The always under-appreciated role of the engineer, both in the studio and on tour, is always a fascinating one. Akili Walker, who has worked with everyone from hip-hop production legend Larry Smith to James Brown, Eddie Kendricks, Kurtis Blow, Prince, George Clinton and LL Cool J, took some time out after the release of his new book, Turn The Horns On, to recall some of his best memories behind the boards.
Robbie: Where about did you grow up?
Akili Walker: I grew up in Freeport, Long Island, right next to Chuck D and Flavor Flav. We were like a mile from each other, they grew up in Roosevelt, but they’re a little younger than I was.
Are you a recording engineer by trade?
I’m an audio engineer, I switch between the studio and on the road. I was a musician at an early age – I was a drummer when I was thirteen. I won the ‘Battle of the Bands’ with my band and we was in the Musicians Union of New York at the age of thirteen. My father was an audiophile, he loved music and he had a large jazz collection and an expensive stereo. My drumming career ended when I was sixteen. I stopped drumming to join the hippy generation and do drugs.
What was the next step?
When I was nineteen I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I saw some friends of mine doing sound at as club and I determined that that was what I wanted to do. I started studying under them at this club. They had performers like Roland Kirk, Lee Morgan, Pharaoh Sanders, McCoy Tanner, Sun Ra – all of the great jazz performers were performing at this jazz club called ‘The East’ in Brooklyn. I was there for a little while and I studied under the engineers and started to engineer shows myself. The I got an opportunity to go on the road with Lonnie Liston Smith, a jazz pianist, then Gil-Scott Heron, then Jimmy Castor Bunch. At that point I decided I wanted to be a studio engineer so I took a couple of classes. I got an offer to be an assistant engineer at a studio called Music Farm in Manhattan, this is 1979. Some of the clients in the studio were Brass Construction, Cameo and Lloyd Price. There were so many different musics in the 70s and 80s, and the studio industry was so busy and vibrant at that time. I worked at about 90% of the studios in Manhattan, freelancing with my different clients.
What are some of your best memories from working as a studio engineer?
We did a live album with James Brown, Live In New York. The only time we met him was when we were mixing. He said, ‘The bass is like a ball, and everything has to fit into that ball! OK, that’s it. I’m out!’ Which means that he wanted a lotta bass in his mix and everything has to fit into that. Jimmy Castor was a great performer, he used to teach me tricks on the road. Like when you go to a ladies house on the road, you need to leave a phone number with somebody cos you don’t know what you’re walking into. You might be getting set-up to get robbed. Gil-Scott Heron was a perfectionist. He used to tell me, ‘You tell the promoters what equipment that you need before you get to the gig. It’s called a rider and that’s supposed to have everything. If they don’t have everything that they’re supposed to have, we will not do the gig!’ He wanted things to be right. Phyllis Hyman used to tell me the same thing.
What were some of your favorite studios to work from?
I started at Music Farm and then we bought a sister studio around the corner called Soundworks. They did Steely Dan there, Gaucho album there, they did Stevie Wonder there, they did KISS there. I engineered Eddie Kendricks, Bootsy Collins, George Clinton there, so Soundworks was one of my favorites at the time. Quadrasonic, which was later called Quad Studios where they did a lot of the Biggie stuff, I was there at the beginning of that studio. Those were two of my favorite studios to work at.
Can you tell me about working with LL Cool J?
That was during his Bigger and Deffer album. I did the Def Jam 87 Tour – it was LL Cool J, Whodini, Eric B & Rakim, Public Enemy. That was a great experience. They were on tour already and they didn’t like the way the sound was going. I had been working on the road with Whodini previously on several occasions and they asked me to come out.
Was that when LL was coming out of that giant radio on stage?
Yeah. He was an exciting performer. At one point of the tour we combined with Run-DMC’s Raising Hell tour. The line-up was Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, LL and Run-DMC. LL was so excited because he had his first major tour going on, and he wanted to show the big boys what he’s about! When he first came on stage, his first words were, ‘Akili! We gotta get hyped!’ So I’m in the mood, I’m in the groove, I turn it up, we’re rocking the house. We were using Run-DMC’s sound company, and they didn’t know about LL’s sounds, which somebody described as, ‘Louder than an AC/DC concert.’ I’m doing my thing and they’re trying to turn things down and I’m slapping their hands and I’m telling them to, ‘Get outta here!’ We just rocked the house that night! Later on, Run-DMC came on and I happened to walk back by the soundboard and Russell [Simmons] was back there. He said, ‘Akili! Akili! Do what you did for LL!’ Cos it wasn’t hot like LL. I said, ‘I can’t do that Russell, it’s unethical.’ He said, ‘Fuck that, man! This is my shit! This is my tour!’ I said, ‘OK, just tell the engineer to turn up the highs.’ Of course, it didn’t sound like ours. That was LL’s house that night. When I went back to the hotel, Jam-Master Jay was in the lobby and he said, ‘Oh, I figured you had something to do with this. You’ve been around this business longer than me!’
You might think that the mix doesn’t sound right, but as soon as people are partying? Leave it alone, everything’s fine! Just like when I did Hammersmith Odeon in London, everybody’s blowing whistles and they’ve got foghorns – I’m like, ‘What the hell is going on here? But they’re having a good time, just leave it alone. They must be cool!’ [laughs]
Was that the show that Public Enemy used on their second album?
I believe so. That was the Bigger and Deffer tour, I got to go all through Europe with LL and Public Enemy back in 1987.
Were you surprised at how excited the European audience was?
They were different than US audiences. People were like, ‘Why is LL headlining and not Public Enemy?’ I was like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ LL had this tune called ‘I Need Love,’ a ballad. This song had high accolades, he was arrested on the for humping on the couch – performing a sexual act – in Georgia. So everyone couldn’t wait for him to come to their town to perform that song. Then when we went to London they booed him when he sang that song. That just shows you the diversity of music. They didn’t like that ballad, ‘What the hell kind of hip-hop is that?!’ [laughs] They liked the more aggressive stuff.
Why do you think rappers always complain about the soundman at shows?
Engineers are used to dealing with bands and here we go with these turntables. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ Engineers with sound companies just put the record up and put the vocals on and leave it alone. But you need to EQ the record and bring out the highs and mids so they can hear all the instrumentation in the record, just like you do with a band. I knew the music and I loved the music, so I would add reverbs and delays to the track and to the vocalist to give people a different experience. It’s better than what they’re used to hearing. Whodini did a song called ‘One Love’ and there was a little breakdown and then I used to add reverb to the snare drum. Actually I used to add reverb to the whole track, but it was effective! As an engineer, you have to deal with the little nuances and know the performer’s sound. You don’t just put the faders up and then just leave it alone. That’s what a lot of people do, and I wasn’t about that.
Did you ever get to work with Prince?
Prince was my second artist as a professional engineer! [laughs] This was in 1980, I didn’t know who Prince was. He had come in the studio to do a demo for one of the spin-off groups like The Imperials or The Impressions. He brought Dez Dickenson and Andre Symone from The Revolution in with him. I spent a lot of time trying to get a drum sound that they liked, and Prince wasn’t saying anything, it was Andre and Des that were doing all of the talking. When I finally got the drum sound the way they liked it, the only thing Price said to me all night was, ‘Nice drum sound.’ He was going from instrument to instrument and I was amazed like, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’
My next session after that was Humble Pie! The rock group from England, Steve Marriott, Humble Pie. They had come to do a new record in the 80s with a new band and a new label. I mixed the song that was a hit from the album called ‘Fool For A Pretty Face.’ I’ve had a lot of diversity in music, from jazz to rock to hip-hop to soca. I’ve done like fifty soca albums, working with the Mighty Arrow, [Lord] Kitchener and others from Trinidad and the other islands.
What are some of the most memorable albums you worked on?
The Fat Boys album I did with Kurtis Blow, The Fat Boys Are Back, that was a great album with a sound I loved. I did an album with Lester Bowie on Brass Fantasy, he’s a jazz artist. I Only Have Eyes For You is the name of the album, I love the way that project came out. I also did three albums with Eddie Kendricks. I loved Eddie Kendricks, like most of black America.
How wild were the P-Funk guys in the studio?
They were very wild. During my first year, the studio engineer called me, ‘Guess who’s coming in the studio? George Clinton!’ He knew I was a P-Funk fan, and he said, ‘You’re doing the session!’ Peter Criss from Kiss was in the studio at Soundworks, and he was running over time. George, Bootsy and everyone was waiting in the lobby, and I was all nervous. I go up to George and I said, ‘Is there any special mic you wanna use on Bootsy? He said, ‘Nah man, it’s gonna be alright. Just relax!’ In the studio they went back and forth over phrases they wanted Bootsy to say in the session, ‘To pee or not to pee, that is the question!’
Do you have any special techniques to check your mixes?
Some people have a little transistor radio in the studio to listen to it. Everything sounds good in the studio, but you have to listen to it in all different elements. I used to like to listen to it in the car.
How did keep yourself amused on long tours?
Most of my career I was addicted to cocaine and alcohol, so a lot of the road is blurry to me. I guess I took the edges off, I had my routines in every city I went to. But come December, I would have been clean twenty years. I couldn’t get high or be drunk while I was working, because you’ve got 30,000 people that’s depending on you to provide the sound. If you mess it up, that’s kinda crazy! I left my partying to after the gig. Being an audio engineer, you don’t get the accolades like some people do, like Grammys, but there’s nothing like rocking 30,000 people at a concert or hearing a record that you’ve mixed on the radio. Those are your rewards.
Head over to Turn The Horns On for more about Akili and grab a copy of his book for more of his studio memories.