1978 was a pretty busy year for me, with four album releases and a family move to Los Angeles: Ted had Double Live Gonzo, a two-record live set at the beginning of the year, and Weekend Warriors toward the end of the year. We recorded the first Molly Hatchet album in Orlando, and did Heaven Tonight with Cheap Trick, again in Los Angeles. As with the Jeff Beck /Jan Hammer live album, for Ted’s live album we recorded a number of dates, and then sat down to listen to the material. Again, we found that most of the best performances came from one night (in this case, San Antonio), and we did some repairing in the CBS New York Studios – the only time I actually did any recording in New York City, and the only time I worked in a CBS studio. Live LPs in those days (and I’m sure today, as well) were carefully crafted affairs, designed to sound as if they were recorded at the show, but in actuality fairly worked-over in the studio to repair the mistakes.

Live recordings had tracks for the hall’s public address system and for the audience, to capture the size of the hall and the size and energy of the crowd; because they already carried a record of what happened onstage, we couldn’t depart very much from what was actually played, but if you were careful, you could either correct or completely replace the vocal and guitar tracks. We brought Ted into the studio in New York, and we had a pretty enjoyable time fixing up this album, since Ted can be fairly zany in front of a mike. At the end of one song, we heard Ted onstage yelling “San Antonio! San Antonio!” Right after we heard this, as the tape played on and Ted was still in place behind the studio microphone, he added “suck my bonio!” This produced much mirth and merriment in the control room (we were younger and less mature then) and we kept it for the master — it’s just a little buried in the mix. After all, Tipper Gore and the Parents’ Music Resource Center had yet to come along. (more…)