Dae Bennett: Recording Tony Bennett's 'One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)'

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Published in SOS February 2012

People + Opinion : Artists / Engineers / Producers / Programmers


Tony Bennett’s continuing success showcases the value of old-school recording techniques — and the talents of his engineer son Dae.
Paul Tingen
Tony Bennett recording his first number one album, at the age of 85!
Tony Bennett recording his first number one album, at the age of 85!
Photo: Josh Cheuse.
It is never too late to have a first number one. Tony Bennett recently managed the feat at the tender age of 85, when his album Duets II topped the US Billboard album charts in the Autumn of 2011. Even more impressively, the album also made it to the top five in almost every other Anglo-Saxon nation, including the UK, and reached the higher regions of the charts in two dozen other countries.
Not only is Bennett the oldest living artist to have a number one album, but he’s achieved it with a style of music — the pre-WW2 popular song crooned in jazz band, big band and/or orchestral settings — that was, for several decades considered a relic of the past. Bennett first achieved success during the ‘50s and early ‘60s, before undergoing a resurgence in the late ‘80s, flanked by his sons Danny and Dae, respectively his manager and recording engineer. His career has been on an upward curve ever since, as has classic big-band and orchestral vocal music, so the success of Bennett’s Duets, An American Classic, released in 2006 to celebrate his 80th birthday, was not altogether surprising. Produced by the legendary Phil Ramone, it featured an A-list cast of guest singers, including Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney, Celine Dion, Elton John, Michael Bublé, Sting, Bono, Stevie Wonder, Diana Krall and more.
Duets II has proved even more successful, and features another cast of top guest singers, among them Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse, John Mayer, Aretha Franklin, Michael Bublé, Willie Nelson, Norah Jones, KD Lang and many more. Duets II was co-produced by Ramone and Dae Bennett, and the latter also recorded and mixed both Duets albums. The 56-year old describes how the two Duets albums came into being: “When my brother called me in 2005 saying that my Dad and he were thinking of doing a duets album, I wasn’t into it, because these type of records can sound so canned and artificial. I thought about it for a bit, and called him back and suggested that we make a feature out of doing it live. The hardest thing to happen on a recording is something spontaneous, but if you can get something spontaneous to happen, it always is the best stuff. Plus my Dad always records live. He hates headphones, and if you put these on him, and/or put him in a booth, you’d be taking him out of his element and you wouldn’t get the best out of him. We have always recorded him live in the studio. So we decided to make the duet albums in such a way that they cannot be but spontaneous and exciting.”
Studio Surprise
Like its predecessor, Duets II was recorded and mixed by Tony Bennett’s son Dae Bennett (right).
Like its predecessor, Duets II was recorded and mixed by Tony Bennett’s son Dae Bennett (right).
Dae Bennett and Phil Ramone’s method was to record Tony Bennett and each of the guest singers with a jazz quartet — drums, double bass, piano and guitar — in that most old-fashioned of ways: live in the studio, with no separation or click track. The other trick that appeared to have worked well for the first Duets album was not to tell the guest singers that this was the modus operandi (by the time the second album came round, most stars had presumably wised up to the ploy!). Dae Bennett: “With the first album, many of the artists arrived at the studio thinking they were going to sing to a backing track, and when they came in and saw Tony and the quartet and all the mics set up, they were like, ‘Jeez!’ We always had a headphone station set up, ready to go, if they really wanted it, but everyone settled for not using them. So instead we had two Red monitors on either side of them, with the quartet semi-circular in front of the singers. The Red monitors are very directional, and more like sidefills than floor wedges. My Dad also uses them in live performances.
“When the Dixie Chicks came in [during the recordings of the first album], one of them, Emily Robison, sat down next to me at the console and through the side of her mouth whispered to me: ‘You know what? We never record this way! We’re really nervous about doing this.’ They were doing ‘Lullaby Of Broadway’ with an Andrews Sisters-type vocal arrangement, and I said to them: ‘Don’t worry about it.’ My Dad is also very good at putting people at ease, and of course, they are really talented. By the end of the session, they were all very happy and doing high fives and so on. Almost all the sessions turned out that way, with artists coming in nervous and by the end being very happy. Michael Bublé sang on the first Duets album, and when he came in for his session for the second album he said: ‘I do all my sessions like this now.’ John Mayer was probably the most nervous of the artists who participated in the making of Duets II, and said that he really wasn’t sure about the phrasing and stuff. Many artists think that they have to phrase like Tony, but I explained to him that we just wanted him to do his thing, that our idea was for everyone to be themselves. I said to him: ‘It’s a blues tune, and you play blues guitar, don’t you?’ And he was like ‘Oh, yeah,’ and he got it. After that, everything started to flow. We got that a lot during the sessions. I always do my best to keep everything relaxed, and my Dad is a very mellow guy, so we made sure everyone was feeling comfortable. That’s how you get the best takes.”
A Spare Half Hour
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Published in SOS February 2012

 

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In this article:
Studio Surprise
A Spare Half Hour
Spilling The Beans
‘One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)’
The Mix
Dae Bennett & Bennett Studios
Amy Winehouse’s Final Session
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