All language subtitles for Soundbreaking - 1x01 - The Recording Artist (Eng)

[ U2's "Pride" plays ]

-I never thought of myself
as a record producer.

Somebody else named me that.

I was just a guy
who was making records

and was good at helping people.

-♪ One man come
in the name of love ♪

♪ One man come and go

-When you're at the front
end of a medium,

you get this adrenaline rush,

or you think, "Oh, my goodness,
I think we've touched

on something here that's
never been heard before.

[ David Bowie's "Fame" plays ]

-♪ Fame

♪ Makes a man take things over

-When it comes
to making a hit record,

one of the biggest mysteries
is the role of the producer.

-I've heard of Phil Spector.
I heard of Andrew Loog Oldham.

I heard of Jimmy Miller
with the Stones.

I didn't know what they did.

-♪ Fame, fame

-When I would see old footage
of George Martin,

I knew that guy was
the important guy to watch.

Nobody wants his autograph,
but he's the guy in charge.

-♪ Fame

-Producers were people who
understood how recording worked.

-♪ Fame
-They were the people who said,

"Here's this whole new set
of possibilities.

We're gonna find out
what they can do."

-♪ Fame, fame, fame, fame

-The digital wave of music
gave us a whole orchestra

of instrumentation
in front of our hands.

[ Johnny Cash's "One" plays ]

-But technical skill
is only part of the job.

The real challenge is to bring
out the best in a performer.

-♪ Is it getting better

♪ Or do you feel the same?

-There's a connection
you have to make in producing,

and it's gotta be love
and respect.

-♪ You got someone to blame

-I think the most important
thing a producer can do

is to create a vibe
of safety in the room,

like, it's okay
to go out on a limb.

-♪ In the night

-That it's cool to go
to a very vulnerable space

where, if it doesn't work right,
it could be embarrassing.

-♪ Carry each other, one

-Don't be afraid to fail.

♪♪

♪♪

-Okay, then. Okay.

-It'll be an F for you.

-Here we go.

Just one more time.

-Right after I say,
"Are you sure?"

Da da da -- yeah.

-Oh.

-Hal, here's how I want
to do it. Takes like this.

-All right, it's fun time.
Fun time.

-Here we go.

-Oh, really?
-17, take one.

-This will be the keeper.
-[Laughs]

♪♪

♪♪

-Here we go.

One time, everybody, please.

[ The Rolling Stones's
"Start Me Up" plays ]

-My first meeting
with the Rolling Stones

was I ended up on a sofa
with Mick Jagger sitting here

and Keith sitting here,

and they were both talking
at the same time.

-♪ If you start me up

♪ If you start me up,
I'll never stop ♪

-Mick was suggesting things

that a producer could do
for the Stones

and Keith was telling me why
he didn't need a producer.

And Keith said, "You sure you
want to be the meat

in this sandwich?"

[ Laughs ]

-The producer
has got to be able to say

to somebody like Mick Jagger,

"Can you just do that
again, right?"

-He should have tact.
He should have diplomacy.

He should know
how to handle an artist.

-Even if it means saying that
song's not as good as that one.

This melody needs to be better.

-And it's hard, man, 'cause
it'svery intimate, you know.

Very, very intimate.

And you're going straight
from your heart,

and you're saying,
"We're not there yet."

Or "That's a perfect, perfect
take. One more time." [ Laughs ]

-Plenty of great songs have
gotten lost in bad production,

so, you have to appreciate
when you have those pairings

of a Michael Jackson
and a Quincy Jones,

when you have a great songwriter
and a great producer.

-The two of you together
are making music

completely from scratch,

and it's your job to try
and help find the right sounds

that makes everybody's hair
stand on end.

[ Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'"
plays ]

-It might take many weeks

of just sitting and playing
with nothing happening.

And then one day,
something happens.

[ Cheers and applause ]

♪ She's a good girl

♪ Loves her mama

♪ Loves Jesus

♪ And America, too

I sat down
and played a lick, like...

[ Hums melody ]

and Jeff Lynne,

who's one of the greatest
record makers ever, I think,

went, "Wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait,

don't put that bit
on the end there."

What?
What do you mean?

"Just go..."

[ Hums "Free Fallin'"
chord changes ]

"And start the phrase again, but
don't put that other bit in."

And I hadn't even really thought
it was a song, you know,

but he was excited by it.

♪ She's a good girl

♪ Loves her mama

The first two verses
were adlibbed, you know --

♪ She's a good girl,
loves her mama ♪

♪ loves Jesus,
and America, too ♪

I was just kind of tryin'
to make Jeff smile.

He goes, [English accent]
"Free Falling."

That's all he said, you know.

♪ And I'm free

♪ I'm free fallin'

♪ And I'm free

♪ I'm free fallin'

-That's the whole point
of having someone

that will sit in the booth,
hearing something

that you might play,
that you would just discard,

and he'll say, "Hang on
a minute, that was really good.

Go back to that."

-Ultimately,
what being a producer is

is having a point of view.

It's easy to make sound.
Really, anybody can make sound.

But not everybody
can make music.

[ Up-tempo rock-'n'-roll
music plays ]

-Well, hello and welcome to the
cradle of rock 'n' roll.

♪♪

-Sam Phillips
was 3 days short of 27

when he opened the doors to
the Memphis recording service.

He started the label Sun
3 years later.

-So many earlier producers,
like Sam Phillips,

they're basically operating
in an A&R capacity,

looking for promising talent,
bringing them into the studio,

and crafting a unique sound
for them.

-From Sam Phillips's point
of view, if you weren't doing

something different,
you weren't doing anything.

He was looking for individualism
in the extreme, as he would say.

-When I wanted to open up
my recording studio,

I didn't tell too many people
about what I had in mind

because I didn't know whether
I'd be able to pull it off.

I didn't have enough money

to buy the equipment
that I wanted

and I didn't know whether
I could pay the rent,

but I knew that I was gonna
get me some black folks

in that studio,
one way or the other.

I recorded Roscoe Gordon,
BB King,

the Howlin' Wolf,
Little Junior Parker.

♪♪

-Memphis in the mid-'50s
was a "black cats" town.

It was about soul.

Nashville didn't rock.

Memphis did.

[ Up-tempo rock-'n'-roll
music plays ]

-Sam Phillips was so smitten

with the sound of black music
and black blues,

but he knew that he'd need
a white guy to put it out there.

And he found a guy
called Elvis Presley, ha.

-♪ Evenin' shadows

♪ make me blue

♪ When each weary day

♪ is through

-With Elvis, I knew when
he walked in the door, baby.

If anybody can do this,

I believe this is the person
who can do it.

-♪ My happiness

-It was something
that he heard in this kid,

something that was
unique about him.

-But, as the session begins,

Elvis starts singing all these
country songs and pop standards.

And Sam realizes,
"Hey, this is not gonna work."

He has a wonderful voice,
but it's so insecure.

-♪ Just as long
as I'm with you ♪

♪ My happiness

-So I went in
and talked to him and said,

"Hey, we still are not
where I believe we should be,

and I think we all agree on
this," and so I turned around,

went back in the control room,
and, next thing I know,

Elvis cut out on
"That's All Right Mama."

♪♪

-♪ Well, that's all right,
mama ♪

♪ That's all right for you

♪ That's all right now, mama

♪ Just any way you do

♪ That's all right

-And, man, the minute
I heard that thing,

I said, "Lord, hey, if we aren't
gonna make it on that, honey,

there was nothing
I could do, ever."

-♪ Do

-I used to hear Elvis and they
would be singing and playing,

and they sounded good, but they
was playing white music.

♪ That's all right, mama,
that's all right for you ♪

When he did that,
I said, "Ohhh, wait a minute.

[laughs]
This is this is all right."

How do you categorize
"That's All right"?

It's just a magic moment,

and it's truly original
in that it doesn't sound

like anything else
in the marketplace.

-♪ I'm leavin' town, baby

♪ I'm leavin' town for sure

♪ Well, then you
won't be bothered ♪

♪ With me hangin'
'round your door ♪

♪ But that's all right

♪ That's all right

♪ That's all right,
now, mama ♪

♪ Any way you do

-To Sam Phillips,
it was always about freeing --

freeing the soul
of his singers.

Most of these people
who came to him,

like Johnny Cash
and Carl Perkins,

Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis,
Roy Orbison --

they all shared
this enormous insecurity.

His magic was to pull it out

of whatever it was
that they had inside.

-♪ I believe you're doin'
me wrong, and now I know ♪

♪ I believe you're doin' me
wrong, and now I know ♪

-The qualities that Sam Phillips
first saw in him,

he continued to show
till the end of his career.

-♪ Well

♪ I said shake,
rattle, and roll ♪

♪ I said shake, rattle,
and roll ♪

♪ I said shake,
rattle, and roll ♪

♪ I said shake, rattle,
and roll ♪

-When you know that you have
been able to give these people

the inspiration to display
their God-given talent

and to be proud of it,

I think that is the essence
of Sun records.

-♪ I don't care if I die

♪ I said flip, flop, and fly

♪ I don't care if I die

♪ Don't ever leave me

♪ Don't ever say goodbye

[ Cheers and applause ]

-We formally present
The Beatles!

♪♪

-I didn't realize
when I signed the Beatles

that they'd already been
to every record company

in the country
and they'd been turned down

by every record company
in the country.

-♪ Some other guy now

♪ Has taken my love
away from me now ♪

-When we first met George,

we loved him because
he took a chance on us.

No one else would take
a chance.

With a name like that,
you come from Liverpool --

not a chance in hell.

♪♪

-I think it was really a gut
feeling I had about them.

I think it was their charisma.

-Does the continuous living
and working together

impose any temperamental
stress upon you?

-You know, we all have been
mates for quite a long time,

so we don't get on each other's
nerves as much as we could.

-Argh!

Bloody hell, yes.
[Laughter]

-We're quite friendly.

-So I see.

♪♪

-When I first met them,
The Beatles knew nothing

about a recording studio.

Their experience had been
performing in front of people

at the Cavern in Hamburg
and that kind of thing.

-George had done no
rock 'n' roll when we met him,

and we'd never been
in a studio,

so we did a lot
of learning together.

-I think The Beatles would have
made it as great musicians

whether I was there or not.

I think the fact that
Iwas there helped out.

I think they probably got
there more quickly.

-♪ Last night I said
these words to my girl ♪

♪ I know you never
even try, girl ♪

-♪ Come on
-♪ Come on

-♪ Come on
-♪ Come on

-♪ Come on
-♪ Come on

-♪ Come on
-♪ Come on

-♪ Please please me, oh, yeah,
like I please you ♪

[ Screaming ]

-What happens with
George Martin's work

with The Beatles is that he
added himself into the picture.

He was an arranger,
he was a musician,

he had some technical knowledge

that he could use to augment
what they were doing,

and took control
of the overall sonic picture.

-I kept seeing George Martin's
name on the records

and then, when I saw a picture
of him, I thought,

"My God, he's about twice
their age," you know.

He looked like he was
a director in a bank, you know.

He had a suit and tie
all the time.

His hair was swept back.

It was like "Wow!
These people work together?

That's crazy."

-He was older and wiser and he
brought a deep musicality.

They had it intuitively
and he had it intellectually,

so he could help them
execute ideas

that a less skilled producer
could not do.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-It wasn't until
a couple of years later

that they started doing
more sophisticated songwriting.

Wrote the most
touching material.

-Okay, then. Okay.

-It'll be an F for you.

♪ Yesterday

-Keep playing it.

-I'm in G.
But it'll be an F.

It goes [strum] E minor
to A7 to D minor.

Ready.
-Here we go. Here we go.

-When Paul first wrote
"Yesterday,"

he came to me and said,
"Have you heard this one before?

Because I dreamt about it
last night,

and I'm sure in my subconscious
I'm pinching it from someone."

I said, "No, I'm sure it's
an original piece of music.

Stick to it, it's great."

-Okay, man.

♪♪

♪ Yesterday

♪ All my troubles
seemed so far away ♪

♪ Now it looks as though
they're here to stay ♪

-He said,
"What do you think, man?"

I said, "Well, there's nothing
we can do to put on top of this

and make it more beautiful,
except perhaps some strings."

-♪ There's a shadow
hanging over me ♪

-With my dad being
the posh bloke in the studio,

as the classically
trained musician,

there was an initial
reluctance from Paul

to have a string quartet
on "Yesterday."

-I was always frightened
of classical music,

and I never wanted
to listen to it

because it was Beethoven
and Tchaikovsky

and sort of big words like that,
and Schoenberg.

You know, I always thought,
you know,

"It's high-class, that.
It's very highbrow.

-I was rehearsing musicians
when he walked into the studio

and he saw the score
that I had written

and he came up to me and said,
"What's this?"

I said, "It's all the music
that the musicians are playing.

He said, "You haven't
got my name on it."

I said, "I'm sorry.
Here's a pencil.

Put your name on it."
So he wrote on it,

"Yesterday by Paul McCartney
John Lennon..."

Looked at me --
"George Martin Esq",

and then giggled
and put down "and Mozart".

-♪ Yesterday

♪ Love was such
an easy game to play ♪

♪ Now I need a place
to hide away ♪

♪ Oh, I believe in yesterday

-"Yesterday" showed Paul
how a string quartet

could be quite effective
on a really good song.

And then he came to me with
"Eleanor Rigby,"

which cried out for strings --

not the smooth, legato stuff
of "Yesterday,"

but something that's
very biting,

very rhythmic, very edgy.

[ Suspenseful
string music plays ]

It suggested to me
the stuff that Bernard Herrmann

had been writing for "Psycho,"
for example.

♪♪

-"Eleanor Rigby" is the first
time that The Beatles

weren't playing any instruments
on one of their records.

It is just a string octet.

The octet was recorded
onto 4-track.

On track 1 here...

[ Violins play ]

...you have the first violins.

♪♪

And here are the second violins.

♪♪

You can hear bleed 'cause

they're all in the same
room together.

♪♪

-Oh, my gosh, I played that

over and over
and over and over again.

It was just so smart.

George Martin
obviously knew this stuff

and he knew how to put it
on a Beatles record.

That's the trick.

[ "Eleanor Rigby" plays ]

For the first time you're
hearing a string octet

and you're tapping your foot.

-George Martin made strings
cool, you know.

He used strings in a way
that was so innovative.

I don't think anyone
had thought of before.

In that way,
The Beatles educated all of us.

-♪ Ah, look at all
the lonely people ♪

♪ Ah, look at all
the lonely people ♪

♪ Eleanor Rigby

Until then, I thought,
"I can be a rock star.

I want to be a rock star.
I want to be onstage.

I want to have the girls
screaming at me.

I want all that stuff.
I want a limo, everything."

[laughs] But now I wanted
to be George Martin.

That was more important.

To be in the studio,
to do that kind of stuff,

to be able to experiment
that way

and to make great works of art
that only exist on tape.

That's very important, you know.

It's a very different art
from performing live.

That's what I wanted to be --
I wanted to be George Martin.

-♪ All the lonely people

♪ Do they all belong?

-George Martin --
his influence was so mighty,

but he wasn't there
to puthis stamp on it.

Someone like a Phil Spector
kind of --

He was the opposite of that.

I don't know
if he said it himself,

but, you know, he was
the artist on the record.

[ "Be My Baby" plays ]

-♪ The night we met

♪ I knew I

♪ needed you so

-The enormous orchestra
he got on "Be My Baby,"

there was nothing before
Phil Spector

that was ever done
on such a level,

except maybe
a symphonic recording --

you know, Beethoven's 9th
or something like that.

-♪ Oh oh oh
-Boom, boom-boom, bang!

Boom, boom-boom, bang!

Those are huge, big, noisy,
rock 'n' roll --

♪ Be my, be my little baby

-♪ Be my darling

-♪ Be my, be my baby

-♪ Be my baby now

♪ Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh

-What one really hears
in Phil Spector's work

is the possibility
of production.

A unique way of building
the sound of his recordings.

It's now known
as the Wall of Sound.

-He was the first
rock-star producer.

And if you wanted to be
a record producer,

he was somebody you had to study
or just know a lot about.

[ Applause ]

-♪ To know, know, know him

♪ Is to love, love, love him

-It's easy to forget
how young Phil Spector was

when he started.

The Teddy Bears
was his first band

and it was just him
and his schoolmates,

the three of them doing this
very mournful harmony record.

-♪ Is to love, love, love him

-My older sister's boyfriend

was the other guy
in the Teddy Bears.

They'd rehearse
in my living room,

so I heard
"Wonderful Lovable You"

and "Don't You Worry
My Little Pet"

and "To Know Him
is To Love Him."

-♪ Love, love, love him

-It's a magical little
teen record.

That was the first record
he ever made.

He emerged fully formed.

-♪ And I do

[ Whistling and applause ]

[ Drumbeat ]

-Well, from the beginning,
Phil Spector was

into the sound of records
and not just songwriting.

And he was very ambitious and he
started his own record label.

At that point,
what you think of

as the Phil Spector
Wall of Sound really starts.

[ Whirring ]

-♪ You never close your eyes

♪ Anymore
when I kiss your lips ♪

♪ And there's no tenderness

-When you're a teenager, your
emotions are really heightened.

Phil Spector's records
really encapsulated that.

You listen to something like

"You've Lost That Lovin'
Feeling" and it just sounds

like, you know, it sounds
like the end of the world,

more than the end of a love
affair. It's incredible.

-♪ But, baby

♪ Baby, I know it

♪ You've lost
that lovin' feeling ♪

♪ Whoa, that lovin' feeling

♪ You've lost
that lovin' feeling ♪

♪ Now it's gone, gone, gone

♪ Whoa-oh, oh, oh

-Phil Spector used 3 keyboard
players, 2 drummers...

-3 bass players,
3 organ players...

-5 keyboard players,
3 guitar players...

-3 woodwinds, 3 saxes.

-The Los Angeles Choir.

-He was like, "How can I make
these 4 tracks sound bigger?

Well, I'll hire
double the musicians

and have them all play exactly
the same thing at the same time.

-Phil Spector
intuitively understood

that a rock 'n' roll ensemble
or a pop group

is no different
than an orchestra.

There's absolutely a reason
why you have

16 or 18 or 20 first violins
in an orchestra.

It's because one violin
sounds like [bleep], you know.

And if you get --
and even 8 sound crappy.

But when they're all
playing together,

suddenly it homogenizes

and it creates that
extraordinary sound.

-♪ Bring back
that lovin' feeling ♪

♪ Whoa, that lovin' feeling

-After the track was laid, and
you go back in the control room,

you could listen
to the playback,

you couldn't believe
what you was hearing.

You didn't even believe
that you just played that.

To listen to the track,
the way he just

stacked those sounds together.

He knew what he was doing.

-So he had this huge hit
with the Righteous Brothers

and then he followed it up
not that much later

with "River Deep Mountain High."

-Okay, here we go, from the top.

Take 3.

-1, 2.
1, 2, 3.

♪♪

Jack, you don't have
a more substantial tambourine

out there, do ya?
Take 11.

-It was just once in a while

that we do 29, 30, 31 takes
on a song.

And maybe he would
go back to take 4.

But, that's the way it was
with Phil.

-Take 15.

-♪ Do I love you?

♪ My, oh, my

♪ Yeah, river deep,
mountain high ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah

-Hold it, hold it,
hold it, hold it.

It was a little fast.
You were ahead.

-He abused the technology.

He abused the musicians.

-The day that we did
the session,

the room was full of people.

Eons of musicians

and he was a little bitty
something out there,

screaming, "I want this!
I...!" You know?

I mean he's very persistent
in what he wants.

And the result is fantastic,
but, he's very,

very, very strong personality
to sort of work for.

I wouldn't say he's easy at all.
[ Laughs ]

♪♪

♪ When I was a little girl

♪ I had a ragdoll

-And I don't know who gave it
that title, Wall of Sound,

but it was a brilliant title

and they just put it
on everything.

-Every rock 'n' roll
or any serious recordmaker

wanted to grab on
to a bit of that sound.

-♪ And do I love you?

♪ My, oh, my

♪ Yeah, river deep,
mountain high ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah!

-A lot of people
don't want to credit Phil

because he's too crazy,
he had too much of a reputation.

But from my point of view,

I was working
with Phil Spector, man.

I knew it was gonna be good.

♪♪

♪♪

-♪ Up at 8:00

♪ You can't be late

♪ For Matthew and son

♪ He won't wait

[ Horns play ]

I was actually making
very, very brassy,

very fully arranged pop records

back in the early '60s
or late '60s.

♪♪

♪ Matthew and son,
the work's never done ♪

♪ There's always something new

I wanted to have a hit.

But most of the times, I was not
in control of my songs.

♪ ...never, ever blue

And everybody was writing
these notes for me

and they were recording them
and I was always

rather intimidated
by the studio and, you know,

there's all these, like,
engineers, and they all knew

what the buttons meant
and where the wires were going.

I couldn't understand what
that was. It was a spaceship.

♪♪

And I didn't quite recognize
my music when it came out.

I just wanted to get shod
of the record industry

being, you know,
the boss of everybody

and telling everybody
what to do.

And I wanted to get control
of my sound.

[ Intro to "Father and Son"
plays ]

♪ It's not time
to make a change ♪

♪ Just relax, take it easy

♪ You're still young,
that's your fault ♪

♪ There's so much
you have to know ♪

♪ Find a girl, settle down

♪ If you want, you can marry

♪ Look at me, I am old,
but I'm happy ♪

And so you'll hear
from my first records

to my later records,
there's a change.

And the big change was
when I said, "You know what?

My little demos on my little
Grundig, you know, tape recorder

sound better than what
I finally ended up with.

All that brass
and all those strings.

♪ Think of everything
you've got ♪

♪ For you will still be here
tomorrow ♪

♪ but your dreams may not

♪ How can I try to explain?

♪ 'Cause when I do
he turns away again ♪

♪ It's always been the same

♪ same old story

And so when we finally
started making those records --

You know,
"Tea for the Tillerman" --

it was stripping
everything down,

and I looked for a new producer

who could capture that raw kind
of song that was within me

in the purest way
without interfering.

♪ All the times
that I've cried ♪

♪ Keeping all the things
I knew inside ♪

♪ It's hard, but it's harder
to ignore it ♪

♪ If they were right,
I'd agree ♪

♪ But it's them,
they know, not me ♪

♪ Now there's a way

♪ And I know
that I have to go away ♪

♪ I know I have to go

♪♪

-The essence of the
singer/songwriter movement,

one of its tenets was, you were
trying to really make sure

the song told a story,
and that's why we tried

to keep it simple, was because
the songs and the lyrics were

among the most important
stars on the record.

[ "California" plays ]

Joni's always made
her own records.

She has a very clear idea
of what she wants.

Joni is an inventor, you know,

she invents guitar tunings
the way she invents songs.

♪♪

And I don't think producing her
is realistically possible.

-♪ Sitting in a park
in Paris, France ♪

♪ Reading the news,
and it's all bad ♪

♪ They won't give peace
a chance ♪

♪ That was just a dream
some of us had ♪

♪ Still a lot of lands to see

♪ But I wouldn't want
to stay here ♪

♪ It's too old and cold
and settled in its ways here ♪

♪ Oh, but California

♪ California

♪ I'm coming home

♪ I'm gonna see
the folks I dig ♪

♪ I'll even kiss a sunset pig

♪ California,
when I get home ♪

Most of the men at that time

were very resistant to taking
instruction from a woman.

They were very pompous,
overlording.

I thought, "If I have to
subordinate myself to this,

you know, person,
it'll kill my love of music."

So I had to put in my contract

that I never had
to have a producer.

♪ And I might have stayed on
with him there ♪

♪ But my heart cried out
for you ♪

-Geniuses, they're stubborn
and they're hell-bent

on executing their vision
the way that they see fit.

-♪ Oh, make me feel good,
rock 'n' roll band ♪

♪ I'm your biggest fan

♪ California, I'm coming home

-You know, talent is one thing,
but you have to have

the drive and the will
to make people see your vision.

[ Intro to "Everyday People"
plays ]

-♪ Sometimes I'm right
and I can be wrong ♪

♪ My own beliefs are
in my song ♪

♪ The butcher, the banker,
the drummer, and then ♪

♪ Makes no difference
what group I'm in ♪

♪ I-I-I am everyday people,
yeah yeah ♪

-Just as the rise of female
singer/songwriters in the 1970s

meant that people
like Joni Mitchell

were able to produce their own
vision of who they were

in the recording studio,
you also have the rise

of African American artists,
who start to empower themselves

and start to use
the recording studio

in a way that's
incredibly creative

and very different
than the past.

People like Stevie Wonder,

Marvin Gaye,
and Curtis Mayfield;

and particularly, I think, Sly
from Sly and the Family Stone.

These artists became
the producers themselves.

-♪ We got to live together

♪ I am no better
and neither are you ♪

♪ We are the same,
whatever we do ♪

-He was taking a stand
politically, musically.

He was his own boss.

You couldn't think of anyone

telling Sly what to do
in the studio.

♪ I-I-I am everyday people

-I can talk about
Sly and the Family Stone

for a very long time.

-Okay, play it.

[ Vocalizing ]

[ Funk plays ]

-Sly Stone brought in
a song craftsmanship to funk

that wasn't there.

He put his own spin on it

and out came something really
unique and bold and just fresh.

♪♪

-Because
of the ongoing conflicts

between Sly
and his Family Stone,

he wound up doing
his 5th record,

"There's a Riot Goin' On,"
by himself.

♪♪

-♪ It's a family affair

♪ It's a family affair

-Sly Stone was such a huge
musical experimenter.

He would try playing with things

that most other people
hadn't thought about.

-He did it at like what
now we'd call a home studio.

That's Sly playing bass,
it's Sly playing guitar,

Sly playing keyboards.

-Of course he's programming,
drum programming on there,

which is like early
kind of hip hop.

Some uptight producer would go,
"No, I don't want that.

That doesn't sound like
real drums."

That was the point --
it didn't --

but it was something funkier.

-♪ Ahhhhh! H-H-Hey! ♪

-What he did in 1971
will be the gold standard

for how musicians will create
their music 10 years later.

♪♪

-The significance
of the black musician,

songwriter, singer, producer,
whatever --

to me it all boils down

to communicating
the liveswe live.

♪♪

♪ Unemployment
at a record high ♪

♪ People coming, people going,
people born to die (ha ha) ♪

♪ Don't ask me
because I don't know why ♪

-♪ But it's like that
-♪ What?

-♪ And that's the way it is

♪ Wha, wha, wha, wha

-It's a generation of people
who don't have access

to musical instruments.

-Scratch it out. Scratch,
scratch it -- scratch it.

-Who don't have
musical training.

They're using music
to create new music.

-We took what was available
and we created hip hop.

-♪ Why you search

-♪ Take the train to the plane

♪ Drive to school
or the church ♪

♪ It's like that
-♪ And that's the way it is

-With hip hop, the role of the
producer changes completely.

You have producers sampling
and using drum machines.

-The best producers,
they have this ability to create

a signature tapestry that makes
all of these bits and pieces

actually sound
like an original composition.

[ Siren wails ]

-You are now about to witness

the strength
of street knowledge.

♪ Yeah, oh!

-♪ Straight outta Compton

♪ Crazy mother...
named Ice Cube ♪

♪ From the gang called
Niggaz Wit' Attitudes ♪

-In the early 1990s,

Dr. Dre basically put
West Coast hip hop on the map.

He was notorious
for having this sound

that was unlike anything else.

-♪ But when I come back, boy

♪ I'm coming
straight outta Compton ♪

♪ Compton, Compton, Compton
-♪ No!

[ Turntable scratches ]

-Gangsta rap, that music
took on a life of its own

and it gave the West Coast
and L.A. scene its own voice.

♪ [Whistle blowing]

-I remember the shift when NWA
and Dre came into the scene.

Sonically, it was polished,
but at the same time,

it was like this superhard
West Coast sound.

-♪ I'm dropping flavor,
my behavior is hereditary ♪

♪ But my technique
is very necessary ♪

♪ Blame it on Ice Cube

♪ Because he said
it gets funky ♪

♪ When you got a subject
and a predicate ♪

And you felt Dre's presence
as one of the greatest

hip-hop producers of all time,
if not the greatest.

-♪ Well, express yourself

♪ Do it, yeah

-When we started Interscope,

I didn't know anything
about running a business,

and I knew even less
about hip hop.

So this fellow, John McClain,
who was an A&R guy, he brought

this tape in and he said,
"We have to sign these guys."

I said, "Who is he?"
He goes, "It's Dr. Dre.

It's his solo record.
He used to be in NWA."

I said, "Okay." I said, "I don't
really know a lot about it,

but, you know, play it for me."

-♪ One, two, three,
and to the fo' ♪

♪ Snoop Doggy Dogg
and Dr. Dre is at the do' ♪

♪ Ready to make an entrance,
so back on up ♪

♪ 'Cause you know
we're about to rip...up ♪

♪ Gimme the microphone first
so I can bust like a bubble ♪

♪ Compton and Long Beach
together ♪

♪ Now you know you in trouble

♪ Ain't nothing
but a G thang, baby ♪

♪ Two loc'ed out niggas,
so we're crazy ♪

-And I didn't know
a lot about it.

I didn't understand the music,
but I understood the sound.

-♪ Dre, creep to the mic
like a phantom ♪

-♪ Well, I'm peepin' and I'm
creepin' and I'm creepin' ♪

-So Dre comes in.

I said, "Dre, who recorded
this record?

He said, "I did."
I said, "No no no no.

Not who produced it.
Who engineered it?

He said, "I did."

I said, "Wow, this guy's on
to something.

-♪ With a producer who can rap
and control the maestro ♪

♪ At the same time with the dope
rhyme that I kick ♪

♪ You know and I know,
I flow some old funky... ♪

Everybody has to have their own
sound, you know what I'm saying?

That's what makes it
different, you know?

And I'm a perfectionist.

Because no matter how hard you
work in the studio,

no matter what you do,

you don't know if people
are gonna dig it.

♪ It's like that, and, uh,
it's like this ♪

♪ And who gives a...
about those? ♪

It's very easy to make
a hip-hop record.

It's not easy to make
a good hip-hop record.

-When Dre came in with
"The Chronic,"

he was using live musicians
and recording it very sparse.

-We was finding samples
that we all overlooked,

pulling from funk and G-funk.

You know, you listen to
the sample on "G Thang" --

[ Humming ]

-♪ It's like this and like that
and like this and, uh ♪

♪ It's like that and like
this and like that and, uh ♪

-He's hearing things

that the average ear
would never encounter in a song.

And then when he hears it,
he'll pull it out.

He will pull it out.

♪♪

-I'll admit something to you.

I was one of
the initial naysayers

of Dr. Dre's "The Chronic."

It was like everything
I didn't want hip hop to be.

It was clean, louder, bigger.

I wanted my hip hop dirty.

This DIY approach,
this very low-budget,

lo-fi approach
to making music --

That's what I felt hip hop
should and always be.

-♪ Creeping down
the back street on D's ♪

-It took me 10 years
to really understand

where Dr. Dre was going
and now that I make records,

now I understand why this album
is so important.

-What he did for hip hop
and for sampling

is that he proved that
you can make a record

of the highest quality
as a hip-hop producer.

-♪ When they hear me
beating up the street ♪

♪ "Is it Dre? Is it Dre?"
That's what they say ♪

-A lot of people
scorned hip-hop producers

for not being real musicians.

-♪ What all the niggas sayin'?

-Today, playing around
with sampling technology,

it's become completely accepted.

This is the way that
most people make records.

-The digital wave of music,

that gave us a whole orchestra
of instrumentation

in front of our hands,
you know what I mean?

That's one of the greatest
things that we could have.

If Mozart had this, imagine.

-The ability to re-record
something 10 times, comp it.

The ability to have
so many tracks

where you can sort of do
crazy layers, you know,

more than Phil Spector did,
you know.

You can have 300 tracks
on something now.

-You can set up in your room

and just have a microphone
and your laptop,

and you can make something
as formidable and dope

and that rocks.
Like, you can.

That's just where
the technology is.

But all technology does
is provide you with paints.

A producer is somebody who can
take the color and make it.

-You didn't have to
have a drop.

Just felt like it was staying
exciting, and then...

-I think everyone benefits
from having a producer,

just because it really helps
having a sort of

an impartial jury
to make sense of it all.

But there's no right
or wrong way to do this.

It's like any way you find
the inspiration works.

♪ That's so def, so def,
it's a Def Jam ♪

-"Jam" means "record."

"Def" is short for "definitive."

Definitely the best record
you could buy today.

-♪ Brass monkey

♪ That funky monkey

-When we first met Rick Rubin,

I didn't know anything
about production.

I didn't think about production.

I didn't know that
it even existed.

Rick definitely was into that.

Luckily, he was good at it.
You know what I mean?

He could've sucked, and that
would've been the end of it...

for all of us.

-♪ Come on, y'all,
it's time to get nice ♪

♪ Coolin' by the lockers,
gettin' kind of funky ♪

-Rick Rubin started Def Jam,

the massive multimillion-
dollar enterprise,

in his dorm room at NYU.

And he went on to produce
Run-DMC,

Beastie Boys, Metallica,
and Slayer.

He's produced
The Red Hot Chili Peppers,

The Dixie Chicks.

He's an incredibly diverse
and wide-ranging producer.

-The reason that the artists
might not all fit into one genre

is it's not really the way
I listen to music.

I just like good music,

and I try not
to categorize it too much.

-In the early 1990s,

Rick Rubin started a new
record label, Def American,

and he was really interested in
testing himself as a producer.

-By that time, most of
the artists I'd worked with

were new and young artists

and it felt like it would be
a really interesting challenge

to find a great older artist
who'd been through a lot

and maybe wasn't doing
their best work at the time

and the first person
I thought of was Johnny Cash.

[ Guitar plays ]

He'd been dropped by 2 labels.

He'd already had a comeback,

and that was probably
25 years earlier.

-He thought people didn't care
about his work anymore.

He didn't feel the support
from the label.

He was floundering a bit.

♪♪

-Country music would have
nothing to do with him.

In the '80s,
when I was in his band,

we recorded album
after album after album

and nothing happened.

-Somebody stole all the magic,

like in the '70s,
some of the '80s.

The magic
for the music was gone.

And I was just doing it
because I do it.

I was just doing it
'cause that's what I do.

And I hate that.

♪♪

-A friend of mine set up
a meeting for us.

He was playing at a dinner
theater in Orange County.

It didn't feel like a place
that was appropriate

for someone of his importance
to be playing.

It just was sad.

My contract was runnin' out
with the other record company

and Rick Rubin
came down to see me

and I liked the way
he talked, you know.

He talked like --
He reminded me of Sam Phillips.

♪♪

And I said,
"What would you do with me

that everybody else has tried
to do, you know, and couldn't?"

And he said, "Well,
what would you like to do?

♪♪

-We always started
in my living room,

just with a guitar
and talking about songs.

-♪ Back about 18 and 25

♪ I left Tennessee
very much alive ♪

-And I would have him sing me
songs from his childhood.

-♪ Through the Arkansas mud

-He played me songs that they
would sing on the cotton fields

when he used to pick cotton.

-♪ The Tennessee stud
was long and lean ♪

♪ The color of the sun,
and his eyes were green ♪

-He really gave me a tremendous
education in this lost music

that I didn't know anything
about, and I loved it.

-♪ Purty little baby
on the cabin floor ♪

♪ Li'l hoss colt
playing 'round the door ♪

-From the first time that we
met, we recorded everything,

just had the machine going
all the time.

-♪ Tennessee mare
-It becomes second nature.

People forget they're recording
and just sort of be themselves

and that's the goal --
to get to that point.

♪♪

That was great.

The first album we made
was mostly solo acoustic.

And then came time to do
the next one, and he had

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
as the backing band.

♪♪

-♪ I never picked cotton

-Rick's idea was to set
John free

and let that artist live.

-♪ And my daddy died young

♪ Workin' in a coal mine

-John would start to sing
and we'd get kind of a feel

for how the arrangement
might go, and then, woof!

Everybody'd jump onto
their respective instruments.

-♪ And it was fast cars
and whiskey ♪

♪ Long-legged girls and fun

-I mean, it was raw,
and at times it wasn't musical,

but it was so real
and so heartfelt

that it almost brought me
to tears.

But then Rick would really
try to push Johnny

to do things that he would
never think of doing.

-I played Johnny Cash the
Soundgarden song "Rusty Cage,"

which is a heavy-metal song

with Chris Cornell singing
in a very high-pitched scream.

-♪ I'm gonna break
my rusty cage ♪

And Johnny listened to it
and just shook his head

and just like, "I don't really
know what you're thinkin'."

Like, "I can't imagine myself
doing that."

And then I made
an acoustic demo of it.

[ Acoustic guitar plays
"Rusty Cage" ]

And bit by bit, Rick guided us
through the arrangement,

and there it was, you know.

-♪ You wired me awake

♪ And hit me with a hand
of broken nails ♪

-Johnny was really happy,
and he said,

"I love this. This is great."

He goes, "This is gonna
piss off so many people.

-♪ I'm gonna break

♪ I'm gonna break my

♪ Gonna break my rusty cage

♪ And run

♪ 1, 2, 1

♪ It don't hurt anymore

-A lot of the job is that
of being a therapist,

of being there and really
hearing the artist

and hearing what their vision is

and really setting up a place
where they feel they're safe

and can be vulnerable
and show themselves completely.

-♪ And at last I am free

-The infusion he gave my dad of
the old confidence and passion,

it was so powerful.

I mean, Rick was like an angel
that came in saying,

"Remember,
this is who you are."

I mean,
it was as simple as that.

Remember.

-♪ And it's wonderful now

♪ I don't hurt anymore

♪♪

♪♪

-"Soundbreaking"
is available on DVD.

The companion book
is also available.

To order, visit shopPBS.org
or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

♪♪