National Projects
IMAGE
GOES
HERE
Band: Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, John Rodreguez, Freddie Powers
Title: Everybody Has a Chance to Win
Year: 1994
Label: N/A
Genre: Country
Notes: This was a charity recording for Special Olympics produced by Jodi Peterson and written by Freddie Powers. Both had produced and written many songs for Willie, Merle, Hoyt Axton and several others. Sadly, this never really got a wide release.
Here I learned that Willie Nelson cut vocals and his acoustic guitar on Shure SM57 microphones only. NO EXCEPTIONS!!! I had him audition a couple of other mics and they didn’t sound like Willie. Different voices sound different on different microphones. It was a treat getting to look closely at that guitar of his while I was micing it. It is thrashed! But the autographs are great!!!! It’s the kind of thing you’d like to have a half hour to study.
Merle’s voice is just huge! He walked straight up to the 67 and nearly blew it away. What a distinctive sound.
Sadly, we didn’t get much time to mix the track before it was yanked out of our hands. I would love a chance to remix it.
During the mix, I heard Freddie and Willie talking behind me. Willie, in his scratchy voice, asked, “Does the boy smoke?” – referring to me.
In an even scratchier voice, Freddie replied, ”I dunno. I haven’t asked him.” They did and I didn’t. So I can safely say, between Willie and Dr. Dre, I have turned down weed from the two best sources in the industry!