The Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing Celebrated 10th Anniversary With Capacity Crowd at "Shaken Rattled & Rolled" Grammy Week Event Honoring T Bone Burnett
By Guest |
n Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011, The Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing kicked
off GRAMMY Week with its 10th anniversary celebration event titled
"Shaken Rattled & Rolled" honoring legendary producer T Bone Burnett for his commitment
to excellence and ongoing support for the art and craft of recorded music. GRAMMY-winning
artists Elton John and Leon Russell served as honorary event co-chairs for the event,
held at The Village Recording Studios in Los Angeles. GRAMMY Week culminated with the
53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards on Sunday, Feb. 13, 2011, airing live on the CBS Television
Network, at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
The event was held with the support of leading companies within the musical
instrument and professional audio markets. Presenting sponsors included The Village
Studios, West L.A. Music and Westlake Professional Sales. Co-sponsors included:
Harman International brands AKG Acoustics, JBL, and Lexicon; Honda Acura; ELS; Avid;
Music Marketing; Shure Incorporated; Iron Mountain; Korg USA; PMC; Prism Sound; Mix
Magazine; and Pro Sound News. Participating sponsors included: Beat Kangz; Focusrite
Novation Inc.; Full Sail; Kurzweil; Nord; Sennheiser; and Ultimate Ears.
At 8 p.m., the doors to The Village were opened to a standing-room-only crowd of top
producers and engineers, artists, managers, manufacturers, label personnel and other
recording industry professionals. The evening's presentations began with a welcome
from The Village Studios CEO Jeff Greenberg and P&E Wing Senior Executive Director
Maureen Droney, who thanked those in attendance and all members of the P&E Wing for
their dedication to the art and craft of recording. Droney acknowledged co-chair
Eric Schilling who, as co-music mixer for the GRAMMY Awards Telecast was delayed by
rehearsals and unable to make the presentation, then introduced P&E Wing co-chair
James McKinney who enumerated P&E Wing initiatives and accomplishments over the
previous decade.
After congratulatory videos from honorary event co-chairs Elton John and Leon
Russell, Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow presented the President's
Merit Award to T Bone Burnett. Burnett, a longtime proponent of the importance of
sonic quality, spoke eloquently to the importance of both sonic and artistic
integrity in music.
Droney stated, "The point of this evening is to honor the people who work behind the
scenes, people who devote their lives to making not only great recordings, but also
great sounding recordings. It's the fourth year for this amazing event, and it's
particularly momentous this year because we're celebrating a milestone anniversary
with many of our founding members in attendance. These days it takes a great deal of
blood, sweat and tears to keep a recording studio open, and we acknowledge everyone
who does that work, and makes all of our lives better by doing it. We also have to
commend, and express our gratitude to, our sponsors, who make this event possible,
and to Jeff Greenberg and The Village Studios for hosting such a wonderful night."
Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow: "There is a well-known saying, 'It
takes a village.' All of us tonight know how true that statement is. We know that it
takes a recording studio like The Village, and the skilled creators, producers and
engineers like you, to make the kind of recordings the world most loves and
respects. We at The Recording Academy know this well, which is why we are so proud
of our P&E Wing. They're an important resource for us, and we rely on their
experience and expertise all year round. Members of the Wing provide a nationwide
network, and they all work together to move many important initiatives forward. P&E
Wing members care about technology, quality, and most of all, music. So tonight, we
are elated to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the P&E Wing, and all of the many
important contributions, not only to The Recording Academy, but indeed to our whole
industry. We are indebted to you, so thank you."
T Bone Burnett: "We are people who care about music and care about sound, and that
fact makes this night all the more real to me. This evening has great significance
to me, because those of us who care about music and care about sound are
experiencing a shift. 'The market has spoken people want convenience, and dont care
about sound.' Yes, the market has spoken, yet it will speak again. If someone doesnt
care about sound, he doesn't care about music, and I dont want to make music for
someone who doesnt care about music. The record business made a critical mistake
when it began to make music for people who don't like music. And it also made a
strategic mistake when it rushed to embrace digital technology. To me, digital
doesnt sound as good as analog, and it never will. Its an insane fact that, for the
last 15 years, movies, television and games have been releasing their products with
a higher level of audio than music releases. We have to stop that. We as artists
should not allow our work to be distributed at such an incredibly low quality that
it diminishes what we are doing and reduces the value to zero."
Burnett continued: "When we abandoned analog, we lost the chance to maintain
sovereignty over our own work, and we have to get that sovereignty back.
Fortunately, technology changes frequently, and it's changing at an ever-increasing
pace. Were approaching the end of the era of the MP3. Bandwidth has the will to make
MP3s obsolete. And good riddance. It's also an important tradition in the U.S. that
we record a set of songs from an artist, an album. It's one of our contributions to
the world. We have to continue this. Its not something that we can give away, and
give over control of, so easily, to people who only care about monetizing it.
Marshall McLuhan said that a medium surrounds another medium and turns the previous
medium into an art form, as television did with movies, and as the Internet has now
done with television and music. We now have to treat what we do as an art form. I
look forward to working with The Recording Academy and with all of you to arrive at
a new audio standard for the 21st century, and to explore the recording arts in
their highest potential. Recording has gone down the digital road for some time, but
that doesn't mean that the analog road does not have amazing advances ahead for
itself. We can't abandon the world of analog sound. Guitars, drums and voices are
analog. We are analog. We live in an analog world. The digital world is an alien
language, great for word processing, but it can't carry waves beautifully and
eloquently. We know that. It's incumbent upon us to let the world know."
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