RUSS TITELMAN PRODUCES

RUSS TITELMAN PRODUCES

CREEM SHOWCASE

Dan Hedges

You can sweat like Springsteen, pout and kick like the Wilson Sisters, solo like Eddie Van H.. and crank out songs that’ll give the Lennon-McCartney catalog a run for its money. But the secret in the studio usually lies with that extra set of ears, that outside viewpoint that can spell the difference between a hit and a dismal miss. It’s the record producer’s viewpoint—that second opinion that’s made behind-thescenes stars out of guys like Trevor Horn. Nile Rodgers and Steve Lillywhite. Made them near-household names.

Russ Titelman’s been fine-tuning his studio tan for 15 years now. Randy Newman, James Taylor. Chaka Khan. Graham Central Station, Greg Allman, George Harrison, Rickie Lee Jones, Paul Simon and Christine McVie have all benefited from his touch as a producer. In New York these past few months, he’s been manning the swivel chair for Steve Winwood’s new album.

In light of the fairly recent emergence of the producer-as-celebrity, however, where the producer can often cop more attention than the artist being produced, his profile is low-key.

Titelman agrees. "In certain cases, the producer is almost more important than the artist,” he says. “On certain records. Maybe Trevor Horn is a good example of that. On the Grace Jones album, it’s really the production and the whole environment. Phil Spector is an example of that, it was his vision of the way the record should sound. The comparison to a movie director is a fairly accurate assessment of our role. Five of the top ten albums on the R&B charts are by the same production team, so that says something about the strength of a producer.”

In the current big bucks climate of the music business, landing a record deal is no safety net. Where artists were once allowed to slowly build a following over the course of several albums, bands these days often get only one turn at bat. Strike out? You can usually forget about getting a second chance.

Whether or not a struggling band survives, Titelman says, “has a lot to do with whether you have somebody in the A&R department who really believes in your group. Someone who’s willing to stand by an artist who’s just starting out and finding his or her identity, who might make a first album that might not do that great, but who's attracted press interest in it. With someone like that behind you. you can fight the tide of money being the most important thing. The music is the most important thing. You try to make a hit, you want it to be successful, but you also want it to be good.

“But it is a business, and it is popular music. We’re not making chamber music here. Record companies put up a lot of money, and it’s a gamble. If you make a record that cost a half million or a million dollars, the company’s going to be worried. They’ve got to self a lot of records just to make their money back. Budgets are always a concern. As a producer and as an A&R person, I’m always concerned about that.”

Money aside, there’s the philosophical question of whether an album is ever really finished from a production point of view. A bit more fine-tuning here, a tad more tinkering there. The studio bills can skyrocket.

“That’s always the case.” Titelman says. “But your taste and instinct tells you. ‘OK. we’ve done enough on this goddamn thing.' We went through some changes on this Winwood album, sure, ‘Maybe the kick pattern should be different on this’ or 'Maybe we should change that.’ But eventually you arrive at something you’re satisfied with.”

Until someone walks in and decides it heeds bagpipes or a Lithuanian goat herders’ chorale.

“Yeah, The title track of Steve’s album is called ‘Back In The High Life Again.’ We cut a very basic track, put a drum machine down, this odd little sound, and a keyboard part. Steve came in and said, T!f sing it, but first I want to put down a mandolin.’ So he went in and did it, and it sounds like this guy’s been playing mandolin all his life. It was fantastic. And then he went in and sang the song. It was an odd thing to do. it was so unexpected. But it came out great.”

A good producer, Titelman reckons, works differently with each artist. “I think it’s best when you’re working with someone who has a strong identity, but is not necessarily too dogmatic about what they're doing. There has to be an open, creative atmosphere in the studio for everyone to do their best work. It’s the Quincy Jones adage, ‘Leave your ego at the door.’ Everyone’s ideas have to be aired. You try a lot of things, and some of them work, some of them don’t. But if everyone’s got pretty good taste, you usually come up with some good stuff.”

It was Phil Spector who gave Titelman his jump-start in L.A. during the early '60s, hiring the then 16-year-oid guitarist to sit in on some of his earliest sessions. Songwriting came next. Titelman landed a contract with Screen Gems / Columbia Music in New York, and found himself collaborating with the likes of Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Carole King, and Gerry Goffin—then the reigning royalty of rock songwriting.

He sat out 1966 in front of the TV cameras, playing in the house band for ABC's video teenfest, Shindig, before hooking up with producer Jack Nitzsche —a collaboration that put his name in the scoring credits for Mick Jagger’s first film, Performance. When Lowell George {who played on those sessions) eventually formed Little Feat. Titelman wheeled them over to friend Lenny Waronker at Warner Bros. By the time the dust settled, he was listed as producer on the band’s debut album.

Titelman joined Warner’s after that as staff producer/A&R man. where he proved instrumental in bringing acts like Prince to the label. In the years since, though, he's continued to be that extra set of ears. Producing keeps him out of the office. And for a former teen guitarist from Los Angeles, it’s the best of both possible worlds. "When you’re working with an artist who has a strong vision, the producer’s job is to bring out the best in that artist, let him do his best work,” he says. “But you have to be able to step aside and look at things objectively. You try to get what you want, but not to the detriment of the record. You try to get the most of that artist’s personality that you can on the record. Like with Winwood, he’s doing almost all of the keyboard playing, guitar, mandolin, and singing background parts. We have a lot of other people on it, but there’s a real force there that’s him. It's his thing. A large part of my job is to make sure of that.”