My Friend, Tiny
Los Angeles CA - October, 2009 - -
I wrote this about four years ago and posted it in a recording engineers' forum. I would like to post it again, here...
September 22, 2005
"His name was Tiny, and, like most everyone who acquires such a nickname, he was anything but small. He used to operate heavy machinery for a living, and even a bulldozer falling on him couldn’t keep him down. He slipped on his back brace, and we headed out in my Camaro convertible to Nashville, top down, chasing some music related dream or other.
"Tiny was a singer, mostly country-rock, and mostly performing his own material. He would call me with a batch of new songs now and then, and we would put together a [recording] session. Everyone knew Tiny, and everyone would jump at the chance to [play] on another one of his sessions.
"It was probably the next to the last time I saw Tiny, the day we sat in his deep sea fishing boat out in the Gulf stream off the coast of North Carolina. He looked out at the ocean and said, 'Phil, I just don’t feel worth a damn anymore'. I didn’t know what he was telling me, so I offered some kind of vanilla advice about 'hanging in there', or something equally as useless.
"Time passed. I remember the day I read his obituary, and how I tried to dismiss it as being a mistake – maybe someone else with the same name. But, of course, it was no mistake, and Tiny was gone.
"A few months back, I was archiving some material from DATs, and ran across a rough mix of the last session we did. The mixes will not get any better, because the studio is closed, the 3M 16 track was sold, and I have no idea how to even begin to locate the 2 inch masters. I slipped the DAT into the tray, and once again Tiny’s voice sang to me. I realized then that there are times when recording can be an honorable endeavor, transcending the world of slimebags and crooks that seem to be omnipresent and in control. To hell with them; to hell with digital vs. analog; to hell with microphones and signal chain discussions…what I did in the studio in those few days some years ago allows me to visit with my friend one more time. That’s what's important."
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