by Scott Turner

Yes, it's an old phrase, but specifically important when relating to the music business - in my case, the training came in doing demos - tons of demos and when you're doing 10 songs in a 3-hour timeframe, a lot of pre-production comes into the picture - or I should say CAME into the picture. It really started with my own material when I was writing songs for our 1957 rockabilly group in Texas "The Raiders". Having our own group made it easier as we had ample time to rehearse and work things out. The same thing held true when we joined Tommy Sands because, as a unit, we were able to practice, practice, practice.

When Tommy joined the Air Force, and I became Guy Mitchell's frontman and band director, I found myself with a lot of off days where I could work in the L.A. studios with the super-pros on both master and demo sessions. Still though, in L.A. we always had chord sheets (or road maps as we termed them). And if a key change happened, then it was scratch out the "C" chord and change it to "D"" and so on.

The reality hit when Herb Alpert hired me to be the first general manager of Almo/Irving Music (which was sold to a conglomerate recently for umpteen millions of dollars) and I found myself demo-ing song after song that I didn't compose, so to make things easier, I poured over making chord charts for the players and it was ultra-time consuming. After Herb and A&M, I joined Central Songs as their General Manager and once again (only 7-fold) did the ol' chord chart thing for the talented staff writers, and I had the honor and pleasure of demo-ing many #1 songs.

Then came Liberty/Imperial/United Artists Records as head of the country department and I still made out chord charts for my various L.A. sessions - that was until I came to Nashville and was introduced to the number system which really opened my eyes - and ears!! It's very simple C is one, D=2, E=3, F=4, G=5, A=6, B=7 (in the key of C) and if it had to be transposed (say to D), then D became one, etc. I was totally amazed because all I had to do was play the demo and the superpickers took down the numbers. From that point, all we had to do (I should say THEY had to do) was find the right key, let the players work out an original intro, and I didn't care how long it took because it was always unique and showed me that they cared...run it down once, play it back for everybody and VOILA! The next take was the final cut. Why beat a dead horse and do another take when the one they just did was perfect?

The immaculate guitarist, my leader, and now the president of the Nashville Musicians Union namely Harold Bradley was (and still is) the best studio sergeant I ever had the honor of working with. He explained it to me one day after a session. He said, "Our names are going on that product and we want it to be as good as it can possibly be." In essence, that's what the Nashville Sound is - simply put - pride of product. Those were the days when we did it all at once. No overdubs, no re-singing the vocals, etc. or what you heard in the studio was what went on the record - mistake free!!

Things have changed now. In fact, Chet Atkins once told me (when he would be called in to do a guitar overlay) that he used to know who was on the sessions with him!!

The time I could have saved making those pre-historic chord charts would add up to hundreds of wasted hours. Oh, if I only knew then what I know now - don't let anyone fool you. It's the brilliant musicians who make songs come to life, but, naturally, you've got to have a great song and a great singer to make it happen. As for me, I just sat and watched and my only worlds would be "Great job, guys...next song." Or sometimes I might say, "Any confessions?"