Interview with JIM GAINES
by Todd Seely
5-13-01

For the past thirty years, producer Jim Gaines has lent his talent as a listener and an idea man to some of the premiere artists in blues and rock n' roll.  From early sessions at Stax Records to Santana's phenomenally successful Superstition album, he has played an integral part in many classic recordings.  Oftentimes, these recordings have been at pivotal junctures in the careers of artists like Santana, Journey and Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Add to that list Texas guitarist Rocky Athas.  Fresh from their collaboration on the Bluesberries project, Rocky and producer Gaines have reunited at Pedernales Studios, outside Austin, for a new album.  On a balcony overlooking beautiful Lake Travis, Jim Gaines was kind enough to sit and explain a little about where he's been, where he's going and what to expect from the album with Rocky Athas. 

TS: Your production credentials read like a Who’s Who Of Rock.  How did you get started down that road?  

JG: I started in Memphis actually in ’61 with a jingle company which became one of the biggest jingle companies in the world, Tanner Incorporated. I was with them nine years. I started off as a gopher and kinda begged my way into doing some engineering, and just grew with the company. By the fourth year I was studio manager and doing sessions. And as I was doing that, we also worked with Booker T & The MG’s and some of the other musicians. Steve Cropper wanted me to come over to Stax and help them out part time. So at night I would go over there and work after my jingle company, which was more of a nine-to-five gig. I was there at night helping them put together their library and make copies. In those days, the writers would sit around and write at night and if they wrote anything, it was my job to demo it out right then so they wouldn’t forget it. They’d all be sitting around--Cropper maybe on drums, or Booker T’s playing guitar… The next day, or couple of days, they’d come in and cut the song with artists like Sam & Dave. So that was how I got started working with Stax.

When I left the jingle company, Steve Cropper offered me a position with his new studio as chief engineer. From there, in 1970, I moved to San Francisco and worked and it’s just been crazy since.

TS:  Was there ever a time when you were assigned to different productions by a studio or a label?

JG:  In those days, you worked for the studio. You were an in-house engineer. It didn’t become independent until the late 70’s. We had in-house engineers pretty much up through the 70’s. There were a few independent people, but most of them were people who worked for CBS Records, this studio or that, and you were just in-house and took whatever walked through the door. Now fortunately when I went to San Francisco, right away I fell into stuff-I cut the Tower Of Power demos, and got them their deal. I worked with the Doobie Brothers doing their demos. I was doing two to three artists a day. It could be a jazz band and famous trombonist Turk Murphy in the morning and then it could be Tower Of Power at night. Or it could be Jefferson Starship. So it was just crazy.

TS:  Is there one past recording or session that you’re most fond of?

JG:  No, not one. I have several I’m fond of. I left San Francisco in ’73 for a brief moment and moved to Seattle because I burned out real fast. I went to work for a company called Kaye Smith Studios. It was Danny Kaye, the actor, and a guy named Lester Smith, who owned at that point in time Concerts West Promotions which was the biggest concert promoter in the world. He also owned six radio stations. When I went up there, I was up there just a short period of time. One of my favorite things was when Steve Miller called me. He was working on his album in LA, and he wanted to start over. He hated LA because he had a union problem. He had to deal with the union at Capitol Records. He came up and we did Fly Like An Eagle in Seattle. And it’s really interesting-I recorded the first Tower Of Power album, the one called Tower Of Power, in San Francisco and mixed it in Seattle. Then the second album, Back To Oakland, we recorded in Seattle and mixed in San Francisco. So I was just jumping back and forth. But some of my favorite sessions were the Fly Like An Eagle sessions and some of the early Tower Of Power sessions. When I did Huey Lewis’ albums we had a lot of fun. The Sports and Picture This albums were a lot of fun. And in those days it was called New Wave music and the reason I was brought on board was because of my rock and r&b background. They wanted to get that little bit of r&b influence. And then Stevie Ray came along, and the reason I actually got Stevie Ray was because Carlos Santana recommended to Stevie that I should be the one to work on the In Step album. Those were interesting times. For Stevie and the guys (Double Trouble), it was the first recording that they had done since they had gone through drug rehab. No drugs involved, and going through the “Step” program. So I was sort of the first outside guy to work with them-outside of Texas, outside of John Hammond. We had a ton of credits, and it was kind of like “What’s my role? What’s their role?” and so forth as a producer. When their friend Richard worked with them, he’s just a Texas boy and they kind of grew up together and even though he’s listed as producer, Stevie ran the show. When I came along, all of a sudden I’m thrown in the mix and it’s kinda like “Well, I want equal power here.” Sometimes it was a little tense, but at the same time we got a great record. It was an interesting time in my life because it was the last band album, really. We did Family Style, but that was him and Jimmie Vaughan. In Step is really the last legitimate band record done before he died.

TS:  Before you take on a project, do you listen to demos or try to determine the strength of the material you’ll be working with?

JG:  Most of the time I get demos. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I just arrive. But I’d say 90% of the time I get demos. When you say “strength of the material,” most of the time the demos only have barely enough songs to do, so we don’t have any choice. It’s these songs or none. And sometimes I bring some songs to the project, like in this case I brought a couple of songs to the project. There are different scenarios. Some artists have fifteen songs to choose from. Some have eight. So if you have eight, then you have to do eight, and then you have to add two. Each scenario’s different.

TS:  Did the fact that you’d worked with Rocky Athas on the Bluesberries album make it any easier coming into this new session?

JG:  Absolutely. I love Rocky. When we worked together on that project, that particular session was a little chaotic because of some of the people involved. I was kinda brought in to calm it down a little bit. I love Rocky, and when John Hampton and I were mixing that particular project we were sitting there every day saying “Man, Rocky sounds great! He just sounds so good, and just stands out amongst everybody. His parts just make the project happen.” So when I got a call to do this I said “Of course I’ll do it. I love Rocky.” I love his playing, he’s a nice guy, and everybody involved are really nice people.

TS:  The Bluesberries is made up of quite a notable group of music veterans. Did everyone have their own idea of how the material should sound?

JG:  Pretty much. With Buddy Miles, basically you just get Buddy Miles. You’re gonna get that and you’re not gonna get anything else. With some of the other stuff, there was a little more flexibility. As you can probably see from sitting in on a couple of the sessions I like kinda playing around with sounds and creating moods and dimensions. With some people you can do that. With some people, you do it their way or “that’s it.” And in those cases all I can try to do is just get the best performances out of them and let them put their stamp on it, and just try to get something that you think is as good as we can get with the time we’ve got to get it.

TS:  How has it been going with Rocky and the band on this new project?

JG:  It’s great. It’s right on time. We’re right on schedule. We planned on doing a week, and I told the guys originally that I don’t think a week is enough. I really think we need ten days, especially if we’re gonna cut this many songs. If we’re gonna cut nine or ten songs, that’s one thing. But trying to cut thirteen or fourteen songs, you just need the time. You need time for vocals and guitars.

TS:  Can you see this album being a sort of companion piece to the Bluesberries?

JG:  I don’t know if it’s a companion piece. There’s some of the same characters involved but the Bluesberries record, to me, really has Buddy Miles’ stamp on it. And this has Rocky Athas’ stamp on it. It shows him as what he is-a great guitar player. Larry Samford’s vocals are totally different and very unique. I’ve had a chance to work with Rocky on guitar sounds, whereas before I was only in for three or four days just to get tracks down. I didn’t really have time to do any of this stuff I’m doing now, which is spend some time on parts and sounds.

TS:  How do you approach these sessions, after working on a project like the Supernatural album with Carlos Santana? On the one hand, there’s Santana-- a world-renowned artist for three decades. On the other, there’s Rocky Athas-the best kept secret in the rock and blues guitar world for almost as long. Do you approach a higher profile gig like Carlos any differently than you would Rocky?

JG:  Well, Carlos’ situation is totally different for me. He’s in command when I’m working with him. On this last project (Supernatural) I was more involved with his part of the music and not the other producers’ part of the music. Usually when I work with Carlos it’s just me and the band. Me and him and the band. And in this particular case, I’m his personal engineer. I’ve sort of gotten out of engineering. He’s the only guy I still engineer for, and he’ll be producing. He’s producer but Chester Thompson will have a lot to say musically about what’s going on. That’s just the way it is, that’s the way it’s always been. We’re just buddies. It’s kind of interesting-even though I’m a producer and I engineer on those sessions, I have a role of saying “I don’t know if that’s good enough.” And they’ll say “He’s right. Let’s do it again.” So I have a kind of interesting role. I have a lot of say in the final take or performance. As a matter of fact, when he’s doing his guitar parts, I’m brought in to do his guitar parts. All over the world. He calls me. If he’s recording, or on live radio or TV I’m flown all over the world to help get his parts on tape. I mix all live radio shows and all live TV shows. I’m his “sound” guy. And even though I may not be physically at the board, anytime anything’s going on he will look to me for my approval. Only because we’ve been through a lot, and as he says I’m his “guide.” So I have a very unique position with him. First of all we have a love for each other that goes way past business. We’ve been together since 1980 in a lot of situations when no one really cared about Carlos Santana albums. And this last particular record (Supernatural) I was brought in to mix and overdub the cuts he and his band did, and to oversee a lot of the guitar parts with the other producers. With KC Porter, Wyclef, and Lauryn Hill, I was there to make sure that we got, as good as we could, his sound on tape. There’s a lot of engineers who can’t get his sound. Even the Dave Matthews tracks (Supernatural) I worked on. What happened there was they were in New York recording, and I was in Dallas working on something. They spent two days trying to get his guitar sound. Carlos called me and said “Man, can you get on the the next plane and get here?” I said “I can’t, but I can meet you in San Francisco in three days. Just don’t worry about the guitar parts in New York. Just get to California.” So we get to California, I do his guitar parts and he says “Well, why don’t you mix it and show the English guys (Dave Matthews’ production crew is English) how to mix Santana?” So I ended up with the mix on the record. I had no idea. I was just mixing it to show those guys how to mix it. Clive Davis picked my mix on the Dave Matthews cut. And it’s only because I have a feel for where Carlos wants it. This has happened to me several times. So it’s a very unique situation.

TS:  How much discipline is there to laying down a track, but still maintaining a spontaneous “live” feel?

JG:  I’m not a perfectionist, but I am a guy who believes in “groove” and “feel” and “flow.” I don’t want to do take after take. There’s a point I’ll reach where I’ll say “Stop because we’re gonna lose everything here.” But to me, you’ve got to get a take down of the basic track. The feel is right, so whatever you put on top of it is gonna fit correctly. See, when I’m doing a basic track I already have a vision of what the end result is gonna be. I already know what the mix is gonna sound like. Unfortunately sometimes I can’t make my artists see that vision, but they believe in me enough that “Whatever he says, let’s go with it.” And then when the end comes around “That’s it. That was it all along. We just didn’t see what you were seeing.” People ask me “What do you do?” I’ve said I’m a paid professional listener. That’s all I do.

TS:  In just the two days we’ve been here, it’s been a pleasure watching the process.

JG:  Well, I have fun doing it. We have some fun guys here, you know. As long as they’re willing to listen. Every idea can’t be great. Some ideas are wrong. But the main thing is to try to take the material to another level. That’s my whole job.

TS:  So as you bring this project to a close, what else can we look forward to hearing from you in the near future?

JG:  With the Santana project, it’ll be a while. I’m talking to Tad Benoit about doing his project. I’ve just met these kids at the studio yesterday, that I have a feeling Willie’s new label is gonna sign. They’re called the Lost Boys. We’ll probably work with them sometime this fall. Coco Montoya will be this fall. We have a project coming up together. I have to go to Argentina for a month and do a band called Mississippi. I've got to go to Germany and do a band over there. The lead singer for Spooky Tooth is doing a project. If I can find time, I’ll go over there and work on that. I have about five albums in front of me. Just when can I get to them? Sometime this year.