Free Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music by Phil Ramone Page B

thoughts that I had when I was fourteen. I’ve kept that, and I’m still recapitulating those early sounds in records today.
    “When I’m in the studio I’ll say, ‘I want this color and this sound, and I want it to be contrasted with this [other] sound.’ What I’m doing is working by orchestration. I’m working with musicians who are really gifted and, for the most part, supple enough that they can adapt to what I’m saying. Or, if they play exactly the right thing, I’ll say, ‘That’s it—that’s exactly the right thing.’”
    A well-crafted song offers infinite possibilities for the arranger, musician, and producer, who can use a melody’s inner rhythms—and the syncopation of the lyric—to emphasize its emotionality.
    I marvel at Paul’s persistence. He can work on an arrangement for hours, take it home and rethink it overnight, and have it ready for everyone to hear in the studio on the following morning. The band members will say, “But we did such a good job on this yesterday,” to which Paul will reply, “It wasn’t quite what I was looking for.”
    Billy doesn’t have the same patience. And unlike Paul, he loves having the band around him while he’s hammering out melodies and lyrics.

    Recording with Paul Simon, late 1970s
Phil Ramone Collection
    The birth of a Billy Joel song is organic: He filters and homogenizes his ideas, the producer’s ideas, and the band’s ideas ashe writes and records. Here’s how Billy explained his predilection for working this way:
    “I love having written a ‘hit’ catalog, but I hate the writing process. I don’t want to waste any of my creative energy if the band isn’t going to like the songs, so I take them into the studio for a reading.
    “I write for the way the band plays; they were there when I was nothing—we all grew up together, personally and musically,” Billy continues. “Their presence gives me a sensible perspective about my work that’s invaluable. If they really like it (which is rare), they’ll go, ‘Yeah, yeah! That’s solid!’ and I’ll finish inserting the bridge. Writing this way is like torture for me, because they’ll be standing there all the while, watching me like a jury, and they can be a really nasty bunch of guys. They really nudge me with their ‘show-us, Billy’ routine, and they do it to spur me on,” Billy concludes.
    Although I never fancied myself a songwriter, I used my understanding of song form and structure to help Billy organize his thoughts when we were in the throes of making an album.
    Billy and I would work together for a month before the first session. For these casual meetings we would work in a hotel room or at Billy’s New York apartment. Once in a while we would go to his home on Long Island, or into the studio. I’d put together a mini recording setup that sat on the piano so that if Billy was toying with an idea he could record it for reference.
    During that presession month, Billy and I would often work alone: he sitting at the piano, and me standing alongside him while he played and sang.
    Sometimes Liberty DeVitto would join us, and he and Billy would experiment with tempos and grooves. When they had a couple of ideas worked out, they’d start polishing them—but not enough to stop the process of allowing the whole band to work out a spontaneous arrangement later. Every once in a while, Billy and Liberty would lay down a demo with piano, drums, and vocals.
    During our prep session, Billy would occasionally stumble upon a chord progression or simple melodic phrase that he thought had potential. When that happened, he would try to develop it further, right then and there. If for some reason the idea didn’t seem to be going anywhere, he would say, “I’m going to let this simmer for a few days.”
    Then, when he and I met again a day or so later, Billy might say, “You know that phrase I was trying to flesh out? It’s a piece of garbage—it doesn’t work.”
    I took comments