Good Golly, It’s Gossip!

Elyse has been in the music industry for quite a long time, and so she knows a fair number of — what we regular folk call — “big name people” on a personal level.  What I have learned from my association with Elyse is that everyone in the biz has a tacit understanding: You don’t spill the beans on their gossip and they don’t spill the beans on yours.  Nevertheless, I can convey one little anecdote that doesn’t break this rule because the gossip I am about to convey is all mine to share.

When the “Countdown to Midnight” CD was finished, we sent it out to Gerry Dere’s Master Factory to be mastered by Gerry Dere. Gerry has a long and impressive resume, and if you want to see parts of it, all a person needs to do is read the “Countdown to Midnight” insert. He has worked with Tommy Banks, Gary Fjellgaard, Ronnie Hawkins, Rick Moranis, Leo Sayer, Sidro’s Armada, Nana Mouskouri, Trooper and Diamond Joe White among many others.

What’s more, Gerry Dere has been a member of the rock band, Privilege.  For those of you who are too young to remember them from the 70s, Privilege took part in a Rock’n'Roll Reunion in the late 80s in Edmonton, Alberta and Gerry was a big part of that reunion.  Before he was part of Privilege, he was part of Barry Allen & The Rebels.  You get the idea.  He knows his way around a studio and he is proficient in a number of musical genres from classical to jazz and from country to rock!.

Gerry and Elyse have worked together on many projects in the past and she told me in no uncertain terms that she was going to ask Gerry to work on the “Countdown to Midnight” CD.  He had for the “Midnight In Chicago” maxi-single CD we issued the previous year.  Since he understands both Elyse’s unique songwriting and Elyse’s thought process when it comes to music, Elyse didn’t see any reason to ask anyone else to work on this with her … with us, I mean.

Neither Elyse nor I was disappointed when we received the mastered tracks. Gerry, as always, did an impressively awesome job and worked the Gerry Dere magic on all of the tracks for the CD.  We agreed to call him up and tell him just how we felt about the tracks.

The call began with “Hi Gerry. It’s Elyse.  We just finished listening to the tracks, Gerry. The tracks are …. perfect!  Anyway, Gerry, I’m calling because Thomas and I wanted to thank you for doing such a phenomenal job on the CD.  Thomas co-wrote three of the songs and is blown away at what you did with all of the songs, and especially those three.”

All three of us talked about each song in turn and the great things Gerry had done with them although I noted Elyse seemed to be sending me up a little with her comments of ”Thomas said this” and “Thomas said that.”   Mind you, I did say everything she said I did for those of you who are wondering if sending me up involved any skewing of the facts.  No, everything she said was true.  I said a lot of things about those songs.

Anyway, the last song we talked about was “Infinity Squared” which happens to be one of my favorites from the CD even though I didn’t write any part of it. Gerry put in some instrumentation including a tasty drum track, all of which impressed me and I told him so.

“It makes me feel like I am walking through clouds” I said or something like it.  Regardless, it was a sincere compliment and the song still makes me feel like I’m walking through clouds each time I hear it playing.

Gerry is a quiet man. Modest by nature, I am not sure if he knew how to take my compliments.

Finally, he spoke two words to me that I shall always remember:  “Thanks, Doug” was all Gerry said.

Doug is Elyse’s sound engineer and, as you will remember from the previous blog entry, a long-time friend.

No hard feelings, Gerry.  I can stand being called Doug once in a while.  I suspect we’ll get to know each fairly well in years to come as Elyse continues to write and record future albums that require the deft and adept talents only Gerry Dere can bring to Elyse’s projects.

Thomas D. Taylor
Co-Creator
MIDNIGHTINCHICAGO