JT Studios,” Owen told The Times-Picayune.

When I first spoke with Owen in 1982 he was the in-house session drummer at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Roger Hawkins recommended Owen as an up-and-coming drummer new to most Modern Drummer readers. Having studied trumpet 15-years, Owen taught himself drums – and he’s been at it ever since – including a four year stint with Lynyrd Skynyrd.

[SKF NOTE: 6/17/17 – Owen Hale’s profile interview is now available on MD‘s Archive Page.]

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Mixing John Denver Applause on Lou Reed’s ‘Rock n Roll Animal’ Album

Posted on February 12, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: This story had me smiling.

THE BLOG
Musician Steve Katz Revisits A Career Of Blood, Sweat, Blues And Rock
05/30/2015 08:22 am ET | Updated May 30, 2016

katz_steveThe Blues Project and Blood, Sweat & Tears, and he went on in the 1970s to produce Lou Reed’s classic live album, Rock n Roll Animal.

Katz says one of the stereo feeds of the audience track for Reed’s concert at New York’s Academy of Music, the basis for Rock n Roll Animal, was lost so there was only mono crowd sound. That wouldn’t work, so the engineer went through his archives and matched that with a mono audience track from a concert by the ultra-square John Denver. (Both were RCA artists at the time.)

“I said, ‘That’s perfect. Lou would love that,’ “ Katz says in a phone interview. “Lou went to his grave not knowing we did that. It’s my ultimate prank on him.”

Full Story

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Bob DiSalle: ‘Keith Gilroy: A Positive Influence, a Mentor’

Posted on February 11, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: I don’t know why I didn’t include Keith Gilroy’s name in Bob DiSalle‘s Modern Drummer interview (Nov. 1982). Digitizing a cassette recently, which is full of random bits of MD interviews — there was Bob DiSalle, asking me to include in his feature interview, I think, Keith Gilroy — a positive influence, and a mentor. But, Keith Gilroy is not mentioned in DiSalle’s interview. That’s puzzling.

Most drummers had Keith Gilroy’s in their life. I certainly did. I’m sorry, Bob DiSalle, to be a day late and a dollar short publishing your tribute to Keith Gilroy. I thought I was listening to praise which certainly was transcribed and published. But, no.

Bob DiSalle and I never met, which is a shame. As I explain in my introduction to his interview — I liked his drumming before I even knew his name. And there was so much about Bob DiSalle’s approach to drumming, to professionalism, that I identified with. He was a very interesting, sincere man.

[SKF NOTE: 6/17/17 – Bob DiSalle’s full interview is now available on MD‘s Archive Page.]

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When Photographers and Drumsets Collide

Posted on February 9, 2017 by Scott K Fish
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SKF NOTE: Alan Gratzer’s 1981 Ludwig ad reminds me of an innovation Alan mentioned to photographer John Leze during an REO Speedwagon in-concert photo shoot for Gratzer’s Modern Drummer interview published in July 1981.

At that time it was still tough for photographers to take pictures of drummers in concert. Music stages were usually several feet above ground level, and drummers were set up on risers a few feet higher still.

Stage lighting on drummers was sketchy; they often played in dim lights, colored lights, strobe lights. And drummers were always at least partially hidden by their drumsets.

Imagine trying to get live shots of Alan Gratzer sitting behind his “Set-Up” with four rack toms, two over two, in front of him!

If you look at John Lee’s photos published with Gratzer’s MD interview, you can see, I think, the challenge. John could only get side shots of Alan. I was at the concert too, and I remember John and Alan kicking around solutions. And it was Alan Gratzer, I believe, who floated the idea of attaching a series of camera’s to his cymbal stands, pre-focused, that John could trigger electronically.

I loved the idea. It would have been interesting, in 1981, to have experimented with it.

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