Jan 28, 2008 4:53 PM
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Al Green, Lay It Down
Al Green’s third album for the Blue Note label, Lay It Down, was produced by hip-hop producers Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson of The Roots and James Poyser, who also provided the album’s drum and keyboard parts, respectively—framing Green’s signature classic soul sound with their contemporary, immediate-sounding production aesthetics. The synergy between the three is immediately apparent. In a brief documentary about making this album that was produced by Blue Note Label Group, Thompson remarks that he “studied the engineering of every [Al Green] album; that’s basically what we were trying to approximate, and also to sort of make a mark of our own. One of the things I always wanted, especially from the people I grew up on, is to hear them in a way that’s sonically natural.” Poyser adds, “We wanted to keep the sound really organic, so that means we were playing these live instruments—no synthesized things. So we just went in a room and just started playing.” Veteran engineers Jimmy Douglass, Russ Elevado and John Smeltz (frequent collaborators with Thompson) expertly captured this vital chemistry. Douglass was previously nominated in 2007 for Justin Timberlake’s "What Goes Around…Comes Around."
Engineers: Jimmy Douglass, Russell “The Dragon” Elevado and John Smeltz
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