Paul Riser

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

...including this gentleman right here who we’re very excited to have him here from the town of Detroit. If you’re familiar with the work of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, any other artists on Motown, then you’re familiar with his work.

PAUL RISER

Temptations.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

The Temptations and many others. So please join me in welcoming Mr. Paul Riser. [applause]

Now, I did mention a bunch of people Paul has done some arrangements for over the years. But I like to start these things off with a little music, just to get everybody on the same page, just in case folk may not be familiar with those artists or records. So here’s one thing from Paul’s catalog and we’ll revisit this in a little while.

(music: Stevie Wonder – Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” / applause)

PAUL RISER

Of course, everybody knows we’ve made history in the United States with President Obama being elected. That was his theme song. In fact, he says – this is President Obama speaking now – that he and his wife often dated and all they played was Stevie Wonder. When they had their first kids, it was because of Stevie Wonder (laughs). He pronounces this all the time. That was his theme song for his campaign for the two years prior to 2008. That was his theme song, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” and he did.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Now, can you tell the people in the room what part of the record was your responsibility?

PAUL RISER

I did from the ground up. I do the rhythm also, but I enjoyed doing the sweetening on top, which [is what] we call the strings and horns. But I did the rhythm on this one, horns, strings – although the strings will come in later, they’re not on the original. This is one of my fantasies, to put strings on it. We’re doing that today, just for kicks, so show you what my technique is.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

So you did the arranging on this recording and the other recordings for Motown, correct?

PAUL RISER

Yes.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

What does that entail?

PAUL RISER

OK, a producer will come to me with a song. The producer in this case was Clarence Pauling, who’s no longer with us. He was Stevie’s confidant and friend during his early formative days, from maybe nine or ten up until the time he passed away, when Stevie was in his thirties. That was Clarence Pauling. He was the producer. Hank Cosby was also the producer on this product. Stevie wrote the song, of course. He wasn’t producing at that time. He was very young, about 15, 16 at the time. So I got the song from the producers. They said, “Can you do this?” So I took the demo tape and I did it. One thing I found later is I should’ve held on to all those demo tapes. Now we know where they were going to end up in history. But anyhow, they brought me the tape. They didn’t have cassette tapes at that time. They had reel-to-reel, five-inch, seven-inch, seven and a half, and that’s what I was given. And I went in and did the arrangement. We went in and cut the rhythm initially, then we overdubbed the horns a day or two from the time we did the rhythm. But we had a constant turnover process, a process like a factory assembly line. We didn’t get much time to rest in between. It’s called hot off the press.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

So what kind of shape was the song in when you got the reel-to-reel off the producers and songwriters?

PAUL RISER

Oh, well it was Stevie playing piano, so it was good. He’s thorough in his song. Every chord he plays, he means it. Every voicing, he means it. It’s not by chance that he plays something. So very, very good demos.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Let’s back up a little bit and ask how you got involved in Motown. How did it start for you, your interest in music, living in Detroit and growing up in Detroit?

PAUL RISER

To begin with, I hated R&B music with a passion from the time I started music, which was seven years old. I had a conductor at that time in elementary school, a director of music, named Harold Arnoldy who’s since passed on. So he took me under his wing. At seven years old, I was playing trombone. It was several years before I could reach the last &position. I reached six for a long time, then my arm got long enough to reach seven, way out here. It was bigger than I was for a long time, the trombone. So I picked that instrument, but then I gained a love for trumpet and cello; cello’s probably my favorite instrument. But getting back a bit, when you take up music you never know where it’s going to end up. You just have to practice and when you’re tired of practicing you practice some more. Take private lessons and then before you know it, you don’t when the transition is made, but you can play it, you know music. I can’t figure out the day when I started playing, it just happened. You just practice, practice, practice and then all of a sudden you’re into the transition and this is music you’re making instead of just noise. All your friends say, “Cut out that noise.” They holler up to your room while you’re practicing, ‘toot, toot, toot,’ and they say, “Cut the noise out.” But now they all understand where I was going with it. And I do too. So then I went from elementary school to junior high school where I learned how to play, to put notes to paper by transcribing jazz and classical, nothing but jazz and classical. That’s all.

So I was transcribing jazz songs for my friends and their little combos. I was the trombone and of course, we had bass, drums, keyboard and a couple of sax players. That was our little unit in high school. We moved around playing college campuses, jobs like that. But I started transcribing probably when I was 13 years old. Then I’d take it to rehearsals with the guys and say, “Oh, this is how they make the sounds.” For some reason, I had a great ear from way back, I was able to hear and put it on paper. But then I found out about voices when I was able to transcribe. Then I went to Cass Tech High School in Detroit, which is pretty well known throughout the world. We had a band that was capable of playing at the college level at the time we were in high school. We are the only high school band admitted to the Smithsonian Institutions in Washington DC where they archive all kinds of art and music, different things. [to audience] Who’s heard of the Smithsonian Institution? Good. Well, it’s a very unique club and we’re the only high school band. I happened to be first trombone player, never knew where I’d end up when I started. But from that point, after graduation – well, prior to graduation – I got a call from a friend who preceded me out of Cass Tech High School into Motown. He was the viola player, Dale Warren. He called and said they needed a trombone player. Reluctantly, I went and played and boy, was I shocked to see how much effort it took to make music, R&B music – a lot of effort.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

At the time what did you know about Motown? You were in high school.

PAUL RISER

Probably zero, absolutely zero. I knew more about Atlantic Records, Ruth Brown and so on, just from listening to my siblings’ records. That’s the only way I put my ear to it, ‘cause they played it. Motown I learned when I went to Motown. Didn’t know what I was learning, but I learned. That was my college for my career. Literally.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

What was your first impression when you walked in? What was it like? What was the session like? What did they tell you to do? How many people were there?

PAUL RISER

I played with the Funk Brothers. Who’s heard of the Funk Brothers? A dangerous group of men. I played with a lot of discipline out of Cass Tech, a truly disciplined high school, and the Funk Brothers were like drunkards, they liked fights, but that’s how they made the good music. They were natural; they were drunk when they made a lot of the music, they were high off drugs when they made a lot of the music. But they were like a group, a brotherhood. I sat next to the great George Bohanon on trombone. Anyone who knows jazz would probably know George Bohanon, a great trombone player. But I took it all for granted ‘cause I’m classical. I’m what they call long-hair [laughs], even though I have short hair. Kind of better than they were, ‘cause I’m out of the classical genre. Boy, did I ever learn quick! It takes so much discipline and so much stamina to sit there and hear take 15, take 20, take 30. You’ve got so much strength in your chops. Not that I respected the music so much, but I respected what it took to get to the music, the end product.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

How did the other players take to you?

PAUL RISER

[laughs] It wasn’t easy because it was like mixing apples and oranges. I was an orange among many apples. It was very difficult at first. First of all, I had no street smarts. These fellows were street smart, everybody was absolutely street smart. I come out of a very religious background, very strict upbringing. So I’m sitting among these gang members, these gun-toters, these drunkards who made great music, OK? Simple as that. They didn’t take very well to me initially, especially when I took to conducting and writing for sessions, writing music, orchestrating and whatnot. Not a lot of respect I get, ‘cause they weren’t very disciplined and I was.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

So how long were you just playing trombone in the band?

PAUL RISER

That lasted probably about a year, a year and a half, and I found there was something better. I started copying scores of arrangers around there, the likes of Ernie Wilkins, Slide Hampton, Maurice King, numerous arrangers. Johnny Allen was another one. Accomplished, well-educated arrangers and orchestrators. Here I am, I’m a copyist. That’s how I started, so I started noticing their techniques, and when you develop your own technique it’s a mix of many things until you file it down to your own technique. Then I found out there was a way to make more money by doing less work. By not playing trombone. Trombone’s a tough instrument, very tough. Like most instruments, you have to be very dedicated to master them, but trombone, in particular, is a very difficult. I found my joy in copying scores and then I graduated into my own orchestration of certain pieces. Producers would come to me and ask me to orchestrate.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You said you made a little more money doing the scores and the arranging. What were the rates like back then for musicians?

PAUL RISER

[laughs] Scary. We started out at $2.50 per song, no time limit.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

That’s two dollars and 50 cents?

PAUL RISER

Two dollars and fifty cent, American. But we enjoy what we’re doing and there’s a love of labor, a labor of love. We just enjoyed what we’re doing and that’s why we do it and that’s why it came out the way it came out. When there’s money at the forefront, music is not the primary interest and therefore the creativity lacks. The total creativity lacks, I’ll put it that way. If they know they’re not going to be paid what they should be paid, they’re not going to put forth their whole effort. That’s the human nature side of it. Not that it’s wrong, it’s just human nature.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

So $2.50 for a song. How long would a song take?

PAUL RISER

A song would take however long it took to get it. Take 20, take 50, take 40. However long, literally. Normally, we’d average eight, ten takes, and then we’re onto the next song. Usually, the first take was the better of the ten, that’s how it happens. When you go back and listen the feeling was always there the first time. But then, getting back to the money, we got a raise to $5 for a song. Five dollars American. Then we got a raise to $7.50 for a song. Still no time limit. We weren’t union in other words, no unions. Then we got a raise to $15 a song. We were cutting so many songs and we were left with a pocket full of money. We turned over maybe 20, 30 songs a week. And when you add that up, that’s a pretty good piece of money. A lot of work, but we made money doing what we enjoyed doing. Motown went to the American Federation of Musicians, the National, and tried to become a signatory. Everybody know what a signatory is? They wanted to be listed as a record label at the union level. When you get all the profits from the union, the union won’t be coming in and shutting down their company at some point. So they become a signatory. The union turned them down. They knew Motown was going to become a huge success, so when the union wanted Motown to join, Motown kind of gave them a hard time ‘cause they didn’t need them; they were successful. But eventually, they became a signatory.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

So you started doing the arranging. How did you get to be doing the thing you became known for doing?

PAUL RISER

I started very simply. I started arranging songs for the rhythm section, which is drums, bass, piano – a couple of pianos, we used. Three guitars; we used two drum sets on occasion, at the same time. We used percussionists – melodic percussion and the shakers, all that, vibes, bells, orchestra bells, real percussionists. From Detroit Symphony, by the way. Then, as I gained my confidence and they gained confidence in me, they gave me more and more intricate assignments. Eventually, I went to doing strings, which I really enjoyed. The strings, I enjoyed more ‘cause they’re more disciplined. Being classical, they’re more disciplined. Horn players are on the middle level of discipline. Rhythm players are no discipline. [laughs] So I chose to do the top, the strings, because I made more money, the time was less spent, I enjoyed writing everything. They played everything I wrote on the paper, corrected things. I made more money with less effort, and I enjoyed it more.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

To be a separate arranger for a song, to do rhythm a lot of times, if you were doing only strings, there’d be someone else doing the other things?

PAUL RISER

Sometimes. Primarily, yes. Most of the time in my mid-career and on further.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Why don’t we play something from the CD of stuff that Paul has done? I think we’ll all know a bunch of these.

(music: The Temptations – “My Girl” / applause)

PAUL RISER

Thank you, thank you. How many rhythm players do we have, bass, drums, guitar, all that bottom? I want to mention something about the Funk Brothers here. I know you listened to that intently, right? If you notice the bass anchors one. [sings] It’s always anchored, if you notice that. That’s the thing they brought to all the songs they played on. They anchored the rhythm and everything else was easier to put on top.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

This track, in particular, it’s probably one of the most famous Motown classics of all time and the arrangement – not just the string arrangement, but the whole thing – is very distinctive.

PAUL RISER

I have to say this, give qualifications where it’s due. Smokey Robinson pretty much comes into a studio, he arranged the rhythm as far as structure, but the Funk Brothers put their feeling into it. Robert White plays that distinctive guitar line [sings it], very distinct. He developed that line. Willie Shorter, a very good arranger friend of mine, did the horns, and I came in and put a little icing on top with the strings. That’s how it was layered. That’s how we did a lot of things in Motown.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You mentioned The Temptations didn’t like the song. Why didn’t they like the song at first?

PAUL RISER

They thought it was a square song. [laughs / draws square in the air] Them being street people, Smokey being not too hip a guy. Not funky. Smokey wasn’t funky at all. If you listen to his songs, not one of them is funky, not one. But he’s a great writer-producer; he found his niche and he milked it. Now, when the Temptations heard it without the strings, they said, “We don’t like this song.” In fact, to this day, Otis Williamst, the only living original Temptation, to this day tells the same story I’m telling. He says until they heard those strings, they didn’t like the song. They went in and redid some vocals after they heard the strings, but they hated the song originally. Biggest hit they ever had.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

But the strings take it to a whole different place, too. That bridge is one of the more, maybe the second-most famous part of the song after the intro. What goes through your mind when you’re doing something like that?

PAUL RISER

Who knows? You just do what you feel and let it go. Thank God, when I worked there, they didn’t lean over your shoulder and badger you about everything. They had real security, the producers. So they just gave you something and said, “Do what you feel.” And I appreciate that. That allowed me to express myself, and I gained more confidence as years went.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Let’s go through a couple more things from Paul Riser’s work at Motown.

(music: Martha & the Vandellas – “Dancing in the Street” / applause)

PAUL RISER

Thank you, thank you. I’ll give a brief history of this one. When I did this, I was in my twenties. If I had the mind for music I have today, I’d have been more aggressive in the arrangement in the intro in particular. It goes [sings intro]. If I’d known then what I know now it would’ve been [sings ascending intro string line], right? Drives it in, see, right into her vocal. But we were all experimenting back then.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

So there were no strings on that recording?

PAUL RISER

No, should’ve been. [laughs]

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

When did you guys decide, “No strings on this”? Was it a songwriter thing? Who made the call?

PAUL RISER

Ninety percent of the time, it was the producer. I can’t even remember, but usually, it was the producer. And the songs dictate certain things anyhow. But today, with what I know musically, I could find spots on a lot of songs where I’d like to put strings. Oh, yeah.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I want to play this one because it’s a good example of strings and something you mentioned before in a previous conversation that we’ll get to.

(music: The Originals – “Baby I’m for Real” / applause)

PAUL RISER

Thank you, thank you. That’s one of my favorite songs right there. I’ll tell you, that’s when I started realizing that music should be a conversation between the vocals, between the strings, between the rhythm. This is a conversation, weaving in and out. I really don’t, as a rule, listen to lyrics. I get my feeling from where the vocal hits, how the chords work, the structure and everything. I think it’s wrong, but I don’t. A lot of arrangers, they write according to that – what the lyrics say, they dictate it. Sometimes it gets a little redundant. [sings] Sometimes it’s good, but I never did it. The track and the vocals dictate the melody itself, not the words so much. And the dynamics of it.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

This is a great example of that. This group is the Originals and the song is “Baby I’m For Real” and that’s also a Marvin Gaye composition.

PAUL RISER

Yes, you can hear Marvin Gaye in it, don’t you?

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Yes, it really does have that quality you describe, of a conversation, the pieces coming in and interweaving and going out. You also have some harp on this, so tell us about the challenges of doing some arrangements for a harp.

PAUL RISER

Well, a lot of arrangers, they study hard and long and long and their technique has to be just so-so. Sometimes, I’ll mix chord symbols with glissando, arpeggio, whatever I might need. I never write out note-for-note regular glissando, never. [laughs] Don’t know how to.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Glissando being what?

PAUL RISER

[imitates glissando, singing a note that slides up and down the scale] Up and down. I just never studied the harp technique, but I hear it and I worked with harpists who are so good. Gayle Levant, Pat Terry-Ross. Gayle Levant being first call for film and records in California. Pat Terry-Ross being the Detroit Opera House primary harpist and second call for Detroit Symphony. She’s someone I went to high school with. But they know their instruments so well, why should I try to teach them? So I write according to my knowledge and then they tell me, “Well, this is how I’m going to do this.” They say it to themselves. They might ask me, “What exactly did you mean with this?” And I’ll say, “Well, I’m trying to do something…,” and they’ll be, “Hmm.” Just like violin players, viola players, I don’t tell them how to bow. They see the music, I write my phrases, write my accents and they know their instruments, so I let ‘em do it.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I think you told me once the harp indicates a starting point and finishing point for this?

PAUL RISER

Yes, that’s important. That’s important according to the track, according to the vocals, according to the dynamics, a lot of things. The start, finish. Sometimes I’ll intertwine actual notes to emphasize the violin part or something. I’ll do it simultaneous with the violins, which works. I’ll do it simultaneous with the violas and cellos to give the emphasis on that for certain parts.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I wonder if we might go down to these two. That cool? We’re still in the Motown mode right now. So many of these are classics. What we’re going to do is check out two different treatments of the same song and compare them.

(music: Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell – “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” / applause)

PAUL RISER

Thank you, thank you. This version calls for different techniques of parts and placement in the whole thing, certain instruments used instead of certain others. That’s my version. Someone else will do another thing with it. But when we did the rhythm, the rhythm dictated certain things that should happen on top to me.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

So you did the strings on this one?

PAUL RISER

And the rhythm.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

And rhythm, that’s even better. The thing about these Motown recordings, in addition to the performances and songwriting and the musicianship that’s always so memorable, is some of these details. There’s a little rhythm thing.

PAUL RISER

I was just hearing that in my head, the little [sings a hook in the rhythm].

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

We were all listening to it. Can you remember where that came from?

PAUL RISER

It precedes the vocals. [sings] It kind of sets it up.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

But do you remember where that idea came from? Was it something one of the drummers came up with on his own?

PAUL RISER

It was natural, I just felt it. It kept the track moving, let it breathe a little bit to hear it every four bars.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Also, on this one, the strings, they’re at the beginning but also continue to build.

PAUL RISER

Usually, you might not hear the strings for the first half of a verse. That allows the song to establish itself. That’s my principle; that’s why I don’t come right in on the verse and load it up with strings. Let it develop.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Now, this other version we’re going to play, do you want to play the vocal or the instrumental version?

PAUL RISER

Whatever you choose. You like them all, don’t you?

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

This is the web, so we’ll play the higher-quality copy. This is the other version of that song and this you’ve described as your favorite.

PAUL RISER

Yes, this introduced Motown to a truly symphonic genre, a whole other area. It set them apart from a lot of other R&B companies, this version.

(music: Diana Ross – “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” / applause)

Thank you. Like I say, this song here, first of all, it was created by two of the greatest writers in the business, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson. Nick just passed away recently, as you probably all know. One of the greatest writing teams in the history of songs. This song here, not only did it elevate Motown but it elevated me, too. I finally was able to open up musically as my training dictated. Boy, this song created a lot of challenges because of the dynamics and changes here and there. A lot of challenges.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

It’s really totally different to the original version. This word has been overused over the years, but this is truly an epic arrangement and production. The change at the end, the key change, was that part of how Nick and Valerie conceptualized it?

PAUL RISER

That’s the way they conceptualized it. Valerie Simpson, great piano player, just great. In fact, she’s so great the only way to get the feeling from it is for her to play. Ninety percent of the time, that’s her playing the acoustic piano. That’s where the feel comes from, you just feel the piano in there. That’s Valerie Simpson.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

This is early ‘70s, correct? Now, this was done partly in Detroit and partly where?

PAUL RISER

New York City. I’ll tell you why I did that: The rhythm section in New York, they were great players, don’t get me wrong, but nothing like the Funk Brothers in Detroit. That’s why it feels so on the bottom. The Funk Brothers, OK? But what happened with the top, meaning the sweetenings, the horns and strings, they were done in New York. There’s a crispness out of their playing and performance. And the vocals were done in New York. The background vocals are New York singers, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson included. They just get a fire in their singing like no other singer, send it to me. Chicago comes pretty close, but New York is premiere for those kinds of singers. You just get that fire up top.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

This was done in two different places, two different cities, two different studios. So set the scene as far as what’s happening at Motown in the early ‘70s.

PAUL RISER

After this point, what happened is Valerie Simpson and Nick Ashford came with such great songs – Stevie Wonder was always great, don’t get me wrong, he was there from the beginning – but what it brought out in other producers and writers was more creativity. They saw the company was open to that, as opposed to just hard beats; they could really get some music out of it. So we started getting different styles of songs.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Maybe we should play this, ‘cause this is where your songwriting… Go ahead, introduce it.

PAUL RISER

No, you go ahead.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

This is a song you also wrote.

PAUL RISER

“What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.” I’ll give you the history once you hear it, you won’t believe it.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

OK, here we go.

(music: Jimmy Ruffin – “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” / applause)

PAUL RISER

I’ll tell you how all this came about. A lot of arrangers and writers, orchestrators and composers, they might just write down chords ‘cause they feel good and it’s structured. Don’t know what they call it, it’s just some chords. I’m not a keyboard player, but when I use a keyboard I’m composing, that’s the only time I use a keyboard. So I had a session to do with Jimmy Ruffin and two producers, Jimmy Witherspoon and James Dean. So they had two songs and I had this one set of chords I carried around, no name or anything. So we finished two songs with Jimmy Ruffin. We don’t even remember what the songs were ‘cause of what “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” became. We forgot all the other songs, right?

What happened is this: we had a three-hour session and we had an hour left. We did two songs and had an hour left. This is at the rhythm stage, the foundation. So I said, “I’ve got some chords. Do you want to try?” They said, “Yeah, bring them up.” Motown was just like R&D, research and development all the time, it was just an open-door policy for that. So they allowed me to get these chords out, and we started working them and working them and working them, and it became the song. The structure was just like I wrote it. But then, we didn’t have a title, so one of the producers, Jimmy Witherspoon, he stuttered quite a bit, he said, “I-I-I-I-I really like that, Paul.” They took the song and put lyrics and melodies to it. I did all the music, they put melody and lyrics to it, which are great, both sides. And Jimmy Ruffin put his vocals on and it became one of the biggest songs on Motown. That’s how the song happened, literally.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

We’ve been talking about this process and this craft a little bit, but I know today you wanted to do some demonstration as well and not just talk in the abstract. That’s why it took us a little while to get ready today ‘cause we’re going to try something. We’re going to have a couple of folks here come up. The song we started this session with, the Stevie Wonder song, does not have any strings on it.

PAUL RISER

No. Not to this day. This is the first time in history you’re going to hear strings on this song. [laughs]

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

We’re going to give this a shot. Basically we’ll play a little of this song, just to remind everyone what it sounds like, and we’ll back it up.

PAUL RISER

I’ll shake the hand of the concertmaster. [laughs]

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

We have some musicians here. Go ahead and sit down, don’t play anything yet. Let’s remind everybody what this sounds like, even though we’ve heard it many times.

(music: Stevie Wonder – “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours”)

PAUL RISER

I was writing this arrangement, took about a half hour. I didn’t do the whole song, but just to show you how we operate at the Motown factory. This is their first time seeing this music, by the way, which is the way studio musicians operate. It’s not like they have the chance to take the music home one day, bring it back and play it the next day. They have to read it right on the spot. Film musicians, all the film music you hear, all the cartoon music, all that fantastic music – they sight-read it, OK? I’m amazed all the time at that, they’re the best musicians in the world. This is their first rundown; and the first rundown, there are always things we want to tweak. So I’m going to stop them and tell them how to phrase certain things. Who knows, they may do it right off the bat, I don’t know. But the conductor or the orchestrator will instruct them that this is what I meant at that spot, a certain spot. The bars are numbered, I think. Right? So that’s for a reason, it saves time. I can tell them what bar to go back to. I keep it in my head, this is a short version but usually I’ll have a master score. I don’t need to conduct them. The music, the beat dictates where it goes. I’ll cue you at letter A. Downbeat. No, no, no, I’ll cue you where you come in at the third bar of the intro.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Do you want to play the track, the rhythm, and then add them in? We don’t have the rhythm, but we have the vocal.

PAUL RISER

Yeah, play the track.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

We’ll play the track and keep it low enough so these guys can figure out what they’re doing.

PAUL RISER

We don’t need a conductor. Normally, I’d be standing up, cueing certain references in the track just for reference, but they don’t need a conductor. The beat is so strong.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Let’s give it a shot. Do you want to count it off or just go in?

PAUL RISER

Just go in.

(music: Stevie Wonder – “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours (string version)”)

OK, I just want to give you an idea of what we do in the studio. We have a fuller string section; I like to use 17 pieces, that includes the harp. That’s nine violins, four violi, three celli and the harp. That’s what we used way back in the ‘60s and I use that combination to this day. I’ve never used a string quartet, never. You just don’t get the thickness or the feel, it’s just not there. But these are great players, let’s give them a hand. [applause]

But that’s how it’s done in the studio. It’s never done in the first take, never. The engineers have to get levels, mic placements have to be at a certain spot. The harp has to be tuned. You can imagine. How many strings on a harp? I lost count. They all have to be in tune. So I want to thank you all, you’re free to stay if you like.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You can go and relax, sit down. But thanks so much. Once more. [applause] That was just a spontaneous thing we brought up.

PAUL RISER

I respect studio musicians so much. They come in for the first time and have to read stuff like it was written by Beethoven or Mozart. They have to sit and read it. Sight-read.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what happened when you guys found out Motown was leaving.

PAUL RISER

Really, really strange story. Who here has seen the movie Standing in the Shadows of Motown? That’s just the way it happened. I’ll give you the story. We’re rolling along, just a little factory at Motown. It was a little house, and the studio’s at the rear. We had a session the next day. We come to the studio – the rhythm players, the Funk Brothers – and they see a sign saying, “Studio is closed, the session is canceled.” And we all find out just like that. No previous announcement that Motown moved. Out of the city. Just shut down. They knew it two weeks in advance, but none of us knew it. I didn’t know it, I was there every day doing something. That’s how that happened.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

What was the reaction from the musicians in Detroit who depended on this for their living?

PAUL RISER

We all looked at each other, like me and Jeff here. “What? What do we do now?” ‘Cause that’s all we knew. Of course, when Motown left, it left a big void for other companies to fill. So that opened up places like United Sound Systems, which was a very popular place. The studio was where Parliament-Funkadelic recorded. Aretha Franklin recorded over there. Big stars, huge stars recorded there. So it opened up several independent studios, opened things up for them. The Funk Brothers were able to move and play different places, because prior to that the Funk Brothers, which was the house band, they were kept from recording in other places. So that opened it up for them too. But we were all in shock at first.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

By leaving Detroit and the actual physical studio, how did that change the sound of Motown’s records?

PAUL RISER

Naturally, the root of the Motown sound was the Funk Brothers. When they moved to California, they didn’t take the Funk Brothers, so that automatically changed the sound. Great musicians, independent of one another though. They didn’t play together like the Funk Brothers did. Great musicians on the West Coast, and Motown bought a studio that didn’t have the acoustics of the Pit, as we called it: Studio A, that’s what we called the Pit. So everything changed on the West Coast.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

We heard a bunch of the ‘60s and early ‘70s Motown recordings. But how would you describe the sound of that room? What were the acoustics like and why did it sound that way?

PAUL RISER

OK, first of all, Motown had equipment that was hand-built, literally. Like the compressors, the direct boxes, all that gear was hand-made at the studio. We had genius engineers, like Ed Wolfrum, Mike McLean, Russ Terrana, these were genius engineers. They actually built the equipment that was pioneered into the marketplace, first at Motown, then it spread out through the rest of the industry.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You were able to maintain quite a bit of steady work. What do you attribute that to?

PAUL RISER

My Motown foundation. My classical foundation primarily, then the Motown college, I call it, which really taught me about how important my part was to make things right. I was usually the end result of a piece of product, musically anyhow, so I put the icing on the cake. That’s why they call it sweetening. Icing on the cake.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I’d like to play just a couple more things post-Motown. I don’t want people to get the incorrect impression that Paul’s career stopped at Motown by any means at all. So here’s something post-Motown that I think you’re going to recognize.

(music: Luther Vandross – “Never Too Much” / applause)

PAUL RISER

First of all, I want to pay tribute to Luther Vandross, who we lost. Everybody knows Luther. A great musician, great visionary, musically. This particular song, which was probably the first one we did in his collection, “Never Too Much.” Just to show you what I know, I didn’t like it. I did not like it. [laughs] I did not like it, I didn’t think it was a hit. And the rest is history. Which shows you what I know. That’s why I don’t pick the hits, I don’t pick them well. And anther thing, had I had another chance at this – which I’m going to do, I’m going to do my favorite songs were over the years in a CD for myself, do them instrumentally with some background vocals – I want to do it different. I hear a million and one things that I feel I should’ve done, anyhow. But we have to let good dogs live.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

The strings on this song – you say you didn’t like this one – but I hope you take some pride in this recording. The strings are what put it over the top.

PAUL RISER

At this point, I do.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

But there’s a lot of going on. Can you recall what was in your mind?

PAUL RISER

I knew there was a lot going on rhythmically. I just made it a point not to get in the way. I made whatever I did fit, pick it like a conversation, like I said. Create different moods in different spots and let it breathe.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I’m going to play this ‘cause this is an instrumental that did not originally start as an instrumental. But I think it’s worth everybody realizing this is also your work, so they’re familiar with it.

PAUL RISER

Surprise, surprise.

(music: Ashford & Simpson – “Bourgie Bourgie” / applause)

Thank you. It’s been a while since I heard this. It brings back a lot of memories. I don’t know if you noticed, particularly the rhythm players in here, the difference in the Detroit sound – that’s New York. Never Too Much is New York, that whole album. You do hear a distinct difference. It’s cleaner, it’s more precise. Not a lot of feeling, but there’s feeling their own way. Not a lot of looseness, everything’s pretty much structured. That’s just New York style. This is another one of Valerie Simpson’s creations. It started off as a vocal, and the music just carries itself. Plus, I meant to say this, too: A track should have a life of its own, it should be able to stand on its own. Cut the vocal out and it should be able to stand, should be recognizable. This one is very recognizable. Valerie Simpson is playing the piano again; you hear the feeling in the piano? That’s her. She, in her playing, dictated certain things that I did, you see, because she’s a very accomplished keyboardist. Certain things you hear in the track, you know the composer meant it. So you work around it, you don’t fight it. If it occurs several times in the track, they meant it, so you don’t fight it, you don’t destroy it.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

A lot of people in this room make music themselves. There is no difference between a producer and an arranger, they’re the same person. So what was that relationship for you? Collaborating with a producer, knowing where to respect that person and complement their wishes.

PAUL RISER

First of all, I want to create some definitions in terms. Arrangers and orchestrators. Who knows the difference between an arranger and an orchestrator? Can anybody tell me?

Audience Member

[inaudible]

PAUL RISER

Close. Anybody in this room can be an arranger. The cameramen can be arrangers. If they hear something, they change something, that’s arranging. But, of course, an arranger is not always an orchestrator, but an orchestrator is always an arranger. An orchestrator is the one who, like the young lady says, puts the notes to the paper and actually brings it to life. When you take John Williams and all these great composers, all these Broadway composers who composed all these great songs, it’s not that they’re so great as writers; the orchestrators brought those songs to life. The writer maybe had some arrangement ideas, but the orchestrator is always the one who brings it to life for the musicians. Arrangers have great ideas. Somebody could walk in here, we could be in the middle of a really professional and great piece of music, and someone could walk in unaware of what’s going on and say, “Oh boy, I hear something,” and it could be something that’s really unique to the song and help it. That’s the difference between orchestrators and arrangers. But to get to your point about producers and how they affect what I do, is that primarily your question?

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Sure.

PAUL RISER

Sometimes they come with an idea. If they come with an idea they’ve lived with for months, what right do I have – outside of it being a ridiculous idea – what right do I have to say no to it? Usually, it’s placed in the spot where they want something. They’ve heard this thing over and over in their mind as a producer and they say, “Well, I want this in that spot.” Norman Whitfield was good for that. Norman Whitfield, great producer at Motown, great arranger, ‘cause he heard things, and he placed them a lot of the time, especially with his rhythm tracks. He might have 10 or 15 guitar tracks on his big board back there. Not computerized. You have to remember how to take in and put in and push up. He would know exactly every spot what he wanted his guitarists to do, so he’s a great arranger. Now, when they come to me, it’s rarely that they have specific points. Like with Stevie Wonder and “Rocket Love,” he said he wanted specific… you know the line? Who knows “Rocket Love” by Stevie Wonder?

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You want me to play it?

PAUL RISER

Yes, please, from the beginning. Now he dictated it, because he lived with it, and he… [sings] Then he left it open. That’s all he wanted. Then he came to the modulation. Now, this was probably two months ahead of us doing it, and I’m surprised I remembered this too, but that line that goes [imitates it], the string line on top that goes into the modulation. There’s something about that line, I retained it. That’s where he wanted it, in that spot – and if hadn’t have done it he’d have fired me. [laughs]

(music: Stevie Wonder – “Rocket Love” / applause)

That’s one of my favorite songs of Stevie’s. And like I said, those two spots I indicated are where he definitely wanted [imitates parts] and then the violin line, those two spots. He left everything else pretty much up to me, said he wanted a classical approach. That’s how we did it.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I want to play one more thing from Paul before we take some questions for him. This is an artist you worked with on a couple of very famous songs. See if you recognize him.

(music: R. Kelly – “Step in the Name of Love” / applause)

PAUL RISER

Now, I have to say R. Kelly is one of the most creative R&B people on the planet. A great idea man, he can also write the good songs, lyrically and melodically. So he’s on the level of Michael Jackson, to me. Creative genius. Stevie, he’s right up in there. Prince, you name it. The top R&B people, you name five, he’s right up in the top three to four to five. In this track here, you notice, what’s it called? Stepping. Does it ever quit stepping? No, it never lets up. That’s the quality of a good song. He produces such good, great tracks. All I had to do was pick from there, certain things. Not get in the way, try to stay behind. You felt the tension, tension doesn’t have to be loud.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

But what’s R. Kelly really like, though?

PAUL RISER

Wooh! I’ll tell you a strange story. Prior to us breaking off relationship – which happens in the business – 15 years without even meeting him, yet I did all of his product. When the two-track tapes were on the market, he sent me two- tracks to Detroit from Chicago. Get them in FedEx, put the symphony on, the strings, the horns, whatever I had to do, ship it back the next night. We didn’t meet for 15 years, never face to face. He was the producer, I’m the arranger. So that took a lot of faith, a lot of faith. I think R. Kelly is so creative himself he wants to get the full creativity out of whoever he works with. Stevie Wonder’s the same way. He doesn’t stand over you and dictate, he just hires you because he wants your abilities. That’s why people should hire you, ‘cause they want your unique talent. Not a lot of people are aware of that – that’s ‘cause they’re insecure in what they’re doing. Quincy Jones, probably the top at that from the people I know. He is a master of production, which means you put the right people in the right places at the right time. He’s a master.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Give R. Kelly credit for being familiar enough with your work to want to have you come and play. Does anybody have any questions for Paul?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

[inaudible]

PAUL RISER

[laughs] Oh, that’s a good one.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Hold on just a minute. Let’s give you the mic.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

From your long career do you have a track you’ve worked on that you would never ever like to listen to again? And why?

PAUL RISER

[laughs] Things that hit the market, I can say no. There are a lot of things that aren’t properly in the marketplace, yes. [laughs] Absolutely yes. There are things that are in the marketplace that I like more than others. Every one of my things I’d love to get back and do a second time. Of course, that’s not possible, but I just hear constantly. Thank God I haven’t had a knack to repeat myself, ‘cause I have a bad memory. With a bad memory it’s hard to repeat yourself. [laughs] That’s a true story, though. If I had a great memory for the music I write, I would live with that music forever. I would maybe appreciate my music more than I should. So I just do it and I move on to the next thing, almost like I block out everything and move onto something fresh. Then I pray that it gets into the marketplace and makes a little noise. That’s what keeps us going, is word of mouth, what people hear and what they talk about.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Who else has a question? Wait for the mic.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

I have two questions. One is a little one, so I’ll get that out the way. Who was the toughest person you’ve dealt with, work-wise? From an act or a singer. Maybe not a session musician, but maybe someone we’d be more familiar with who was a real pain in the ass.

PAUL RISER

I would say Lauryn Hill, OK? Lauryn Hill. I’ll tell you why. Great talent, but I would say insecure in a lot of ways. She had so much talent, but she could never settle on anything so that I could move forward easily. Total disaster, two times. Once up in New York, she hired me to come in and do some things. We worked out of New Jersey at that time, she had a home over there. That’s where she’s from, New Jersey. Disaster, with the company and her. But the company, Sony Entertainment, still believed in her so they kept her on board. They’re trying to recoup their investment, too. Then there’s another time ten years later in Miami – another, bigger disaster. She was insecure, didn’t have material prepared, had been through I don’t know how many musicians. She had a tendency to call musicians from all over the country, top musicians. And just ‘cause they’re top musicians doesn’t mean they can work together. That was part of the problem. Then, she never was ready for me, so I went down and wasted a good week and a half. A lot of money wasted, just wasted.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Did you have much involvement – excuse my ignorance for not being familiar, you’ve already blown my mind with stuff you’ve done that I know – through the disco era, did you play a role? Considering strings play a huge role.

PAUL RISER

I did some, the Ashford and Simpson in particular. They wrote good songs in that era that I was glad to be a part of. Outside of that, I did some with Gloria Gaynor, but not a lot. Good R&B was still happening beneath that, it was steady. But the disco was what it was, just like rap is what it is today. We’ll get into a discussion about that [laughs], but to answer your question, I did OK. I didn’t seek it out because I thought it was going to be a major change for music. I did OK.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

The Ashford & Simpson records you worked on are club classics, maybe on a more underground level. But that record we heard earlier, “Bourgie Bourgie,” is a big Larry Levan record, Paradise Garage. Who are some of the other folks you worked with through the ‘70s in the pop and rock realm?

PAUL RISER

I worked with Bill Withers, Quincy Jones. I almost partnered with Quincy Jones prior to Thriller, but Stevie and I had been talking, and actually, I’d known Stevie since from the time we were kids. It’s like taking a fork in the road, you can’t go both ways. So I chose to go with Stevie ‘cause Stevie wanted me to go with his record company, his production. If I’d have been growing a beard before Stevie, until he called me, my beard would be around this room. [laughs] We still work together but I haven’t been directly involved with his production companies as I talked about. He means well, but Stevie, he’s a one-man show pretty much. Quincy, when he left A&M Records, he said, “Paul, let’s go find us some artists, make some music.” He was primarily jazz at the time, jazz and big band, Quincy Jones. So he wanted me to direct him into what R&B was about. So I chose to go with Stevie. What was the next big record he had? Well, I did work with the Brothers Johnson and the Jacksons back when Quincy was working with them. But what was the next big record for Quincy? Thriller. And I was going the other way when I should’ve went that way. But it’s all good, it was all for a reason. I don’t have any regrets.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Who else has a question for Paul?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

It’s me again. My question is: What’s your attitude towards sampling? You obviously have records that have been sampled.

PAUL RISER

OK, as long as they give the credit where credit is due. No problem. That’s what the big fight is about. It’s finally starting to move where it should be. James Brown was the first one to really get his proper [compensation] for sampling, the very first one. It’s catching on. It’s still not good enough, but it’s catching on. If the rappers would dig deep into their storehouse of creativity, they’d come up with their own things. But they’re in love with what happened. Old school meets new school, and it’s coming together.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Some other folks have questions too?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

In the work of a producer, what percentage of talent, genius, God’s will and hard work is really important?

PAUL RISER

Producers, like writers, like arrangers, like human beings, they’re like fingerprints – no two are alike. They don’t think alike, they don’t perform alike in the marketplace. They’re similar because there are certain standards for set productions away from other areas, and there are certain standards. The producer is in charge of everything product-wise, everything. That’s the producer’s job. A lot of producers don’t realize that. They try to meddle in the writer’s area, they try to meddle in the arranger’s area, the musician’s, and they don’t have the talent a lot of the time. A lot of them do, but a lot of them don’t and they create a mess. Who do they blame afterwards? “I try to get this out of them, but the musicians couldn’t play…” It’s easy to pass the buck, but the producer is in charge. He’s responsible. The buck stops with the producer. Like with the president or a CEO, the buck stops with him no matter what they did under him. It stops at the top; the producer is that responsible. Absolutely. And it’s an area that a lot of people don’t know. There should be a school for production, classes. You get a certificate, you can produce. [laughs] Maybe.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

How do you feel about the current state of R&B in 2011?

PAUL RISER

Well, I think it’s lacking a lot. Good R&B people have sold out to hip-hop and rap. Not to say hip-hop doesn’t have its place. It has its place ‘cause there’s a lot of revenue generated and a lot of interest worldwide so we’ve got to give it credit. But a lot of them have gone from what they know to be their natural talents into an area where they want to make money; they do it to make money in those cases. So then, the media, radio stations, TV, MTV, the Grammys, I think they’ve deteriorated and dumbed down to where certain things are. They don’t stress R&B as they had in the past. It was great in those years. Now, it’s leaning towards popularity.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

You spoke highly of R. Kelly. Anyone else who’s still currently really active that you appreciate?

PAUL RISER

In the area of rap, I guess you could say Jay-Z, I respect. He knows the business of music, he knows why things are and he speaks to that level. I respect him thoroughly. I respect Eminem. And he’s also thoroughly respected by his peers, which is hard. Believe me, that’s a tough area to be respected in, especially if you’re a white artist. It is tough. It was a little difficult getting in, but once he was in, the right ones accepted him as being true to the heart and the rest is history. There are others, of course, but those are the ones that primarily come to mind.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

In terms of songwriting and R&B and what you discussed just now, you mentioned before Cass Technical High School, this an entirely different era of education in America where you were required to study all of these different things.

PAUL RISER

The school is called Cass Technical High School, and boy is it ever technical! First, you had to average C+/B-, your grade-point average, to get in. You couldn’t just walk up and get in, you had to be recommended a year or two in advance. The previous building is torn down now, just a month ago was torn down. Seven storeys high, a whole block wide, and they turned out some of the best people in industry, science, music – a lot of people have ended up the principal players in symphony orchestras – jazz players, bass player Ron Carter, Gerald Wilson was out of Cass Tech, I came from Cass Technical thank goodness.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Donald Byrd.

PAUL RISER

Donald Byrd! Yes, yes. They just turned them out ‘cause they stressed classical music first, the classics, foundation, which is lacking these days.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Is there anybody you haven’t worked with yet who you still want to work with?

PAUL RISER

Yes, I wanted to work with Michael in his later years. I didn’t get a chance to, came very close. But I worked with him when he was much younger at Motown. Primarily Michael. Ah, let’s see. I’d like to work with major symphony orchestras. The London Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, Boston Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, you name it. There’s a name I’m working towards and you might want to Google his name: Kevin Kaska is his name. One of the finest orchestrators/composers that I’ve met. He was 21 out of Berklee School of Music, graduated with honors in film-scoring, John Williams immediately picked him up. What an honor, John Williams picking you immediately out of school. So he orchestrated quite a few things for John Williams in the beginning. He’s looking to brand his name, so I want you to look for that name: Kevin Kaska. He’s 37 now and I ask him point blank, “What happened to your brand in this time?” ‘Cause his music is that good. Great writer and orchestrator. His answer was simple. He said, “I don’t know.” So I answered it for him. Given these top-rank composers, John Williams and the like, Lalo Schifrin, you name it. There’s only a handful but they always use them for great films. They are afraid of him. A lot of the time, major talents are afraid of upcoming people with their talent. Some of you may have run into that on occasion. But there’s nothing to be afraid of. Everybody’s different, everybody’s like a fingerprint. Nobody in this room can do like I do, I can’t do like anybody in this room. If we get 10 arrangers in this room, give them the same exact piece of music to arrange, it’s going to come out 10 different ways, literally. Even though we’re using the same 12 notes, 10 different ways. That’s how unique everybody is. But people don’t realize that.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

One last question, then we’re going to break.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

You spoke of R&B, but what about the other types of music, especially electronic music, coming up now?

PAUL RISER

Good question. As you know there’s a lot of software related to arranging and orchestration and music prep, right? Now, this is just me speaking, don’t put me in the ground for this. I hate it. I never use it, I hate it. I like the feel of pencil to paper, it’s a dying art. Don’t get me wrong, it has its place in the marketplace. But I don’t like it. Never used it. I have people coming to me saying, “Boy, I’ve got this new software, man, you’ve got to hear these string samples.” And I listen. Mind you, they paid $1,500-2,000 for this new software and after a few bars I say no. I say that without any trepidation because you can never – I’m stressing never – get the feeling from electronics that you get from real players in the room. No two players play alike. That’s how a symphony orchestra gets its ambiance and its sound. No two are alike. They don’t vibrato the same, their tonality is not the same, their pitch is not perfect, so you get a big sound. You can track and track and track one track after another of strings, but if you don’t detune up or down a hair, it’s going to sound the same. I don’t care if you’ve got hundreds of those tracks, it’ll always sound the same. But if you use real players, you’ve got all these wrong-playing people in the mix of it. When I say wrong, I mean they’re not perfect. Great players – and that’s why it sounds the way it sounds. You never get to that with electronic music.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Would you like to do live arrangements with some house beats?

PAUL RISER

No. [laughs] N-O, no. I respect it, but no. I do thoroughly respect it, but I’m a purist, that’s the problem. I cannot be swayed one way or the other. I’m like a horse with halters.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

I have a feeling some of these people will try to persuade you over dinner.

PAUL RISER

Try. [laughs]

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

You can break bread, see if you can come to some kind of peace. But we’re going to break there, so say thank you once again to Mr Paul Riser. [applause]