GALO: What about the song “Sunny Came Home,” (a hit for Shawn Colvin). How did that come about?

JL: The track that you hear on the record, I basically had that. I had the riff, the mandolin, the groove, the chord changes, and the vibe. She wrote the words. It took her a while to get the words, in fact, she had a completely different set of lyrics, and we cut it that way with a band, and then lived with those lyrics for a few months. We knew intuitively they weren’t right; then sort of at the eleventh hour, she went back and rewrote them, and of course, we’re happy she did. [Leventhal laughs as he recalls the record winning a Grammy.]

GALO: Have you ever produced a band?

JL: I’ve never produced bands. I think I’d be good at it, if I didn’t play anything and just helped the band organize and orchestrate. In any given field, you have an initial thrust — an initial success — and then it sort of funnels you and people perceive you as working with singers/songwriters. It’s great. I think if people call me, they tend to want me to get in on the ground floor to help build a platform of how to arrange and present the material in an interesting way, a creative way.

GALO: Can you give us some details about the making of Rodney Crowell’s Life is Messy?

JL: That’s interesting. I don’t remember much about that record. It was pretty quick. It was a slightly strange time because Rodney was married to my wife.

GALO: Is that when you met Rosanne?

JL: I actually met her before that. I did a record with Rodney. We produced an artist together: Jim Lauderdale, very early on. I had known Jim for a long time and we had written a ton of songs together in the late ’80s. I did the demos and, I think, this was even before Steady On came out. Somehow our demo got around and Rodney heard it and was impressed enough to help Jim get a deal, but he didn’t know me from Adam. So, he was like, “who did all these demos?” And Jim said, “My friend John who co-wrote the songs,” [to which] Rodney replied, “Well, let him produce it with me.” That was actually quite generous of Rodney.

When I met Rosanne, their marriage was petering out, so it was a slightly awkward time, but it was all cool. Rodney and I are great friends. It’s all-good. That’s mostly what I remember about it. And we did it almost all in Nashville using Nashville cats.

GALO: You obviously have quite the grasp on producing and playing on your productions, what about engineering them?

JL: I do now. I like it and it’s another creative tool at the end of the day; it’s like playing an instrument. I’d worked with a fair number of good engineers and mixers and I was getting the idea of how it’s done; it’s not rocket science. Which is not to take anything away from great engineers but it’s definitely learnable, infinitely more learnable than being a good musician. I enjoy engineering my own records and I really like mixing my own records. It’s very pleasurable to me.

It’s an interesting time audio wise. You get a lot of old timers like me, who can get quite cranky and complain about the current state of audio fidelity and how records are made and what they sound like, but I try not to be too bogged down on it. I still like a well-produced, really good, distinctive sounding record with some clarity and interest to it. That’s what I strive for and the mix process can help you achieve that.

GALO: You worked with David Crosby on an album?

JL: Just briefly, just one song. He had come to sing on a record I was producing for Marc Cohn in the mid ’90s. David is a beautiful cat. I guess he was a fan of the records I had done with Shawn Colvin. He’s such a character. I was a huge fan of the Byrds (Crosby’s first big success before Crosby, Stills and Nash); I loved them when I was a kid. It was a gas to work with him. He asked me and Marc to come out and produce a song on a solo record he did. We went out and knocked it off in two days. It was fun. It was fun hanging with him. I see him every now and again. He’s one of the great characters. He’s a beautiful spirit. With whatever demons he has, he’s a larger than life spirit. You give it up to him.

GALO: Do you have a good relationship with your wife Rosanne, when the two of you are working on an album?

JL: Well, we’ve been together for 20 years, so we have our ups and downs like any married couple. Sometimes it’s beautiful working together, and sometimes, it’s challenging. But I think we’ve developed skills over the years to ameliorate the challenges. We recognize when they’re going to happen. And, at this point, Rosanne trusts me. Particularly on The List, she let me do my thing. I made the record; she came in and sang it, and thankfully, liked most of what I was doing. She was very sweet. She gave me free reign to do my thing as an arranger, so it was fun.

The thing with The List was I never felt that Rosanne embraced artistically, emotionally, or spiritually herself as a singer. Like a pure singer as opposed to being a songwriter or anything like that. I was always telling her, “We need to make a record that’s completely about you as a singer,” and she gave herself over to that on the record, and I think she sounds wonderful. I think her voice is getting better, better, and better. I think on her new record, people will be blown away by what a great singer she is.

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