About Recording Emily's Angel

Valerie & Walter Crockett's Third Album

The phenomenal Bob Dick produced Emily's Angel, as he has all our albums. We recorded the 12 basic tracks for this album under Bob's supervision in May 2000 at MPlanet Studios, in Mark Manuel's house in Worcester, Mass. Mark and his wife Chris have a big old house with more rooms than they can possibly fill and more clapboards than anyone would ever want to paint.

We put Val in the family room; Walter in the piano room; Fran McConville, Bob Dick and the recording console in the living room; and Mark Manuel and Billy MacGillivray upstairs in Mark's studio. We brought in several camcorders, bought a spool of wire at Home Quarters or Home Depot, whichever survived the retail wars, and connected the camcorders to TVs in each of the rooms. That way, everybody could see either Walter or Billy and we had an even chance of starting and ending songs at the same time and handling the ritards (and the retards) with at least a modicum of aplomb.

We usually do 13 songs on an album, but Garth doesn't like the number 13. We were going to do 14, but then we realized we'd be two songs ahead of the game for the next album if we only did 12. We made Emily's song, "One Special Day," cut No. 7, at her request, because that's Garth's favorite number.

Once we had the basic tracks down, we moved the operation to Apland Studios, which is a polite term for Bob Dick's palatial (by bluegrass standards) abode in Northbridge, Mass. It is a little known amazing fact that Bob recorded our two previous albums, Unbutton Your Heart and Moonbone on eight-track cassette. For Emily's Angel, however, we decided to use Bill MacGillivray on drums throughout, and Bob switched to 16-track digital. Although we don't play live with drums very often, the record certainly sounds more natural with them. Better too. Billy was a member of our electric band, Crockett in the early '80s. We've got his backbeat in our bones. Maybe that's why we get achy on rainy days.

Through the summer of 2000 at Apland Studios and sometimes at Mplanet Studios, we redid the vocals, added harmonies, fixed Walter's guitar mistakes and Fran's flubs, and brought in our usual cast of Honorary Oxymorons to add some color, texture, and hot licks to a few of the songs: Dave Dick on banjo, Roger Williams on dobro, and Chet Williamson on harp. Dave and Roger are on our previous two albums, and Chet plays some marvelous stuff on Moonbone. To make this a family affair, we added our son Jackson on trombone to the horn section on "I Got the Blues Again."

In addition, Duke Levine was taking a breather from touring with Mary Chapin Carpenter, so we recruited him to play electric guitar on "Emily's Angel" and "Ice Cream Man." Duke also was in our band, Crockett, from 1979-1982, and since Walter claims to have taught him everything he knows, we thought it would be good to put Duke on the session - particularly since Walter can't remember how to play like that anymore. Val had to kick Duke's butt to get him to stop being humble and show a little flash, but boy, can that guy burn! And he's got taste up the wazoo.

Besides Bob's fine recording, amazing ear for harmonies and first-rate bassing; Fran's immortal mandolin stylings; the fortuitous addition of Billy on drums, and the brilliance of Honorary Oxymorons Dave, Roger, Chet and Duke, the biggest difference between this record and our others is that Mark Manuel has been playing piano with us for two years and his sound is fully melded into ours.

The addition of Mark has let us move in all the eclectic directions we like to move in: a little Cajun, a little blues, a jazzy touch, plain old pop, country and pianovated bluegrass. If we think of something else to do, we can go there too. On Emily's Angel, Mark manages to get a different sound on almost every song. He picked up the accordion for "For the Long Run," and showed up at our house one day with a full horn arrangement and sax solo for "I Got the Blues Again." We didn't even know he could play sax. He uses synthesizer, in addition to piano, on "13 Letters." This new arsenal means that Mark, who is always the first one packed up and ready to leave after a gig, will be a tad slower getting home in the future.

While all this was underway, Nancy Davis was pulling together the art work for the CD and cassette. We started out trying to use the picture of Garth and Emmy and Photoshop Garth into an angel. But he ended up looking more like a zombie, so we let Nancy use her own imagination and she came up with the excellent design of a hat and a guitar.

In late September, Bob mixed the entire album, with Mark's assistance. They got it right. Then we sent it off to be mastered in Colorado by the award-winning David Glasser at Airshow in Boulder, Colo.