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The words "produced by Tom Dowd" appear on an extraordinary number of landmark albums, including the work of Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, John Coltrane, Cream, the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Dowd was responsible, among other things, for recording the legendary Atlantic-era Ray Charles, for perfecting the use of eight-track recording, for introducing Eric Clapton to Duane Allman just prior to the "Layla" sessions and, just incidentally, for contributing to the physics research that made the atomic bomb possible. His gifts were musical as well as technical. Here, in a series of interviews interspersed with archival footage and re-enactments, he recounts helping Ginger Baker find that heavy downbeated rhythm that finally made "Sunshine of Your Love" work -- and winning Eric Clapton's respect. More contemporary segments show him continuing to work with unsigned bands well into his seventies, showing them how to refine and capture their sound.
Dowd himself played tuba and string bass, a fact that becomes significant when you realize that the entire evolution of the recording process -- from mono to stereo to quad to eight track and upward -- was all about capturing the low end. In the early days of recording, the bass was mostly present to keep the band together. You couldn't actually hear it on the record until the rock and roll era, when Dowd and his followers learned how to split the sound into tracks and adjust specific elements of the record.
Before the eight track, Dowd and his contemporaries explain, mixing had to be done on the fly, with the engineer constantly aware of what sounds were coming next and what to highlight. A stellar array of artists -- again, Ray Charles and Eric Clapton figure prominently -- remember their astonishment in discovering that mixing could be done afterwards, and that if one part wasn't up to par, it could be re-recorded without throwing out the others.
For me, the heart of the whole documentary concerns the recording of "Layla", the epic title single from the 1970 Derek and the Dominos album. Dowd remembers mentioning to Clapton that the Allman Brothers were playing in Miami during the recording sessions. Clapton, a fan of Allman's blues-influenced style, insisted that they go. The two hit it off, later blending Allman's slide technique with Clapton's bent note playing. Dowd, sitting at the board three decades later, plays their parts separately and together, noting that the two were playing notes that technically didn't exist on the guitar, way up on the neck. There's something astonishing about hearing these parts alone, then together in that very recognizable whole. I never thought I'd want to hear "Layla" again, given its heavy play on classic rock stations, but two days after seeing the movie, I downloaded it from iTunes.
People who are interested in the technical side of music will love this DVD -- but even if you're not, and just love music, there's enough history and performance footage to keep you happy. A fitting monument to one of jazz and rock's unsung heroes.
-- Jennifer Kelly
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