I’LL NEVER FORGET THE MOMENT.
I WAS AT A RELIGIOUS SEMINAR, AND THE SPEAKER, TIM HANSEL, GOT THE AUDIENCE’S ATTENTION WITH A BOLD STATEMENT, “THERE’S ONE THING THAT GOD CAN’T MAKE”!
AFTER A PREGNANT PAUSE, AND THE AUDIENCE RAPT WITH ATTENTION, HE GAVE THE ANSWER,
“GOD’S NEVER MADE A SUBSTITUE FOR HARD WORK AND EXPERIENCE.”
IN THIS CURRENT GENERATION, THE IDEA OF PAYING DUES AND WORKING HARD AT WHATEVER TASK HAS BEEN THROWN YOU HAS BEEN REPLACED WITH “FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS.”
TOM LIPUMA DREAMT OF BEING A FAMOUS JAZZ MUSICIAN, BUT REALITY KICKED IN, AND HE WORKED HIS WAY TO BECOME ONE OF THE GREATEST RECORD PRODUCERS OF ALL TIME, CREATING ICONIC ALBUMS FOR MILES DAVIS, BARBARA STREISAND, DIANA KRALL AND GEORGE BENSON JUST FOR STARTERS.
HAVING BEEN THE PRODUCER OF 36 GOLD ALBUMS AS WELL AS FIVE GRAMMY WINNERS, AND WITH HIS PRODUCTIONS SELLING OVER 75 MILLION COPIES OVER HIS 50 YEAR CAREER, LIPUMA TAKES SOME TIME OUT OF HIS DAY TO SHARE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT WHATEVER STATION IN LIFE YOU HAVE BEEN DEPOSITED INTO.
REFLECTING A WORK ETHIC OF A WORLD GONE BY, DIPUMA REMINDS ME OF MY OWN DAD WHO WOULD ALWAYS TELL ME NOT TO “CHASE YOUR DREAMS” AS MUCH AS BE EXCITED ABOUT WHAT YOU DO. THEN, SOONER OR LATER, SOMETHING WILL COME ALONG WHERE YOUR HARD EARNED TALENTS WILL BE PUT TO USE. AS THE FAMED BASEBALL OWNER, BRANCH RICKEY, USED TO SAY, “LUCK IS THE RESIDUE OF HARD WORK.”
WE RECENTLY HAD A CHANCE TO TALK TO MR. DIPUMA, WHO WAS GRACIOUS IN SHARING HIS LIFE AND CAREER…
WHAT GOT YOU INTERESTED IN BEING A RECORD PRODUCER?
I started as a promotion man. I actually began by packing records in the back room of distributor in Cleveland.
I was a barber before that. I also worked 3-4 nights a week as a musician, but my main gig was that I cut hair.
It wasn’t a Horacio Alger story, but I was working in what is still called the Playhouse Square area of Cleveland. I had a barbershop in that area, and all of the radio stations were in that area.
So I started getting as customers djs and guys who worked for record distributors. I hated what I was doing, so after asking some of these people, one of them took me seriously and offered me a job packing records at a record distributor.
I did that for 4-5 months and then a job as a promoter opened at the same place, and I did very well at it for a year.
There was then a company in LA called Liberty Records that hired me to go out there. In those days, 1962, things were just starting to happen in LA. By 1965 things exploded, with The Beatles and all. By that time I had gotten into music publishing, and I was basically a song plugger. I was taking songs by Randy Newman and Jackie DeShannon around to A&R men; in those days you were to help the writers make the demos.
So I was in the studio making demos with writers, and I started thinking “this is where I really feel it’s where I’m comfortable and what I want to get into.” It was interesting and creative.
I finally got a shot at Imperial Records (which Liberty had bought) and I went to work for them as an A&R guy.
At the same time I had become very good friends with Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert, and their company (A&M Records) started growing. They asked me if I wanted to join them as an A&R man in 1965, to be their first staff producer. I went there in October, 1965, and that’s where I had my first “hit.” (Ed note, “Guantanamera”)
YOUR STORY FLIES INTO THE FACE OF TODAY’S YOUNGER GENERATION THAT SAYS “I JUST WANT TO PURSUE MY DREAMS.” YOU DIDN’T HAVE A DREAM; YOU JUST WORKED HARD AND TOOK OPPORTUNITIES.
It’s a completely different mentality. I don’t know if you’ve got the same possibilities today. The business wasn’t as big or as complicated.
If you had a sense of moxie, it was a lot easier to advance in the record business. Not that it was easy; it was just easier to get a job, but you still had to prove yourself.
DID ANYONE GIVE YOU ADVICE OR PUT YOU UNDER TUTELAGE?
Jerry Wexler once said to me, “Tommy, you have to find a rabbi at the record company.” It’s the truth, and I’ve had a lot of rabbis.
One of those people I met the first night I arrived in LA was Leon Russell. We became acquaintances, and when I started making records I would hire him for the demos that I was doing on the songs. I would watch him to see how he’d come up with an arrangements and so forth. He was very helpful to me.
He was helpful in my being able to put together a demo, and I learned a lot. And we’re still friends.
Herb and Jerry were big mentors to me, and then I went to Warner Brothers with Moe Ostin; there were just so many people that I made friends with and who helped me.
ANY RELIGIOUS OR PHILOSPHICAL UPBRINGING HELP YOU BECOME WHO YOU ARE?
A lot of books have shaped me. As far as upbringing, I was brought up Catholic. I went to Catholic school and it turned me off. For all intents and purposes I’m an atheist.
I had a mentor named Bobby Dale, who was a disc jockey that I met in LA. He had the biggest influence on me in regards to putting me in the right direction as to who to listen to, what books to read. George Bernard Shaw, Edward Abbey.
I love to read. I listen to all kinds of music; I have no prejudices whatsoever when it comes to music. Is it good, or isn’t it? Either it grabs me and it’s something that I want to go out and buy, or it isn’t.
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED THAT IT TAKES TO MAKE A GOOD PRODUCER? WHY DO PEOPLE WANT YOU?
It’s a difficult question to answer in the sense that every producer has their own style and own way of making records.
Obviously, the most important thing is to recognize a good song. A producer is very much like a director. A film director has to cast the right actors to the story. He has to make sure that the “script” is a strong script, like a producer has to make sure that the songs that he records are strong. There are a lot of parallels to a film director.
HOW DO YOU WORK WITH AN ESTABLISHED ARTIST LIKE MILES DAVIS OR GEORGE BENSON? DO YOU GO TO THEM AND SAY, “I’VE GOT AN IDEA FOR YOU” OR DO THEY COME TO YOU ASKING “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH ME?”
It depends on the artist. Of course I’m always suggesting songs.
In the case of Miles, I thought it was a great idea to get (bassist) Marcus Miller involved. First of all, Marcus had worked with Miles, so I figured out obviously that he knew him, and that Marcus was and still is a really good songwriter. I had worked with him on a lot of the David Sanborn things.
I told Miles that I thought it would be a good idea to have Marcus involved, and he was excited, “Yeah, I love Marcus.”
Marcus came in and wrote “Tutu” and that’s how that happened.
DID MILES COME TO YOU, OR DID YOU APPROACH HIM?
Miles was looking to change labels. After being with Columbia for… forever, he wanted to make a change. He came to Warner Brothers through his lawyer, David Franklin.
I got a call one day from Moe Ostin, and he asked “Would you be interested in producing Miles Davis?”
At the time, quite frankly, I was a little skeptical. I had heard a lot of stories about him; how he was so difficult to work with. As it turned out, we just hit it off.
Of course, I have to take into consideration that I had met him quite late in his career. He had mellowed, but he was no walk in the park by any means, but at the same time I think he had mellowed somewhat from the things I had heard about him in his younger days.
But he was great. I totally enjoyed working with him and being with him. Basically, I was working with Warner Brothers and did most of the things that were in the “jazz” category at the time. Moe called me and I took a meeting with him, and from there that was it.
YOU HAD A BIG PART IN THE CAREER TRAJECTORY OF TWO ARTISTS, AL JARREAU AND GEORGE BENSON
In the case of Jarreau, what initially happened was my friend and recording engineer Al Schmidt was the first guy to introduce me to Al Jarreau. Warner signed him and Al (Schmidt) did his first album.
The second album Al (Schmidt) and I did together, and the third album, Look to the Rainbow, was his breakout album. It was just done.
Al Jarreau is very sweet guy. I just saw him several weeks ago, is just a great guy who’s very open to ideas. For the most part our work was just selecting the songs and the musicians that we surrounded him with.
HOW ABOUT WITH BENSON? HE HAD SUNG BEFORE ON ALBUMS, BUT YOU REALLY MADE THINGS CLICK WITH “THIS MASQUERADE.”
What actually happened was that my ex-partner from Blue Thumb Records, Bob Krasnow ended up selling Blue Thumb Records to ABC Paramount, and I ended up working for Warner Brothers.
About 5-6 months later, Bob came to work for Warner Bros. I had introduced Bob to Benson, and Benson had done some singing several years before with (Another Side of) Abbey Road. Bob called and said, “Hey, I’ve got a match made in heaven. George Benson is available; are you interested?”
So I got together with Benson. It had turned out that three years earlier I had been doing an album with Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks with my friend Al Schmidt. We were driving back to the hotel in San Francisco and there was this club we were driving by, The Keystone Korner, and it said “George Benson” on the marquee. I said “Stop the cab!”
We got out of the cab, went in and heard a set. The first thing George did was sing “Summertime,” which he had done on his first album with Columbia, Benson Burner. I didn’t know about that album.
It was weird; it wasn’t like I wasn’t aware of The Other Side of Abbey Road, but for some reason (his singing on) “Here Comes the Sun” just eluded me. So the first time I’d heard him really sing was here, in person. I was thinking “This guy can really sing!”
So, the first time I actually meet him in ’76, I ask him “How come you don’t sing more on your albums?” I mentioned to him that I had seen him at the Keystone in ’73, and he ended up signing with us.
At the time I told him, “Look, if I can come up with anything that I think makes sense for you to do a vocal on, let’s do it. Otherwise, we’ll do an instrumental album.”
If I remember correctly, when we signed David Sanborn, the demo that he played for us was an instrumental version of “This Masquerade.” The melody just killed me; Sanborn really brought it out.
If you go back and listen to Leon Russell’s version of “This Masquerade,” it was not very tame. The way he started it, and I loved that album, Carney. But that one song didn’t get through to me because Leon did it with great subtlety and the first part of it sounded like when he was singing he was putting his voice through a graphic equalizer or something, and it threw me. But when I heard the melody played by Sanborn, it was so strong that I went back to the song.
I said, “George, I think I’ve got something that I think we should do a vocal on.” He loved the idea and basically that was it.
Then, about a year later, when we had won Record of the Year and all of that stuff, it was at Moe Ostin’s 50th birthday party. George and I were sitting at the bar, and at one point he looked right at me and said, “Brother, I don’t know if you remember this, but the first time we got together the first question you asked me was how come I don’t sing more on my albums. I knew right then that I wanted you to produce my album.”
Sometimes, you don’t even realize that you are saying something that is going to be the thing to really do “it.”
IT’S ALMOST ALWAYS THAT WAY. IT’S RARELY WHEN YOU’RE CONSCIOUSLY TRYING TO MAKE AN IMPACT ON SOMEONE OR SOMETHING WHEN YOU DO IT. IT’S ALMOST ALWAYS WHEN IT’S THE “INNER YOU” THAT NATURALLY COMES OUT. JUST LIKE COLEMAN HAWKINS’S AFTERTHOUGHT OF A RECORDING THAT BECAME THE CLASSIC RENDITION OF “BODY AND SOUL.”
I’ve always worked with my instincts. It’s the only thing I feel comfortable with. I’m not always right, but I’d rather be wrong on my instincts than on someone else’s.
YOU CREATED BLUE THUMB RECORDS. THAT WAS A LABEL THAT HAD BANDS THAT WERE IMPOSSIBLE TO CATEGORIZE. ARTISTS LIKE DAN HICKS, THE MARK-ALMOND BAND, THE CRUSADERS…THESE WERE UNIQUE BANDS.
It wasn’t like I changed the way that they sounded. I always wanted to work with talent, because if you work with talent, they are the ones that the goods. Then, it’s your job to bring out the best in them.
That’s the whole difference about an artist that is talented and one that isn’t. The talented ones have style and are unique. That’s what I look for; when I look for talent, I look for someone who’s got their own sound. The minute you hear them you go “Hey, that’s Diana Krall, or Dan Hicks.” Nobody else sounds like that.
IS THERE ANYONE YOU HAVE WORKED WITH THAT SURPRISED YOU THAT THEY DIDN’T GET AS SUCCESSFUL OR POPULAR AS YOU HAD THOUGHT THEY SHOULD HAVE?
I never understood why Dan Hicks didn’t go any further. There were some problems in regard to the band and that kind of stuff. I don’t think that Dan wanted to deal with all of the stuff that comes with success.
The artist has to have the will to do it; to want to be a success. There is a driving, burning force that these people have, and you’ve got to have it.
WHO IS THE EASIEST ARTIST TO WORK WITH?
Well, if you’re getting to who the hardest to work with is, I’m not going to start that! (laughs)
I ASKED THAT TO QUINCY JONES AWHILE GO, AND HE DIDN’T WANT TO MENTION WHO IT WAS EXCEPT THAT IT WAS “A CERTAIN DIVA.”
I think I know who it is!
YOU ARE ONE OF THE FEW PRODUCERS WHO HAS MADE A “JAZZ HIT.” HOW CAN JAZZ BECOME POPULAR AGAIN?
This is a whole story in itself.
There’s no way you’re going to bring back what has already happened. It was a moment in time, and the music reflected the times that certain things were happening.
This doesn’t go for everyone, as there are some very, very talented jazz artists. There’s an artist right now named Melissa Aldana. A wonderful tenor saxophone player. Unique; her ideas are great. So there are artists out there. It’s just that one of the problems today is that it’s just not in fashion right now. Until someone comes along and grabs the imagination of the American, and the world, public, it’s just not going to be like the way it was back in the 40s and 50s. 2336
BUT YOU HELPED DIANA KRALL RISE TO THE TOP WHEN JAZZ WASN’T POPULAR. SINCE THEN, SHE’S BECOME THE TRENDSETTER FOR FEMALE VOCALISTS.
First of all, she’s got talent. And, when you hear her, you know it’s her.
She takes a standard that a lot of other people would do and it sounds like a Holiday Inn piano bar. But when she does it, she makes the song her own. This is what makes her stand out from the crowd.
YOU WERE PART OF THE LAST ERA WHEN JAZZ WAS POPULAR, WITH BOB JAMES AND DAVID SANBORN WITH WHAT SLOWLY EVOLVED INTO “SMOOTH JAZZ.” DID YOU FEEL YOU WERE STARTING A TREND OR RIDING A MUSICAL WAVE?
I had no idea of any trends; I was just working with people I wanted to work with.
I can remember a conversation I had with (Warner Bros. President) Lenny Waronker. The first person they asked me if I wanted to work with, was BW Stephenson who had one big hit back in the early 70s called “My Maria.” It was a great song, and he was a great singer, and a lovely guy.
I did an album with him. It didn’t turn out that well. I remember talking afterward to Lenny “I feel that my instincts and my “likes” are in the jazz area.”
I was a big fan of Creed Taylor’s records. Creeds’ records were a big influence on me.
It really gets down to the song. The song itself is the most important element when you’re putting a record together. You then have to surround the song with musicians that are going to give the song and the artist the ability to be shown off at their best.
So, if there’s any “secret,” it’s just that you use the best musicians that you can get.
And I’ve got relationships with a lot of musicians. That means I don’t just meet them in the studio. We email each other a lot, we see one another, we have dinner with each other. I get close to these guys because I love them. I’m an ex-musician myself!
I’m not talking to someone I don’t have anything in common with.
IT’S LIKE BEING A BARBER…”HOW YA DOIN’ SINCE LAST TIME?”
It’s that, too!
ONE OF THE WORLD’S WISEST MEN, SOLOMON, SAID IT MOST SUCCINTLY, “DO YOU SEE A MAN WHO EXCELS AT HIS WORK? HE WILL PERFORM BEFORE KINGS.” TOMMY DIPUMA, OVER A HALF CENTURY OF HARD LABOR AND MOXIE, HAS SHOWN THAT THERE ARE SOME QUALITIES THAT ARE ETERNAL, AND COMPUTERS OR TRICKS CAN NEVER REPLACE THEM. AND THAT’S THE REAL PRODUCTION OF HIS CAREER!