June 2009

I’m sick of Michael Jackson coverage. I didn’t want to post anything about his passing, but HearYa Live Session producer, Steve Shirk, is off in Cambodia or Laos or some such humid location and made time to send me a great link. A group of producers are sharing memories from days working with Michael and I found it fascinating. Much better than the shit on television. There’s no denying that the man was a genius. Here is a snippet from one of the members of the online forum:

One morning MJ came in with a new song he had written overnight. We called in a guitar player, and Michael sang every note of every chord to him. “here’s the first chord first note, second note, third note. Here’s the second chord first note, second note, third note”, etc., etc. We then witnessed him giving the most heartfelt and profound vocal performance, live in the control room through an SM57.

He would sing us an entire string arrangement, every part. Steve Porcaro once told me he witnessed MJ doing that with the string section in the room. Had it all in his head, harmony and everything. Not just little eight bar loop ideas. he would actually sing the entire arrangement into a micro-cassette recorder complete with stops and fills.

At one point Michael was angry at one of the producers on the project because he was treating everyone terribly. Rather than create a scene or fire the guy, Michael called him to his office/lounge and one of the security guys threw a pie in his face. No further action was needed . . .

Read the full thread here.

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