SONG OF THE DAY
“Movin’ Down The Line” by Raphael Saddiq (Stone Rollin’, Columbia Records, 2011). Written by Raphael Saadiq.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– Stone Rollin’ is the fourth studio album by American recording artist Raphael Saadiq, released March 25, 2011, on Columbia Records.
– “Movin’ Down the Line”, an ode to a love unrequited, features mellow horns, jangling guitar, heavy bass lines, and a swelling string and piano conclusion.
– Music writer Lloyd Bradley views that the song exemplifies the album’s combination of classicist style and contemporary detail, stating “It has every bit of digital snap needed to succeed among today’s sounds; but Saadiq’s masterful use of a big brass section lurking w-a-a-ay into the background picks the tune up and puts it down in a completely different era. The song turns out both laidback and urgent at the same time, and is utterly irrepressible for it”.
– Inspired by the loud, raw sound of his live performances, Saadiq worked with recording engineer and long-time collaborator Chuck Brungardt to produce a grittier, more aggressive sound for the album.
– In the United States, it debuted at #14 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 21,000 copies in its first week, making it Saadiq’s highest-charting release in the US. As of May 2011, the album has sold 32,100 copies in the United States.
– Saadiq promoted the album with a concert tour spanning from March to August 2011, performing shows in North American venues and European music festivals.
– Along with his material’s style, Saadiq himself adopted a classicist soul image, donning old-fashioned attire and performing R&B dance moves at shows.
– He was influenced by early rock and roll artists such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, and has cited blues musician Howlin’ Wolf as an influence on the album’s sound, which he described as “bluesy” and “harder” than that of his previous album, with more aggressive tempos.
– In an interview for EQ Magazine, Brungardt said of their approach, “We wanted to evolve the songs, and I wanted to evolve the engineering, as well… On this one, I wanted to play around with some of the more solid-state gear”.
– For the majority of the recordings, Saadiq played most of the instruments, including bass, keyboard, guitar, Mellotron, percussion, and drums, and he also layered each recorded instrumental part afterwards.
– Brungardt used a Neumann U 47 microphone to record each of Saadiq’s instrument part. Saadiq recorded his vocals on a dynamic microphone alone in the recording studio’s control room, an approach encouraged to him earlier in his career by record producer and audio engineer Gerry Brown. According to Brungardt, “[Saadiq’s] voice benefits from a dynamic mic because it tends to give him more bottom and presence. Plus dynamic mics can sound a little older when pushed”.
– With the songs’ guitar parts, Brungardt wanted to create additional distortion in order to produce a grittier, guitar sound for the songs, a stylistic preference Saadiq and him had acquired from listening to a great deal of indie rock at the time. He applied several techniques to achieve this sound, including increasing the gain on Saadiq’s Fender Twin guitar amplifier, using a software plug-in for the recordings in post-production, and re-amping Saadiq’s guitar parts. In his interview for EQ Magazine, Brungardt discussed using a Massey TapeHead, one of his preferred plug-ins, in the recording process, stating “I’ll use that on a lot of things to get a little more grit. It thickens stuff up nicely if you record something that’s a little too bright. I usually go a lot for darker tones when recording and mixing”.
– Along with mid-tempo soul songs, Stone Rollin’ features styles such as early R&B-rooted rock and roll, rock-inspiring funk, Chess Records-blues, and the more expansive orchestral sound of post-Detroit Motown and 1970s Philadelphia soul.
– All tracks were produced by Raphael Saadiq, with co-production by Chuck Brungardt.
– Raphael Saadiq is credited as contributing bass, clavinet, composer, drums, guitar, horn arrangements, Mellotron, percussion, producer, tambourine, as well as vocals.