Have any of you been reading about the upcoming Neil Diamond CD produced by Rick Rubin? There was
a lengthy article in Rolling Stone about Rubin...how he has worked with all sorts of artists, especially well established names. His strength as a producer is the ability to get the artist focused on what made them successful in the first place and use that focus on getting the best from them in a new recording. He's pretty much responsible for the resurgence of Johnny Cash's career the last few years of his life. My question is: do you think Gord would benefit from hiring a producer such as Rubin or someone like him? Probably the person who knows how to record Gord best is Lenny Waronker, but Lenny is no longer in the producing business.
Apperently with Neil, Rubin told him to pick up the guitar, which he hasn't played in recording sessions for 30 years and strip away all the fancy orchestrations, and get back to basics. The buzz on the new CD is very positive. Gord does seem to understand the basics...usually he records with the same people you see on stage with him..if you were producing a CD for Gord, what would you tell him?

Have any of you been reading about the upcoming Neil Diamond CD produced by Rick Rubin? There was
a lengthy article in Rolling Stone about Rubin...how he has worked with all sorts of artists, especially well established names. His strength as a producer is the ability to get the artist focused on what made them successful in the first place and use that focus on getting the best from them in a new recording. He's pretty much responsible for the resurgence of Johnny Cash's career the last few years of his life. My question is: do you think Gord would benefit from hiring a producer such as Rubin or someone like him? Probably the person who knows how to record Gord best is Lenny Waronker, but Lenny is no longer in the producing business.
Apperently with Neil, Rubin told him to pick up the guitar, which he hasn't played in recording sessions for 30 years and strip away all the fancy orchestrations, and get back to basics. The buzz on the new CD is very positive. Gord does seem to understand the basics...usually he records with the same people you see on stage with him..if you were producing a CD for Gord, what would you tell him?

I appreciate the thread. If Rubin could do for Gordon what he did for Johnny Cash, that would be cool, but the problem is that the Rubin/Cash collaborations featured Cash singing a lot of other people's songs in addition to his own, and while that might work for GL too, I think his own compositions are the best. I mentioned in a different thread that if I were to tell GL anything based on listening to Harmony and seeing him in Reno (and I say this with all due diffidence and fear and trembling), it would be to sing softly (a la JJ Cale), eat the mic, and let the 66-year-old voice sound as intimate as pa on the front porch. That's the sort of thing Rubin is good at pulling off, but for some reason, maybe because I just love his stuff, I'd like to see GL work with Daniel Lanois.

those american recordings albums are some of the greatest i've heard. they can convince people that there's more to cash thyan country music.

Actually, as much as I like WFY, the vocals are the most strained and mumbled of any of the studio CDs.

It seems to me that Gord has worked with Daniel Lanios. I think it was on East Of Midnight. I may be wrong, though.

He played Electric Guitar and Mando Guitar on A Painter Passing Through.

He played Electric Guitar and Mando Guitar on A Painter Passing Through.