Canada's Daniel Lanois could also win Wednesdays, writes Greg Quill of theToronto Star.
And in a revealing interview, Lanois, co-producer of All That You Can'tLeave Behind, also throws light on the earliest moments of Beautiful Day:"On the last U2 album, we'd just about finished one whole piece, when TheEdge started blazing away on his guitar, making a sound like shatteringmetal, while Bono was ad-libbing over the end section of the song. Suddenly,Bono shouted out, `It's a beautiful day!' and in an instant, a minorfragment of improvisation at the back end of one song became something muchbigger and more important, more emotionally powerful than what had gonebefore.
"We dumped the original song, built another one around that fragment, andre-cut it. And `Beautiful Day' became an anthem.'
..........
Nudging 50, but still projecting a waif-like, lost-boy vulnerability, DanielLanois squirms with embarrassment when he contemplates yet more Grammynominations. He's up for Record of the Year and Album of the Year onWednesday for his work on U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind, plus he isto be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the Juno Awards inApril.
The multi-award-winning Canadian music producer is arguably the mostinfluential and sought-after recording studio auteur of his time, with alist of credits that includes the best work by U2, Peter Gabriel, WillieNelson, Robbie Robertson, the Neville Brothers, Emmylou Harris and anassertively reconstituted Bob Dylan.
At a stopover in Toronto on his way to a business meeting in Montrealearlier this week, the intense, contemplative singer-songwriter in his ownright is rehearsing a couple of his own songs in a downtown hotel room inpreparation for a live-to-tape performance later in the day at MuchMusic.Large sheets of paper with carefully blocked lyrics and chord notations arestrewn around his feet. An ancient Gibson acoustic guitar, a sorely abusedinstrument with a cracked deck rescued from a pawnshop in a town Lanoiscan't remember, leans against a chair. Several times in the next hour, he'llpick it up and strum it affectionately.
"I can only accept it as a compliment, as encouragement, and that's great,"Lanois says of the looming Junos lifetime achievement nod. Big, black eyesand a self-conscious smile shine from beneath a toque drawn tightly over hishead and ears, down to his eyebrows.
"But ... well, I thought I was just getting started."
There's not much of a scheme in Lanois' meandering career. All he everwanted to be, from his early childhood in Hull, Que., was a guitar player,he says. But his curiosity about how music works and the ways sound can bemanipulated to create "emotional documents" sidetracked him in his teens,when he started recording gospel music for his mother's church friends withhis brother, Robert, in the basement of their home in Hamilton where thefamily had moved in the late 1960s. A decade later, the brothers wererunning their own small recording outfit, Grant Avenue Studios, something ofan anomaly in a city where steel production and auto manufacturing were themajor, maybe the only, occupations.
Because their rates were lower than those imposed by big-name studios inToronto, and because word spread among the musical community that the Lanoisbrothers had set up an organic, creative cocoon in Hamilton, Grant Avenuesoon attracted more than its share of local talent. Parachute Club startedthere, as did Martha and The Muffins, roots rocker Ray Materick andchildren's music star Raffi.
Diverted from his own musical path by the mechanics of recording, anddisdainful of doing things the way they had always been done, Lanois beganexperimenting with the guts of his recording apparatus, "putting componentstogether in defiance of manufacturers' recommendations, coaxing theequipment to behave in ways that weren't intended," he says. With ParachuteClub drummer/composer Billy Bryans, he began creating the layered, resonantlandscapes of "ambient sound" that would later become the Daniel Lanoistrademark.
When one of those tapes found its way to avant-garde Britishcomposer/producer/ Brian Eno, who took Lanois on as engineer on a projecthe'd begun with fledgling Irish rock band U2, his reputation as aproducer/engineer with extraordinary patience and intuition shot him almostovernight into the rock 'n'roll stratosphere. His dream of being a musicianand songwriter was pushed well and truly aside for almost two decades,notwithstanding two solo albums (the folksy Acadie and For The Beauty OfWynona) and several evocative movie soundtracks (Sling Blade, Birdy, 9 1/2Weeks, Blown Away and Trainspotting).
Then suddenly, a couple of months ago, Lanois announced in the Los AngelesTimes his decision to turn down producing work for the foreseeable future.He's making another album of his own music, his first since 1993 "maybeI'll do two or three," he says before he'll work again for other artists.
"I'm a musician first. I can never get that out of my system. Songs areforming in my head all the time. And when they're ready to be heard, that'swhen I have to get them down on record, get out and play. And I can't dothat while I'm producing someone else for two years at a time."
It's a formidable step. As a performer, Lanois is a relatively unknownquantity, though his solo albums, as simple and uncluttered as hisproductions for others are often complex and expansive, have receiveduniversal critical acclaim. He has shared stages with such luminaries asSting and Elton John, and has moved shell-shocked rock audiences with hisunderstated delivery and subtle, delicate songs, many of them flavoured withnuances of Quebec folk music and patois. But he's no concert star, not yet.
"I've been the extra band member in just about every session I've everproduced," he explains. "My method is to learn to play the songs, to getinto the arrangements, understand how they work, and, in most cases, to playextra guitar parts. I've been learning as I go. It's time to make a move onmy own..."
...some songs don't begin until they're finished, he says.
"On the last U2 album, we'd just about finished one whole piece, when TheEdge started blazing away on his guitar, making a sound like shatteringmetal, while Bono was ad-libbing over the end section of the song. Suddenly,Bono shouted out, `It's a beautiful day!' and in an instant, a minorfragment of improvisation at the back end of one song became something muchbigger and more important, more emotionally powerful than what had gonebefore.
"We dumped the original song, built another one around that fragment, andre-cut it. And `Beautiful Day' became an anthem.
Read the whole of this interview at
www.thestar.com
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