The 1970s — to my ears and my soul — was the pinnacle of popular music. Bands like the Allman Brothers, Earth, Wind and Fire, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Who were all at their creative and commercial zenith.
And despite the musical genius of guys like David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Duane Allman, and Maurice White, the records their bands made wouldn’t have been the same if it wasn’t for the genius of their recording engineers.
Tom Dowd was the recording and mixing engineer for loads of big albums from the 60s through until the early 00s. He had a close working relationship with icons such as Ray Charles, The Allman Brothers, and an up-and-coming English guitar slinger named Eric Clapton. Tom was the recording engineer on the Allman Brothers’ iconic live album At Fillmore East.
Speaking of Eric Clapton, there’s a beautiful YouTube video that was taken from a documentary on Tom’s life. In this video, Tom sits behind a mixing board and re-mixes the song Layla from the original master recordings. The childlike joy he shows as he’s playing with the individual tracks, talking about how many different tracks were used to record that legendary opening and the different layers that were in the ending coda. He comes alive as we were watching this.
Before he got into music, Dowd worked on the Manhattan Project. This was the project that ended with the first-ever atomic bombs used in combat.
From working on the atomic bomb to Aretha and Skynrd…yeah, he had an interesting life.
Another recording engineer who had a similar background was a man named Roger Nichols. Nichols studied nuclear physics at University and had intended to become a nuclear engineer. But a chance encounter with Frank Zappa pulled him down a different path.
Nichols was probably best known for his longtime association with Steely Dan. Being a noted perfectionist, Nichols fit right in with the notoriously mercurial Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.
During the sessions for Steely Dan’s album Gaucho, tensions had grown to a fever pitch. Walter was deep into his drug addiction and Donald was looking to go solo.
During those recording sessions, someone managed to accidentally erase the master recording of a song called The Second Arrangement. This was a song they had intended to be on the album.
Remember, this was around 1978–79. Everything was done to tape, so you couldn’t exactly do a ctrl+z and bring it all back.
Before the tape got erased, Nichols had managed to do a rough mix of the song and put it on a cassette tape.
Cassettes? Remember those?
From what I understand, The Second Arrangement was only performed live one time in 2011.
That was the same year that Roger Nichols passed away.
Many years after Roger passed away, Nichols’ daughter Cimcie discovered a cassette tape labeled “2nd Arr” as she went through some of her father’s effects. Hoping this was the legendary recording, she and her sister took the tape to a local recording studio…and it was. They did not know if the 40+ year old tape would have held up.
They got the recording cleaned up and Cimcie released it on her YouTube channel along with some home movies from the family. They’re putting together a documentary film on their father’s life.
So far as the song goes, there’s no doubt it’s a Steely Dan song from that era. With impeccable harmonies, minor blues guitar licks, and Donald’s unmistakable Rhodes piano. While it’s no Deacon Blues or Reelin’ In The Years, it’s still a damn good song and holds up to their lofty standards.
I believe the original intention was to layer some horns and a few other pieces onto the mix, but they felt like they couldn’t recapture the original magic the song had before the tape got erased, so they scrapped the song.
Okay, here’s how I believe it plays directly into how I see personal transformation.
Yes, it’s messy and incomplete. Yes, sonically it will never live up to Steely Dan’s lofty standards.
But make no mistake, that song is five minutes and change of complete and utter magic!
There’s beauty in the incomplete. There’s magic in the mess. And there’s joy in the discovery.
As I lay back on my bed with my eyes closed listening to this recording, in my mind’s eye I was sitting with my Dad (the reason why I’m a Dan fan) and listening to this together. And yeah, I was flooded with grief, but the whole experience was magic.
I have a deep fear of letting the world see my messy side. I have always had it that the only way I can get anything I want in my life and my business is to be perfect, polished, and poised.
And I can never recover from my mistakes.
This one little cassette tape proves to me the Miles Davis quote “Do not fear mistakes, there are none.”
To a couple of ladies who were just looking to reconnect with their late father, thank you for helping me connect with my late father. And showing me what it means to recover from a mistake.
