Left on the record

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 23 Apr 2010 2:16 pm

Now I love Big Sandy and listening to Lee Jeffriess play but on one track I was listening to recently Lee just sort of loses it in his solo; he is way out of tune and seems lost. It only lasts a few seconds on the record and he is fine everywhere else, but this is so jarring I was surprised they left it on the record. I'm sure Lee was surprised as well.

Any other examples of blunders that should have been erased and done over but weren't and are now on record: any of you have some clunkers on record you cringe when you hear them?

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 23 Apr 2010 3:29 pm

I did a session for "Big K" records in Kansas City back in the late 70's. The song is "Pinball Boogie" and the singer is Bob Bohn (from Iowa). My parts on the record were a couple of licks backing the singer and a part of the instrumental break. On the backing section one time I hit a 1 chord lick where it should have been a 5 chord lick. I didn't know it until I was there for a different recording session and the engineer played the "final mix" tape and I noticed it. It was too late as the master tape had been sent to the record manufacturing plant in Cincinatti. He wasn't worried and said it sounded OK the way it was. The song went #1 in Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota and Minnesota (and on other station play lists).

I have an old Chet Atkins LP and on one song he makes a run from the 12th fret down to E open and about a quarter of the way through the run he goes flat and he just continues flat and works back to the correct key at the end of the run - like that was the way it was supposed to be. I was surprised to find something like than in a Chet Atkins recording.

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 23 Apr 2010 10:28 pm

I happen to have been listening to Junior Brown's Guit With It album earlier today, and once again noticed Jimmie Vaughan's guitar solo on "My Wife Thinks You're Dead". He plays two full choruses, and 98% of the way he's really in the groove, it's a really good solo, but at the very end of the solo a voice can be heard crying "Whoa!!!", and from my own similar experience I know it's Jimmie saying "D*** it!! I was really hitting it, and then I lost it at the very end! Aaaarrrggh!!!" But the rest of the solo is so good they kept it on the record.

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 24 Apr 2010 2:48 am

Jack, did you notice the mistake every time you heard it play on the radio? I could imagine that might be frustrating.

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 24 Apr 2010 11:32 am

Theres a Jim Hall/Bill Evans performance of When you wish upon a star that's sublimely perfect until the last 2 seconds when Hall acccidentally sounded his strings behind the bridge or behind the nut making a loud "Doink." For some reason they left it in the final version.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 25 Apr 2010 2:29 am

Bill, yes, everytime I heard the song I heard my mistake that no one else seemed to hear or mind. But I think that's typical of any musician.

One of the problems with that old recording is they would have had to do the session over completely, it wasn't like it is now where everyone is on separate tracks (and virtually unlimited with the computer DAW's). The studio had a 4 track Tascam recorder and he was bouncing tracks (combining them) to get open tracks to add everything to the recording. Thus by the time it got down to the "final" several tracks had been combined, several times. The "master" tape was a mixdown to a two track Ampex recorder.

Rick Barnhart · Post by **Rick Barnhart** » 25 Apr 2010 7:31 am

Someone posted a discussion here before, but I couldn't find the link... The Mamas and the Papas recorded a "famous false start mistake" in "I Saw Her Again" and left it in. I can't imagine the recording without it. The false start begin at about 2:43 on this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXwtzP8KZwY

Steve Becker · Post by **Steve Becker** » 25 Apr 2010 8:30 pm

I have always thought that Vassar's fiddling on the Richard Betts track "Hand picked" (with John Hughey on steel) was so out of tune that I can't believe he left it on there. It detracts so much from what is one of my all time favorite instrumentals!! Still love it though!

Jody Sanders · Post by **Jody Sanders** » 25 Apr 2010 9:27 pm

Jerry Byrd dropped his bar on a recording and the "clunk" came out on the record. Jody.

Jim Hartley · Post by **Jim Hartley** » 26 Apr 2010 4:13 am

You have to listen real close, but on Jack Green's "Statue of a fool", there is a steel slide that sounds like he changed his mind and cut it short. I think it's in the second verse, and very much buried in the mix, but it's there.

Sidenote: In "88 and "89, I was working alot with Gene O'neal, and every time the singer would sing this song, Gene would play that slide and cut it off just like the record. Gene loved "inside" jokes, and we always had fun with that one.

Jim

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 26 Apr 2010 6:05 pm

Rick, it was this one ...

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... highlight=

Bryan Daste · Post by **Bryan Daste** » 27 Apr 2010 3:24 am

This has made the rounds before, but it's fun:

http://www.hometracked.com/2007/08/23/1 ... the-album/

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 27 Apr 2010 6:41 am

I seem to recall having a Paul Desmond LP that had a drum blooper on it. At the end of the tune, the drummer hit the crash cymbal and it fell to the floor, making a much louder crash. They left it in. Jazz.