Description: The Powerhitters Tribute to Classic Rock was a release of local Pittsburgh bands recording classic rock tunes of the 70's to benefit UCP (United Cerebral Palsy). Originally, this CD was suppose to be the long awaited follow-up to Dream Makers and once again, WRRK said that they would help promote the CD. I always said I wanted to do a full-length CD to benefit a local charity. Well, due to the politics of local radio, that idea was canned and so was my original benefactor (Whale's Tale). I needed a sponsor to pay for the recordings and Miller Brewing company was the winner. Only they wanted to pick the charity. They work closely with UCP so they wanted the proceeds to go the them. I didn't have an upper hand so I was kind of forced to say OK. We had a panel of about 20 people from the radio station and Miller to listen to tapes that were sent in to the station to hopefully be put on the CD. We chose about 20 songs out of about 100 or so entries. It was up to me as producer to get that number down to about 9 or 10. It wasn't easy, but I did it. Then we ran into a copywrite snag that I won't get into right now, but we got past that and then it was time to start recording. Production Notes: I gathered up some friends of mine from a then disbanded Stone Romeo. There were a few songs we kicked around doing, but some of them were songs that were associated with Stone Romeo and we were going under the name of Purple Heart (a band in which Dave Lindauer of Stone Romeo and myself were once a part of). I came up with the idea of remaking "Nights Are Forever Without You" by England Dan and John Ford Coley. Except our version would rock a little more. Geo Bennett (guitar) and Bobby Kunkel (drums) would put the demo together as the groundwork for the studio. Recording began on August 10, 1995 at Audiomation Studios in Pittsburgh. The recordings went well but I wasn't fully pleased with my vocal lines or the back-up vocals, so we would eventually go back in the studio in October to re-record those parts. The BG vocals were huge! Next we laid the groundwork for the finale of the CD, "Roll With The Changes" by REO Speedwagon. This song was intended to be a "Dream Makers" type song where we would have a big chorus and multiple singers involved. We started recording on September 12, 1995 and didn't get done until October 22, 1995 because the individual vocal lines were recorded by the singers who were involved with the CD and they were all in at different days. Let me just say that if I had to do this over again, I would not have done this. It was really cool, but a pain in the ass to produce. I was really upset that I wasn't involved with the mix-down of the song and the end result was very poor in my opinion. But that's another story for another day. The next band in the studio was Escape. A Journey Tribute band from Cleveland whom I had become good friends with. Jason "Steve Perry" Kelty was the lead singer and requested to be first on the CD. I told him I could do that if he let me pick the song. I loved the way they did "Lovin' You Is Easy" and so I chose that song. He was reluctant because he said that nobody would be familiar with the song. I told him I felt very strong about this being the opening track and that if he wanted a different song, I wouldn't guarantee him first slot (finally - upper hand!). He agreed and the band went in on September 24, 1995 to record. Jason blew everyone away with his vocals. We turned the lights out in the studio and it was kind of like sitting there recording Steve Perry (almost). Even when it came time for Jason to do his lines on "Roll with the Changes", it sounded like Perry singing the song. What a talent. Scott Psota would also lend his talent as one of the guitar soloists for the Speedwagon tune. He wasn't familiar with playing the song, he said. But he did a fantastic job anyway. The next band was Done Deal who went in on September 25, 2002 to record "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac. In my opinion, this was the best recording session of all of the tracs on the CD. These guys were some great musicians and were flawless on their recordings. In fact, Tammy Petty did something that I had never before witnessed. She laid down all of her vocals tracks (background included) in just one take. And one of the harmony parts was one that she had never sung before. There performance was definitely reflected in the finished product. Easily one of the best tunes on the CD. Next in the studio was Truth and Soul who recorded another of my selections - "Love is Alive" by Gary Wright on October 5, 1995. These guys were probably the best musicians of the bunch, and Doug Khorey (lead vocals) is one of the funniest guys I know. He kept us laughing the whole session and also impressed us with his powerful vocals. This version kicks ass. Doug nearly recorded his lines in one take with only one or two mistakes. Doug also contributed to "..Changes" as did Mark Trois who played piano. The song needed one extra back-up vocal harmony and nobody seemed to be able to nail it. I offered to try it and won the part (somehow). Also scheduled to record this day was Imposter who recorded "Two Tickets To Paradise" by Eddie Money. This session would prove to be the longest of all of the sessions. I knew a few guys in the band and had even seen them play live before. They were pretty good when I saw them. That's why I was puzzled when they struggled during their recording. We finally got the song done, but when we went to do the mix-down something was missing. I suggested that we add a piano part. But who would play it? I turned to Mark Trois (Truth and Soul) again. Even though he had never played the song, he nailed it pretty quick and the song came together much better because of it (too bad I wasn't involved with the mix-down of that song too because the piano part was drowning out the guitars. I hate working on a tight budget). My biggest concern was that the band would not like it because they do not have a keyboard player in the band. But, to my surprise, they all dug it. On October 10, 1995 Michael Todd went in to record "Shooting Star" by Bad Company. He accompanied himself with a local band called Jester. Also with Michael was Reb Beach (Winger - Alice Cooper - Dokken) to check out the sessions. Reb was very cool and had a lot of great studio stories to tell (none of which I have room to tell here. Maybe another day). Reb was also going to come back to record a guitar part for "...Changes", but he called me the day before he was suppose to record to tell me he was asked by Alice Cooper to join him on his tour. I guess that was a good enough excuse so I told him maybe next time. Michael Todd was a good solo entertainer and mainly plays around the local club scenes here in the Burgh. I don't know if his acoustic guitar was used to the studio because we could not get it in tune. So I called up a friend of mine who was more than willing to lend his guitar to the recordings. After about an hour down time waiting on the guitar, we got the session done and the song sounded great. Especially when brothers Kevin and Bob Dunn (Jester) lent their background vocal talents to the song. They harmonize very well together. The next band to go in was Big Idea. They recorded "The Wall" by Kansas on October 16, 1995. I really liked the demo that John Singer (lead vocals & keys) submitted, which was all keyboards, and was really looking forward to hearing a full band do this song. They didn't let me down. All of the members of the band were studio musicians and were very excellent at what they did. Dan Osborne added some very powerful guitar sounds and Kurt Lorence was an excellent bass player. This song actually hits it's climax at the end of the song ( you have to hear it to know what I'm talking about). On November 13, 1995, Majesty went in to record their rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Now, I feel I need to mention that all of these bands were limited to about two hours of studio time each. How in the world were we going to pull-off recording an anthem like this in two hours? The answer is, we didn't'. We made a decision that we couldn't scrap the song, but we also couldn't do this in the allotted time. Solution: The lead vocal lines were recorded at a real studio for the demo tape. Since the performance was pretty good, we decided to build the whole song (tempo and all) around the original vocal recordings. Easier said than done, but we actually did it. The other hurdle was the operatic part in the middle of the song. Our solution to that was to use the basic tracks from the demo as a guide and build on them with new vocal tracks. The result was astounding! It is actually very close to what Queen produced (except you can tell it's not Freddie Mercury at the mic). This song was all about production and very little about performance, but the guys in Majesty did a great job pulling off probably the most difficult song to cover. The last song to be recorded was "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon and recorded by Bobby Kellar. Bobby use to be in a band called Dr. No, so it was only natural for him to gather up the boys from the band to back him up. Bobby is a great singer and a fun entertainer. I never really cared for the original version of this song, but I really like his version of this tune. The band had been together for a while so they were really tight in the studio. Bobby also lent his voice to "...Changes". Rounding out help on "Roll With The Changes" is Don Kragel (Grapevine) and Tony Mascilli (who also had a solo on "Dream Makers") with the other guitar solos. This CD was engineered by Matt Walsh for AFM Records. Check out the Music section of this web site for complete song samples.
Please click on the titles of the songs to get a listen to some excerpts of these tunes. Enjoy them!