Book Reviews

The Best of World Cafe
By David Dye
Price: $19.95

The Best of World Cafe offers a glimpse into the background of the pioneering Philadelphia radio show World Cafe, which eventually became a nationwide staple on public radio known for its riveting mixture of interviews and live performances by some of the greatest contemporary musicians of our time. Written by the show’s host, David Dye, this book details the 16-year history of the groundbreaking venture, and features a collection of complete transcripts from the best interviews. Though just about every musical genre is explored, World Cafe was initially geared toward the emerging singer-songwriter scene of the early and mid-90s and primarily deals with the creative process of storytelling and the origins of art. The show’s roster of eclectic guest artists includes iconic, household name performers as well as up-and-coming talents, with everyone from Leonard Cohen, Beck, Joni Mitchell, and Elvis Costello to Al Green, Sarah McLachlan, Robert Plant, and Bjork. The Best of World Cafe gives an inside account of the show’s greatest moments and shines some light on where the inspiration for musical artistry lies.
(Running Press)
www.runningpress.com

Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music
By Phil Ramone
Price: $24.95

This new book by the Grammy-winning producer Phil Ramone offers a breezy look at sessions from the last 40-plus years of pop and jazz recordings, beginning at Ramone’s own A&R Studios in New York. The tone of the book is light and episodic, never lingering on a certain story for longer than a page or so and never delving too deeply into details, but it’s still an interesting read for all sorts of reasons. Ramone is the man behind a wide swath of American pop music — from Getz/Gilberto, Billy Joel’s 52nd Street and Dylan’s Blood On the Tracks to the Flashdance soundtrack — and his experiences are plainly laid out here in that kind of unnerving simplicity that suggests that everything was fated to be a success for Ramone. There are plenty of stories about coaxing winning takes out of Frank Sinatra and Paul Simon that are sometimes entertaining and sometimes verge on hokey Chicken Soup for the Record Producer’s Soul fodder, but the sections on building A&R Studios out of a raw film production space on West 58th Street, constructing its signature basement echo chambers and installing a talk-back system in the bar downstairs for emergency session calls (“I need a trombonist, anybody down there?”) will make you glad you spent some time with this one. (Hyperion)
www.hyperionbooks.com

How Music Really Works!
By Wayne Chase
Price: $45

Author Wayne Chase expands on his previously internet-only writings in this new edition of his intense study of theory, philosophy, business and styles of music. Chase comes to the field of musical self-help after a career in science research and much of the book’s exposition has the wandering, irreverent wit of high school physics teacher, casually describing various rules with a goofy, punning sort of stream-of-conscious mindset. Regardless, Chase gets through this massive tome without once using a bar of musical notation, citing thousands of history’s greats that couldn’t read standard notation either. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get down to the nitty gritty, though — there are plenty of dense sections on theory and compositional technique. Readers will have to work up a strong grasp on chord structures and scale degrees if they want to really learn from this book’s great studies of classic songs that dominate the second half of the book. Chase is literally trying to develop a new kind of science around songwriting (and make no mistake, we’re not talking about experimental music here — Chase makes it clear early on that evolution has lead to the current system of pop song writing, and don’t even get him started on right wing creationists . . .). His methodology includes inventing new kinds of charts to study chord progressions and a bunch of charts to help with calculating maximum emotional impact of new lyrics. It’s a little kooky, but it’s certainly well thought-out and presented in an urgent, heartfelt way that makes for a good, laid back and educational read.
(Roedy Black)
www.roedyblack.com

Audio Post-Production In Your Project Studio
By Casey Kim
Price: $29.99

The latest in Thomson’s line of recording educational books is a crash course in that element of recording that has come to shape the industry — the digital audio workstation. Ready to join the legions of artists bypassing the expense of renting time at pro studios? You could certainly pick a worse advisor than Casey Kim. Though a lot of recording techniques are the same whether you’re in a pro studio or your own project studio, this book focuses on how to make the most out of small spaces, digital equipment and learning how to operate your space like a business once you’ve got it up and running. Kim patiently goes through the pros and cons of using long lists of similar platforms for mixing and mastering and judiciously surveys the application of effects and editing techniques. Kim gets into normal recording topics like understanding frequency ranges and creating proximity effects without using pans, but spends a good portion of the book going over the use of plug-ins and fixing digital artifacts. No holier-than-thou purist, Kim approaches most subjects with a realistic approach. Note this nugget regarding compression: “Learn enough about it to know when to break the rules regarding what is considered an acceptable amount of compression.” It’s not advice you’ll hear from many engineers offered a soapbox. (Thomson Course Technology)
www.courseptr.com