![]() And still we had a 100,000 returns on forty-fives, because the needle did skip! Oh my god, it was a fucking nightmare.”īut none of that stopped the rollicking tune from becoming a monster hit. Even so, I spent weeks in the mastering lab, looking at every groove under a microscope to see if we were actually getting the song on there so the needle wouldn’t skip. “There was just no way to physically put an eight-minute song on one side of a forty-five,” Freeman explains. More problematic was how to press it on a seven-inch vinyl record. An edit for AM radio cut it to four minutes, while FM insisted on playing the full version. That was my job.”Īt a time when most radio hits clocked in at around three minutes, American Pie’s length posed a challenge. The whole record was about balancing that innocence and naiveté, which is really important, with a professional-sounding record. But in a way that’s what makes it so good. “He wasn’t comfortable with overdubbing, and me splicing his vocals two hundred times. “Well, Don was pretty green in the studio,” Freeman says. In a 2020 interview, McLean lamented that he “hadn’t learned to relax in the studio yet”, and wished that he’d been looser during the sessions. We knew we had something on our hands that was pretty special.” “When everybody came in the booth to listen to the track, it was magic. “Then I added pianist Paul Griffin and guitarist David Spinozza, and it got very exciting,” Freeman recalls. With McLean on acoustic guitar, accompanied by bassist Bob Rothstein and drummer Roy Markowitz, they nailed a rhythm track for the main body of the song in one confident take. In May 1971, after two weeks of rehearsal, they entered the Record Plant in NYC. They’d be able to approach Don on the same level.” So instead of getting in a bunch of seasoned studio musicians who could knock it out in five minutes, I deliberately got musicians who were good, but weren’t slick, burned-out superstar players. “Don had not really had any experience playing with other people, and he was very leery about it. “To me, that’s the most crucial thing I did for that whole record,” Freeman says. ![]() It was so much fun getting to figure out ways to make each moment in the video feel intimate and a part of the overall story.Initially McLean wanted to record American Pie with just acoustic guitar, but Freeman “leaned on him” to use a rhythm section. ![]() While working on this project I had a lot of feelings, but the main one was joy. Over on the Doodle blog, Google has shared early drafts of the animation, as well as an interview with the Doodle artist who shared the joy that he found in Luther Vandross’s music and life. With these, you’ll also see representations of the many different kinds of love that Vandross sang about. The video Google Doodle celebrating the life and legacy of Luther Vandross was created by Sam Bass and features many of the highlights of Vandross’s career, like performing at the Apollo Theater, appearing on Sesame Street, and writing jingles for numerous commercials. Luther’s legacy lives on, with his music frequently being sampled, covered, or remixed to this day. died of a heart attack on July 1, 2005, at the age of 54. Luther’s health briefly recovered, in time for him to be recognized at the 2004 Grammy Awards for Song of the Year, though it was his mother, Mary Vandross, who accepted the award on his behalf. The song was the lead track on an album of the same name, released in 2003, just weeks after Vandross suffered a stroke that left him comatose for two months. One of Vandross’s most well-known songs is “ Dance with My Father,” dedicated to Luther Vandross, Sr., who died from diabetes complications when young Luther was just eight years old. Between 19, Vandross released a total of 13 studio albums, won 8 Grammy awards, and earned the nickname “Velvet Voice” for the richness of his tenor vocals. In 1981, Luther Vandross began a successful solo career, releasing the album Never Too Much, the title song for which forms the basis of today’s Google Doodle. King, David Bowie, and Ringo Starr, while also achieving acclaim for writing the song “Everybody Rejoice,” part of the Broadway musical The Wiz. Throughout the 1970s, Vandross contributed to numerous songs for greats like Ben E. The first big break for Luther Vandross was with a theater group, Listen My Brother, which made several appearances on the first season of Sesame Street. Inspired by musical greats like Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, and Patti LaBelle, Vandross found himself learning how to play piano by ear at a young age, along with a talent for singing. was born on April 20, 1951, in Manhattan, as the fourth child in his family. Google is honoring soul singer Luther Vandross, on what would be his 70th birthday, with a video Google Doodle.
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