David Bruce Murray
Apr 03, 2009
In The Studio
A Day In The Studio With The Dove Brothers
A few days ago, I spent several hours at the Crossroads studio in Arden, NC listening to the Dove Brothers record vocals for their upcoming CD. I always enjoy sitting back and watching a quality group like the Doves work out parts in a studio session. Typically, three days are spent recording vocals for each Crossroads CD they release with vocal arrangements created on the spot.
The new DBQ CD will be titled Hold On, and no, they aren’t remaking the song popularized by the Greenes. The title track is a new song with a notable Country flair. I didn’t hear it, but I gathered from what McCray told me that it’s going to be paced at a medium tempo and have a classic steel guitar arrangement.
Hold On will include a few remakes, though. The Doves are returning to the Oak Ridge Boys well for an early 1970s song called “He’s Gonna Smile On Me.” You can click HERE for a YouTube clip of the original (uploaded to YouTube by our own KB). I didn’t get to hear them work on this one, but I’m looking forward to comparing and contrasting the DBQ version with the Oaks original. They’re also cutting a song that was Karen Peck & New River’s first single in the early 1990s, “He’s Sending Miracles.” They were finishing this one up when I arrived at the studio. Another remake they’ve recorded is Anne Murray’s “A Little Good News.” Jerry Martin sings the verses in a style similar to “I Can Pray.” They put this together after we’d come back from eating lunch. They tweaked the lyric to remove the dated reference to Bryant Gumbel, and they inserted an extra line at the beginning and end of the song to frame the underlying point of the song in a gospel context.
One of the new songs that’s sure to be one of my favorites from the CD is, as you might suspect, a barn burner. McCray mentioned that it’s the sort of song people will think they’ve heard before and I agree. I can picture fans coming up to the product table and telling the guys they remember hearing the Blackwood Brothers or the Statesmen sing this song, even though they never did. There’s an a cappella intro with thickly voiced chords before it kicks into high gear. On the last chorus, Jerry Martin hit a high D in two spots. Of course, that’s not difficult at all for Jerry, but they decided to maintain tight harmony through those passages rather than switching to open voicing. This meant that Eric had to take a B-flat above middle C with McCray on the F. When I left at the end of the day, David Hester was adding his bass part to the intro.
Danny Crawford is producing the CD and Scott Barnett is engineering. Danny’s ear is much more tuned to fine details than mine…or perhaps I should say his ear tunes to those details a lot quicker. Danny can hear most of the specifics immediately, while I have to listen a few times. (Look at the photo above and tell me if you think Crawford and Jeff Stice were twins separated at birth.)
I got to hear the group work on four songs altogether. It appears to be shaping up to be an excellent CD. I’m looking forward to hearing the finished product.
By the way, during lunch, McCray told us a funny story about JD Sumner and Karen Peck. He said that several years ago, he heard Karen ask JD if Elvis was really dead. She said, “If anyone knows for sure, JD, it would have to be you.” JD told her there were two reasons he knew for certain that Elvis was dead. First, JD said he was one of the witnesses who signed an autopsy report and officially identified the body. He said the second reason he knew Elvis was dead was because Michael Jackson was still alive. (At the time Karen asked the question, Michael Jackson was married to Elvis’ daughter.)
