When Marty Robbins and his backing band entered their Nashville studio session on an unexpecting day in 1960, they likely weren’t expecting to run into any major recording hiccups—at the very least, they certainly couldn’t have anticipated a technical failure that later defined rock and roll.
After all, Robbins and his crew were a well-oiled musical machine. And even if they did run into a snag, how would a classic country session possibly define its rowdier cousin, rock and roll?
Videos by American Songwriter
An improperly calibrated recording console. That’s how.
Setting The Studio Scene For This Marty Robbins Track
There was little margin for error in the early days of recording, and Marty Robbins’ 1960 session was no exception. Robbins and his band live-tracked his 1961 single “Don’t Worry” with each musician in the room, performing together. Studio engineers employed small amplifiers and sound baffles to keep any noise bleed to a minimum while still allowing the musicians monitoring capabilities. Most notably, engineers recorded these songs to tape, which meant every musician needed to deliver a flawless performance or start over from scratch.
The song itself is a quintessential swinging country tune. A jaunty piano leads the rhythm section, the drums hold down a classic shuffle, and Robbins’ vocals are as smooth and reverb-laden as ever as he sings about his wistful heartache. However, sonic chaos breaks up the otherwise formulaic track at the 1:27 mark, unbeknownst to the musicians who only had a live room feed to monitor their sound.
In the tracking room, session player Grady Martin delivers a tasteful guitar solo typical of the day. The band follows along for a few seconds, and then the “El Paso” singer comes back in for the next verse. It was easy enough and largely unremarkable besides Martin’s instrumental proficiency—until the musicians listened to the playback in the control room.
The Technical Failure That Shaped Rock and Roll
The recording console engineers Glen Soddy, Harold Bradley, and Owen Bradley received wasn’t as up to spec as they had originally believed. In an interview with the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM)’s Oral History Program, Snoddy recalled, “Prior to making the transformers, they misjudged the windings somehow or other, and there were 250 volts going through the winding instead of the transformers, and one malfunctioned at the exact time that Grady was playing his guitar solo through it” (via Guitars.com).
That means that when Grady Martin started his otherwise stereotypical country solo, there was nothing typical about it. His tone was fuzzy, grimy, and unlike anything 1960s country music had seen. Robbins was initially hesitant to keep the fuzzed-out guitar, but the rest of the crew persisted. Producer Don Law told Robbins, “Well, Marty, we may have something here. Let’s call it Marty Robbins and his Bumblebees.” Robbins replied, “No, no, I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll leave it in there, but don’t put Marty Robbins and the Bumblebees on it” (via Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins). So, they did…and didn’t.
The fuzz tone on “Don’t Worry” took the musical world by storm. Two years after Robbins released his accidentally innovative track, Gibson reverse-engineered Martin’s guitar signal to create the Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz Tone, the world’s first fuzz pedal. From there, the rest is history. Fuzz tones overtook rock and roll in varying degrees of grit and hairiness, forever changing the sonic landscape of modern music. Not bad for a country crooner and a few bumblebees.
Photo by Everett/Shutterstock
Most Popular
Comments / 0