Ahead of his Signature Series event on February 21, Larry Klein curates the following playlist that surveys his long, Grammy-winning career as a producer, songwriter, and musician. In this sampling of the songs that defined his four-decade career, Klein takes us behind the scenes of each track here, providing unforgettable snapshots that try, as he says, to show something interesting regarding record production, playing on other people's albums, and cowriting.
1. Mercy Street, Peter Gabriel I was in England working on producing an album for Ben Orr of The Cars, when Peter Gabriel called me to come in and play on some songs of his that were to become part of his album So. This was an incredible honor for me, as I had been a big fan of his work since his Genesis days. I came into the studio and the first thing that Peter and Daniel Lanois asked me to play on was a song about Anne Sexton, who was one of my favorite poets. The piece just about brought me to tears, and I set to putting together a part composed of two bass parts. The piece still moves me immensely.
2. You Dream Flat Tires, Joni Mitchell In 1981, I got a call to come in and play bass on some sessions for Joni Mitchell that were tracks that ended up being the album Wild Things Run Fast. She had only written three songs to begin with, and this song was one of them. Over the course of the next year, we did more of these tracking jags, and she and I became musical friends. Her correlative intelligence, musicality, artistic commitment, and creative spirit were unlike any person that I had ever met. We went on to make quite a few albums together, fell in love, and were married for 10 years. We ended up working very closely together on this record, and essentially coproduced it.
3. Darkling Down, Walter Becker Walter Becker and I met at the 2001 Grammys after Steely Dan had won the Album Of The Year award for their album Two Against Nature. We immediately became close friends and vowed to do something musical together. In 2007, Walter asked me if I would like to cowrite and produce a solo album of his with him. He didn't have to twist my arm. Over the next year we got together in N.Y.C. and L.A. for writing periods, and ended up writing about 15 songs together, which we distilled down into what became Circus Money. Writing with him was pure joy. I learned an immense amount about what good songwriting was from this guy who really felt like the older brother that I never had. I love this song that we wrote while consuming a couple of bottles of good wine and laughing our asses off at the short story that we concocted in the form of a song.
4. Don't Wait Too Long, Madeleine Peyroux In 2004, I met Madeleine Peyroux, and we set out to make an album that was to become Careless Love for Rounder Records. I had rarely met a more intuitive, idiosyncratic, bright, and delightful person. Madeleine really wanted to start on a path of writing her own songs, so we ended up doing a three-way collaboration on this song with the greatly talented songwriter Jesse Harris. It was to become a big signature song for Madi, and we set out a goal that we would have four newly written songs on the next album that we did, and that the next one after that would consist entirely of newly written songs. The next album was entitled Half The Perfect World, and the following one was called Bare Bones. We achieved what we had set out to do, and it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that continues today. Madeleine will be singing at the concert on February 21.
5. Never Die Young, Luciana Souza In 2007, my wife Luciana Souza and I set out to make an album for Verve Records adapting what we considered to be undeniably great songs in the bossa nova aesthetic. One of the songs that we both could not get out of our heads when narrowing down our list was James Taylor's great song, Never Die Young. I had always found this song incredibly moving and intriguing. I had known James for quite a few years, having had the honor of playing in his band briefly for a Prince's Trust concert in London. Our expectations were exceeded when James graciously agreed to sing on the song with Luciana, making it into a beautiful duet.
6. The Jungle Line (feat. Leonard Cohen), Herbie Hancock In 2006, Herbie Hancock asked me to make an album of Joni's songs with him, reimagining a group of her songs and looking at them through the lens of Herbie's sensibility and immense gifts as a musician, composer, and jazz giant. By that point, Leonard Cohen had also become a very good friend of mine, and a person who became a huge teacher and influence upon me creatively and artistically. Herbie told me at the beginning of the project that he had never listened to words in songs. So, we set out to explore Joni's poetry, with me guiding him through what I felt were good contenders for us to look at in regard to which songs we were to reimagine. With The Jungle Line, I was lucky enough to bring three huge influences and teachers together on one track. Quite a thrill. We also were thrilled to win the Grammy for Album Of The Year for this work, it being only the second jazz album in history to win that Grammy prize.
7. Imagine, Herbie Hancock In 2009, Herbie asked me to watch a documentary called The Path Of Man, and to come back and talk with him about it. We decided that we would try to make an album that traced the path that the Homo sapiens had migrated along during the earliest days of our species. I brought in an album by a great group called Konono N 1 from Congo, said that I had an idea of how to use them to record Imagine, and we agreed that we could record with them in Kinshasa. I then found out that Kinshasa was not a safe place to go, so we decided upon Paris as our junction point, but we were off and running. Eventually we pared down our lofty goal,
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Ahead of his Signature Series event on February 21, Larry Klein curates the following playlist that surveys his long, Grammy-winning career as a producer, songwriter, and musician. In this sampling of the songs that defined his four-decade career, Klein takes us behind the scenes of each track here, providing unforgettable snapshots that try, as he says, to show something interesting regarding record production, playing on other people's albums, and cowriting.
