Tonight, we load into a studio to start recording the Original Broadway Cast album for Cats: The Jellicle Ball — six days before the show closes for good on Broadway. Five sessions. The whole show, tracked in the same week we’re saying goodbye to the run.
The schedule:
Sunday, 8/2: 7:30–10:30 PM
Monday, 8/3: 10–1 and 2–5, plus the evening show
Tuesday, 8/4: 10–1 and 2–5, plus the evening show
I love being in the studio. I’ve loved it since the first time I sat behind a kit. My very first session, we cut the track, then went back in to layer the handclaps. For those of you too young to remember: back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, many R&B, funk and disco songs actually had handclaps on them, and somebody had to sit there and manually clap through the entire song, over and over, take after take. I remember that one distinctly because my hands were raw by the end of it. But it was fun.
Cast albums? No handclaps. Not a lot of grooving and dancing happening on these things. But five cast albums in, I’ve learned that loving the process and loving the finished product are two different things. Broadway has taught me that the hard way more than once.
tick, tick... BOOM! was my first cast album. I didn’t overthink it. I just played it like I’d play any session. We were supposed to have our record release party on September 11, 2001. That party never happened, for reasons nobody needs explained. But the record itself? I was happy with it. Still am.
Altar Boyz is a blur. I was on V-Drums, which tells you most of what you need to know about how that one got captured. I think we recorded it on the stage because I certainly don’t remember going into a studio.
Memphis the Musical is the best thing I’ve ever done (so far). The show and the album were both great to me. The Noble & Cooley drums I played on, the mix, the writing — I love everything about it. When people ask what my favorite thing I’ve ever done is, this is the answer, and it isn’t close. It is the best example of who I am as a musician. Fun fact: the beginning drum beat of this cast recording (the song Underground) is the intro to many of my podcast episodes.
Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill was recorded live, and I remember all of us in that band walking away with the same complaint: records from 1959 sounded better than the record we made trying to sound like 1959. We liked what we played. We didn’t like what we heard back.
Ain’t Too Proud was a great show, a great band, and a cast album where the vocals sat so far up front and so compressed that the playing underneath got flattened out. I liked what I played but I wasn’t a fan of the final mix.
So today I have tempered expectations. Not pessimism — just five albums’ worth of knowing that great playing and a great-sounding record aren’t the same thing, and one doesn’t guarantee the other.
This will be my fourth Broadway cast album and second Off-Broadway. I didn't plan for that number. It's just what happens when you keep ending up in the right places, with the right people, ready when the call comes.
But this one’s different because of the timing. Most cast albums get tracked at the very beginning of the run of a show, with the rest of the show ahead of you. We’re recording this one in its final week, which means every take is doubling as a goodbye — to the songs, the orchestra and the short run we had.
If you're out there and you get the call someday, enjoy the experience of recording a cast album. It can be intense: you don't get the luxury of take after take like you would on other sessions. There are too many people involved, so you've got to get it right the first or second time, if you even get that many. But here's the thing. However it turns out sonically, you'll have a permanent piece of something you worked hard on, and that's worth more than the mix.
I hope every one of you reading this gets your own souvenir like that one day. It’s a great experience, and it’s one nobody can take back from you once it’s made.
See you on the other side of five sessions.
