Dean Parks Breaks Down His Most Iconic Guitar Parts
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2023
Mason Marangella: Dean, that is, uh, if you're a guitar player, that's, uh, one of, one of the songs,
Dean Parks: one of the oddest
intros you've ever heard.
Mason Marangella: Well, if people haven't already realized, we are here with the incomparable Dean Parks, an amazing session musician that played with the likes of Steely Dan, among many other amazing musicians, which we'll cover today from.
Stevie Wonder to Tony Braxton to Eric Clapton and Babyface and well beyond that is just a Smidgen of the total amount of just amazing artists you've played with thank you so much Dean for agreeing to let us interview you today
Dean Parks: my pleasure
and as we just heard 1977 the song Josie from Steely Dan. I want to waste no time getting into the details That session you obviously played on several songs on Asia.
This being one of the the big hits on that album What can you tell us about the session? What can you tell us about the gear working with Donald Fagan and Walter Becker?
Dean Parks: well working with them was an enigma always because You They weren't sure what they wanted either. They were listening to their ideas that they did on a demo.
I did the rhythm track, uh, chart for this, so I heard their demo. And basically every, uh, important musical element was there in the demo. It's just Donald singing live, I assume, while he's playing a Wurlitzer and, uh, Walter on pick bass. And, uh, but that intro was on there. He played it on his Wurlitzer and he gave me a little sheet of the voicings so that I would have the voicings he had.
And then I did rhythm charts that everybody could navigate.
Mason Marangella: Mm hmm.
Dean Parks: And, uh, So the equipment, so think back when there was no chorus unit, the first thing that happened in the music business where there was a chorus unit was the JC 120, I think it was, the Roland Jazz Chorus. They had one there, and I plugged into it, and they wanted me to play the part through that, and they mic'd both speakers so they'd have stereo.
Uh, chorus thing. So I've simulated that with, uh, a little chorus unit there, but they also didn't want me to play both parts, so I,
I did that on the tracking.
And on an overdub, as soon as we got a track, I did the
Wow. So that's why when you hear some little flamming in there, it's because there are two parts, but it's not a doubled part. Yeah. Because one part is the lower part, one part is the upper part.
Mason Marangella: So do you think that that was deliberate or that just kind of was the They
Dean Parks: had that in their mind. They didn't, there was no negotiating about it or they weren't in doubt about what they wanted to do.
They knew they wanted to do that. So I, I haven't checked the panning on the, on the, the original to see whether they pan. I don't think they did. I think they took a stereo of everything, just laid it on top of it. So I'm, I'm not sure why they wanted it separate, but maybe they tried panning things and decided it sounded better.
Mason Marangella: When you did that session, were they in the room and kind of, you kind of just saying what they wanted? Yeah.
Dean Parks: Yeah. They were in and out of the room and mostly in the booth. Uh, Donald had done a couple of scratch vocals maybe, uh, with us while we played. So we know the context, but most of it, we were just doing the track, reading the chart, which was two lines.
Um, and it was kind of common in those days. The top line is any voicings, the keyboard would happen. And this part, um, I had, uh, Victor Feldman do that on a Rhodes as well, so we're doubling that little part. Um, so we could read that part. If there's any other stray rhythm parts in a different kind of a session, the slash marks, the rhythms, and the chord changes would be in the middle between the two stabs, and the lower staff would be the bass part.
So, uh, then everybody's looking at the same thing, but you have a pattern. Separate part to zero in on, uh, if you're a bass player or a guitar player or keyboard player and, uh, and then if you make changes, it's the same. Everybody's looking at the same piece of paper, so it makes it a quick way to to to work through
Mason Marangella: and that wouldn't have been with the click track.
Any of this stuff.
Dean Parks: No, predated. We had to make the beat. Yeah, that's the getting one that's steady all the way through was part of the part of the game
Mason Marangella: Yeah, and that wouldn't have been a particularly easy thing because when Jim Keltner comes in I mean that time he had to be pretty perfect when he starts coming Yeah, we just
Dean Parks: listened to what he's doing and the you know, the the fill in the middle.
Yeah Boom. The only person with him is Chuck Rainey. So the downbeat, Chuck was right next to him. Right. As close as this. I'm sure watching his foot made sure that he hit the downbeat.
Mason Marangella: Yeah, boy. That must have been something. And so were all those guys all, was this done live? Yeah, four piece.
Dean Parks: Victor Feldman on, uh, Rhodes, me on guitar, and, uh, Keltner and Chuck Rainey.
Chuck Rainey.
Mason Marangella: Gosh. Talk about like heavy hitters, man. It was just like, I mean, this crazy careers between all of you guys. Oh yeah, I know,
Dean Parks: completely. Well, we were all thrilled to be playing with each other, for one thing, because as many players as there are, when you're in a particular combination, well, that's unique, you know?
Yeah. I've never done another session with those three guys. Yeah. In the same room, right? I've never played with Keltner and, uh, Chuck Rainey at the same time. Yeah. Except for that tune, so. Wow. So we're, we are starstruck by each other, or at least I was. I was a big Keltner fan. Oh man, yeah, yeah. And maybe I, I think I suggested him for that session.
Mason Marangella: Yeah, well, I mean, it worked out. I mean, there's everything about that song is just absolute perfection. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. And on that, did you play the solo on that too, or is that Walter? No, I think
Dean Parks: that's Walter on the solo. Yeah. And I think that the little three part thing, I think that's Larry Carlton.
Mason Marangella: Okay. Doing
Dean Parks: that.
Mason Marangella: Yeah, that's, it's, it's incredible. And, and, and so you wrote out the charts for that for, yeah, yeah, that's, uh, it's just, it's just such a great song. I mean, well, thank you for your contribution. You're welcome.
Dean Parks: My pleasure. It's great to still be playing it, so. And,
Mason Marangella: and you used the 335 on that one.
Do you remember anything specific about, like, the year or was it just contemporary? Uh,
Dean Parks: probably 68. Okay. A 68. It had a, uh, the coloring was kind of not dark like this, kind of a lighter brown and yellow. Okay. Sunburst. Nice. It had a thick neck. Uh huh. We all loved Larry Carlton's guitar. It was just a magic guitar.
Yeah. It had a little bit chunkier neck than we would have chosen. Yeah. So we were all kind of looking for something. guitars with chunky necks, or at least I was, to try to get that sustain that he had on his. Yeah. Which is so unusual for a 335, you know, because those can be clinkers.
Mason Marangella: Yeah, yeah, and a 68 having a thick neck is unusual too, because usually they were kind of known to have these slimmer necks when it started getting into the late 60s.
Yeah, well,
Dean Parks: they, they are, they're narrow necks.
Mason Marangella: Yeah.
Dean Parks: They're not the dot neck size. Sometimes you get some. Like deeper. Yeah.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. Well, I mean, his is, his is the iconic 335 to have, I suppose, if you're, if you're gonna go.
Dean Parks: Well, he's pretty good.
Mason Marangella: Yeah, a few more lessons, you might make it, you know, um, I want to stick with, uh, the Steely Dan thing and I, and I, I'm going to depart just momentarily from Asia and we'll come back to it for Deacon Blues in a moment.
But I want to talk to you about one of the other, my, one of my favorite Steely Dan songs you played on, which was Haitian Divorce.
Dean Parks: Oh yeah.
Mason Marangella: And so we're gonna kinda go backwards a little bit in time, and that's on Royal Scam, right? That's got TalkBox on it, it's got some interesting stuff. You played on that song.
I did. I wanna know about the session, the gear, what you can tell me about it.
Dean Parks: So that was at a studio, ABC Dunhill, I don't know if it was still called that, I think it probably was. And I was working a session in Studio A, maybe, and this, they were recording in Studio D, mhm. Whatever. And I just went in to visit them and they just finished the track, so it was Bernard Purdy and Larry Carlton and Michael Martian, Chuck Rainey, I believe.
And, uh, they said, hey, come on in and listen to what we did. And so I'm just visiting their session. And Larry said, you want to play on the next one? And you can use my guitar. I said, okay, that's good. And so that was Haitian Divorce was that one. That's his 335? It was his 335 doing the, let me turn off my chorus unit here.
Uh, yeah.
I'd just seen Bob Marley play on TV and realized that the classic reggae part Was the second part of a full strum he he played like this, but he just did this silently.
Yeah,
Dean Parks: and he fretted Until he hit and then at the very last minute he would release the fret. Yeah Did you get that little ghost?
Mason Marangella: Yeah.
Yeah,
Dean Parks: that'll go snow Anyway, yeah That was my first time to try that. So I did that and they, and then they called me back to do a, the solo. Uh huh. At a different session. I came back with my, my guitar.
Mason Marangella: Okay. Do you remember what amp you used or was it
Dean Parks: just whatever layer you just plugged in? It had to be my Fender Princeton.
Okay. Princeton Reverb. Okay. And that was, I came in the booth. Mm hmm. They were listening back through Magna Planers in those days, which is an electrostatic speaker that was as tall as, uh, shower curtain. Okay. About this wide. Yep. And, uh, if you played them too loud, they would break and you'd have to buy a new one for 8, 000 or whatever it was.
But it sounded great. And, uh, so we set up, uh, and I was in the room and my amp was in another room with a long cable and it's, um, and I got overdrive sound. Walter asked me, He said, this is going to be a talk box thing. You want to do it, we have it here if you want to do it, or if you want, I'll do it later and we'll just do the and I said, yeah, you do it.
I'll just do the guitar part. So, I did it with a let's see if I can go to a different, uh, amp here. Yeah.
It was kind of a sound like that. Yeah. Might have been on this pickup
though.
Dean Parks: So you could tell how that would be a good trigger for the, for the voice box thing. Yeah,
Mason Marangella: yeah, yeah. So, so the voice box thing was almost like he like re amped it or something like that? I guess so,
Dean Parks: yeah.
Mason Marangella: Yeah, so that would have been pretty advanced for that time.
Roger Nichols. It wasn't, there's so many ways to do it. You
Dean Parks: know, Roger Nichols could figure that out without a problem, right? Because it would have to be a, what would you do? Play it through the direct box and reverse or something like that.
Mason Marangella: So, so on those parts though, I mean, you had to overdub that because I mean like, who's playing drums on that one?
That's, that's Bernard Purdy? Yeah. So, I mean, that had to be perfect because when, when it's doing sort of that descending thing, like, you have to be right on with the drums on that. Yeah. There's no click on that. But
Dean Parks: he's, you know, listen to that drum track. It's just exquisite. Oh my god. There's, you know, even when he's not playing the beat, there's cues about, You know, he does timekeeping thing.
He knows how to keep a rhythm section comfortable. Oh, the drum is, drumming is like, it's amazing playing. So they, when we did the track, uh, they wanted to do more takes and Bernard said, no, you got it. I got to make a call. He went down to the end of this, end of the hall and with the pay phone and made a call.
Wow. And, and I guess, and sure, sure enough, it sounds fine, right, .
Mason Marangella: Yeah, no, it sounds great. I mean, it was, I guess he could get away with it. ,
Dean Parks: you know, it, he he could, yeah, he did. He was, he wasn't, uh, it wasn't a matter of discussion , that was the take he wanted to be out there, so he, and I think, uh, that whole album maybe had a kind of a rollicking, uh, energy to it.
Mm-Hmm. , he was the drummer on most of the stuff, if not all. Yeah. And, uh, I'm sure he had that attitude like. Let's you know, he's kind of falls forward with the time. Yep, and Everybody reacts to it and it's kind of exciting, right? Yeah, it's not so pristine that everything from then on has to be perfect Yeah, because it's got a little slosh built into it.
Yeah, and I think it makes everybody loosen up Yeah, I mean it was extremely easy to play to as far as over this overdub part. It's not even a It wasn't in one single take, but it was like, Yeah. I didn't remember that line, so we had to stop every time that line came. And I meant to do my little part of that, and then we'd go on from there.
Right. But it wasn't a labor to get the feel. Oh, the feel on that
Mason Marangella: is incredible.
Dean Parks: It's one of my favorite tunes of theirs too, the lyric and everything.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. And for the, for the, so for the more, the sound that was more like a lead tone type thing, do you remember what you, so did you use the Princeton also on that one, or did you use something different?
Yeah,
Dean Parks: that's a Princeton.
Mason Marangella: Okay, and did you just crank it up more for the gain? And it's just like speaker distortion, no pads? Yeah, there's
Dean Parks: no, uh, there's no good pedals then for that
Mason Marangella: really. And were you turning the reverb off typically on that? Okay. Okay. I would never record with reverb. Okay. Did you know that you were sitting on, like, you know, what you were sitting on when you were recording this stuff?
Well,
Dean Parks: we all, we always knew, from the first time we were recording with them, which was Pretzel Logic, that was well into their successful career. Yeah. They'd already done Do It Again and, you know, Reelin in the Years, and they were The hit band, we knew it was going to get, uh, airplay and it was going to be heard.
So we had faith that it was going to be, you know, everybody's on their best, best foot forward.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. Well, I mean, they really created like a whole genre. I mean, and challenged, I think people who are used to, you know, the typical pop changes, you know, it moved people forward, I think
Dean Parks: a lot.
Mason Marangella: Yeah, it's amazing.
Well, I want to talk to you, uh, going forward again to Asia and talk about one of my all time favorite songs you played on, which was Deacon Blues. Right. And, uh, and so again, this was recorded at, at which studio is Asia at, or was it a combination? Well, we did the
Dean Parks: tracks on, uh, Josie, um, at Producers Workshop.
Mason Marangella: Okay.
Dean Parks: And that was right by the Mastering Lab adjacent, it's the same building. Okay. Not a common. place to do tracking, but Bill Schnee was the tracking engineer and he wanted to work there. He was, that was a place that, uh, you know, there was a very brilliant team of, uh, audio engineers that were involved in the Sheffield direct to disc projects and everything, and those were all done out of there.
So it's a room that they had all put together, uh, you know, he wanted to do it there. So that's where we did the tracking on Josie. On Deacon Blues, I can't remember. It wasn't, I didn't do another thing there with them. And I have a feeling it might have been back at Dunhill or one of those other studios.
Okay. And I think they just asked me to come in for an overdub. Okay. On acoustic guitar. I don't, I wasn't there for the tracking. I don't think. Okay.
Mason Marangella: I could have been. Okay. Do you remember how much was kind of set in stone by the time that you were doing the acoustic overdub? Um, well, it was
Dean Parks: at least a four piece rhythm section.
Um, and, uh, there's nothing written for me as an acoustic. Okay. It's just the changes. Okay. And whatever they had been looking at to do their parts. So I just worked the part so it would not be. You know, it's uh, I didn't even remember that song had an acoustic guitar. Yet. Before I saw my credit on there and I listened to it.
Oh yeah, it's great. Seems like it's even, maybe they did two tracks of it. Yeah. Because it's just, it's strumming, but it's not strumming where other people are not playing. So it just makes it a, a glue kind of a thing. Yeah, yeah. Do you remember what acoustic guitar you might have used on that? That was probably a D18S.
Okay. Because that's the one that I had gotten that was the replacement to a guitar that had been stolen, which was the D28S. S model being the one that's peg. Okay. Pegs, you know, like a classical type headstock. And joins at the 12th. Okay. Kind of a bigger, it didn't have as much boom. I thought it was a better recording guitar because you could mic it up close.
Yeah. And low, low strings didn't have the D28. Yeah. Over, over. Riding, G string resonant, G note resonant.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. Yeah. Would you object to playing a little bit of your acoustic part of it? Well,
Dean Parks: I'll have to listen to it
Mason Marangella: and, uh, Alright. And, and, and, We'll take what we can get. Okay. We'll take what we can get.
Sounds good. Alright, so we got our acoustic guitar set up now, ready for a little Deacon Blues. You've written out the chart. I will let you do the rest, Dean.
Dean Parks: Just chord changes and my approximation of what I just heard because I haven't seen this thing for almost 40 years, right?
So forth yeah, so they asked me to do this on several tunes just to Um, maybe it's because of Ricky Don't Lose That Number. Right. Because I did that, but then the rest of it, you know. I played rhythm through the whole thing. It kind of melds with the piano. So, you've got the piano, Michael Marty and same pianist here, and his voicings are so open, and he's not a stabber, he's kind of a flowing thing, and it just.
Seems to fit with the acoustic guitar.
Mason Marangella: I had no idea that you played in Rikki, don't lose that number. Oh, yeah. Well, since we're on that topic really quickly,
Dean Parks: Can you tell us anything about that session? Uh, well, that was on the first set of sessions we did. We did one week with them. That's the first time they used studio players, really.
Uh huh. In Pretzel Logic. And, uh, uh, so Michael Martian was the keyboard player and Jim Gordon was the drummer. Uh, Chuck Rainey was the bass player. He was kind of new in town. He had been a New York guy. So I'm, I think that's probably the first time I met Chuck Rainey. And I played with the others before.
Rick Derringer was there also.
Mason Marangella: And,
Dean Parks: uh, so we went through a bunch of their songs. But, uh, This one was, they always considered an acoustic song and I did it in a booth at Live with everybody else. And then, uh, we got the track on it. Um, and the solo, you know,
That solo, I thought Rick Derringer did it after the session. He was overdubbing some stuff. But, you know, maybe that was outtakes. Maybe they didn't use it because I've seen it attributed to Skunk Baxter. Skunk Baxter, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't do that part, but I did the, uh, you know, the, uh, You know, with those crawling things in the chorus.
Uh,
Mason Marangella: on an electric guitar? On an electric guitar, on an overdub
Dean Parks: later.
Mason Marangella: Do you remember what guitar you used? Yeah,
Dean Parks: it was a Les Paul Black, Les Paul 69.
Mason Marangella: Oh, uh, and do you remember what amp?
Dean Parks: Had to be my happy little Princeton amp.
Mason Marangella: Same one that you cranked up. Yeah.
Dean Parks: I've probably was the same one though. We would somewhat to sometime we would all have more than one.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. Wow. And then, and then you, of course, had the overdub with the, the acoustic. No,
Dean Parks: the tracking was with the acoustic in a booth.
Mason Marangella: Can you just play it for me one more time, Dean? I just love that part. Why not? Wow.
It's such a great song, you know? It is. Another good one. And how much of that was written out? Um,
Dean Parks: most, well this was written out and then the rest was chord changes.
Mason Marangella: Yeah, and did you do the chart for that one? No,
Dean Parks: Michael Martian did that one. Same configuration, you know, two stabs with the rhythm changes in the middle.
Mason Marangella: That's incredible. That's incredible. I love that song. Oh my gosh. I mean, one Steely Dan before we move on is, is you really had to be super special then because there seemed to be a revolving door of guitar players that worked there and you know, you are a kind of a mainstay on those albums and Larry Carlton and otherwise it's pretty variable who might be playing on it and so they must have really, you know, Donald and Walter must have really loved what you were bringing to the table.
Dean Parks: guess I was out of the blue. I was not close with any of those guys, you know, either of those guys. So you were still their first call? Yeah, but, uh, I became closer with Walter later when he started producing in the 90s. Yeah. He, uh, hired me on the thing and we, uh, I invited him to dinner and we became good friends and, uh, Yeah.
Got to really know him.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. Well, such a, such a big loss for, for music to Yeah, completely. And well, yeah, thank you for your contribution on that. It is some of the, the, you know, my favorite songs. You know, these are the songs I'm going to play for my, my one year old son and hope that he appreciates Steely Dan as much as I do.
But since we're on an acoustic right now, I want to fast forward decades in your career and go to one of my favorite songs from the mid 90s, which was Change the World, which was Eric Clapton, of course, Kenny Babyface, Edmonds, and mega hit, I think it was featured on a John Travolta movie, Phenomenon.
That's right. And that was a part of the soundtrack there and you played acoustic guitar. I think everybody presumed it was Eric Clapton. Yeah. And Dean, this was the guitar that was used on Change the World, correct?
Dean Parks: Yeah, that's right.
Mason Marangella: And what's the model of this?
Dean Parks: It's a Dragge, and he made it for me. I, uh, I had just had a Santa Cruz guitar with a mahogany neck, spruce top, Brazilian rosewood, ebony.
Mason Marangella: Okay.
Dean Parks: And, uh, but I talked to Peter Dragge. He was at a session, a James Newton Howard session. And, uh, I told him about, that I really thought a guitar, I'd just been to Hawaii with, uh, working on Walter Becker's album and met a guy named Keola Beamer who had guitars that were all a huge, chunky neck, cause he's a big guy, and, but I heard it on the radio and it was a tremendous sounding guitar.
Just great sustain. So I had, uh, I didn't have Peter built the guitar. He came back in a year and he built the guitar out of the same materials as what I liked on the, the D28, uh, uh, Santa Cruz, but with a big neck thinking he'd make it overly big so that we could hone it down to size.
Mason Marangella: Yeah.
Dean Parks: But it sounded so good,
right? It's uh, got. It's kind of got a lot in there, and I was afraid to take it on sessions for a while because it was such a big neck, I thought. Yeah. This is going to mess me up, but it plays so good.
Mason Marangella: What parts did you play versus what Clapton? Yeah,
Dean Parks: well, I was, uh, so Babyface was there producing and he had all of us rhythm players come at different times.
It started with me, uh, and a drum machine. And he, he came up with a little, uh, This demo has almost the same part. I sat across from Babyface working out the details of what he wanted and what voicings he wanted here and there. And then I did the take. Um, and doubled it I think. And then, uh, Maybe J. R. was next on drums.
Okay. And then maybe Nathan East was next on bass, and then Michael Thompson on electric guitar. He kind of put in
Mason Marangella: the big pads and stuff like that.
Dean Parks: Yeah, yeah. Beautiful production. But it was done at the same studio at virtually the same time, but not really. What studio was that? We all did overdubs. Uh, that was Record Plant in L.
A.
Mason Marangella: Wow, and uh, and so he had most of this, I guess, he was showing you what he did and then did you just chart it or? Yeah,
Dean Parks: yeah, I just learned it, you know, uh, I guess he had written out a chord sheet on it. I don't think I wrote it out. Seems like he had something. But, uh, there's something in it. And then in
the song, the bass part didn't move.
Something
Dean Parks: one time later. Right before the solo property. Yeah. Yeah, Eric wasn't there. It's just us building the track. And, um, Uh, then he did all the solo parts, all the lines that you hear. Yeah. Are Eric. Yeah. So he just came, he just did the
Mason Marangella: solo. And that was, that was kind of his, his contribution in addition to the singer.
Yeah, I think so.
Dean Parks: I'm, you know, you know, Babyface played the thing really well as well. Yeah. And who knows if they didn't double things, but I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. But he played it. Left-handed . Yeah. Upside down and left-handed.
Mason Marangella: Yeah, he just had such a string of hits during that era. You know, it was just like in the mid 90s.
It was just everybody's. Well, I Break
Dean Parks: My Heart was another one, right?
Mason Marangella: Right, so maybe this is a logical segue into Tony Braxton, you know, who was also part of LaFace at that time. And,
and, um,
Mason Marangella: Yeah, Unbreak My Heart was, you know, just a mega hit. I think that was her second album, I think.
Dean Parks: Maybe.
Mason Marangella: Um, and you didn't, you used acoustic, but it was a nylon string.
Dean Parks: So,
Mason Marangella: yeah, should we, should we transition? We can talk about that song.
Dean Parks: Yeah.
Mason Marangella: All right, let's do it. So we've, uh, we've changed guitars. We have now a, uh, a nylon string guitar, and this is what you used for the Tony Braxton. Yeah. What's, what did it tell us just a little bit about the guitar?
Dean Parks: Um, well, this is, um, Yeah.
made by a Fort Worth, Texas guitar maker, Earl Prince. And after I'd been in town in LA for a couple of years, I went back to him. He was, we loved his guitar making. He made steel string acoustics. Stephen Bruton had one, maybe T Bone had one, I'm not sure. But, uh, great maker. But I wanted a nylon string. Um, the studio players in Dallas, there were two, There was one Lee Robinson that was a great classical recording guitarist.
And he had 2 guitars, he had a Ramirez and then he had a, some little flamenco guitar. It was extremely easy to play. So I borrowed both of those guitars from Lee and took them to Earl Prance and said, can you make me, All the materials of the Ramirez, but the size of, uh, the little flamenco guitar, you can feel how easy it is to play compared to a regular non acoustic, right?
It's not such a, not such a thick neck. It's wide enough for you to make your, you know, it's basically the dimension of that flamenco guitar. And that made it really easy to play.
Mason Marangella: Yeah.
Dean Parks: Like an electric, sort of. Yeah. So, and he made one, and that's what I've used as my main acoustic on nylon ever since. So it was that, this guitar, and the track already existed, uh, on Unbreak My Heart.
And so it was an overdub with me and David Foster. Okay. Because David Foster was co producer on that. Okay. The bass was there, but I think it was just me and David Foster.
Mason Marangella: And all written out already?
Dean Parks: No, it was a Foster rhythm part, which is, looked a lot like this.
Mason Marangella: Right.
Dean Parks: Just, uh, chords, chords, chords, and cymbals, you know.
And then I could hear what it was, and he and I, he played it. He thought
would be kind of a nice pulse for it. Yeah, it's a track about that. Yeah. So it was like a
so on and so forth. Yeah. So we did a track, I think. Maybe doubled it.
Mason Marangella: Yeah.
Dean Parks: And then, uh, there was the solo part. And, uh, the way we did that is, uh, I started the solo. I played a solo all the way through and then using that as the start and maybe the opening line is the original pass. David would suggest alteration to a line and then I would come up with another thing.
So it was not a long solo, but it's definitely constructed like a composition. But it's made up of improvisation. Which is often the way I work when I'm doing tracks at home as well. Start improvising and I think oh if it had gone there, okay Well, I've got the same right set up and you can do it Right and you build build you compose a solo.
Mm hmm out of your best ideas You
Mason Marangella: and notice that you're using a pick when you're doing this Is that was that typical of how you would know
Dean Parks: of to disco always used to pick? I think that Tommy Mottola in New York who is a pretty good Or is it Tony Mottola? Sorry. He was a famous studio player that did a lot of the nylon string romantic stuff.
And I think they all used picks as well. I didn't have, so I've got nails here, acrylic nails. But not here. Right. So I can do flesh if I want to do flesh. Yeah. Or I can do this as opposed to a thumbnail.
Mason Marangella: Right.
Dean Parks: And the regular hybrid. It's very strong. You can work all day on an acoustic guitar. steel string and it doesn't shred, you know, it, it lasts.
But, uh, You know, I can chime in with this if I want a slightly softer sound.
But if it's,
uh,
Dean Parks: Mostly with the pick, and the pick I found that Does that the best with the least amount of little ghost note? Uh, or, um, artifact is this little one millimeter Clayton. I think Delrin, I'm not sure. It's the material. But thinner is more pick noise and thicker is more pick noise. Of a different kind of pick noise, but one millimeter, 1.
00 is the way it is. Seems to be the one that's most like fingers. Alright, you hear it here first. Alright. Alright.
Mason Marangella: Oh, and this guitar sounds incredible. Is there anything else that this was used on that, uh, you
Dean Parks: know, well that little, um, You know the little logo, the DreamWorks logo with the kid fishing? Yeah, yeah. Something like that. And then there's strings that kind of come in behind it. This is the guitar for that.
This is the DreamWorks guitar.
Mason Marangella: Wow. All right. Well, then heard by everyone.
Dean Parks: Yeah, that's right. Well, probably more people heard that than any other thing.
Mason Marangella: Probably. I mean, you know, the how ubiquitous all over the world. Yeah. Wow. So we've got to talk about Tony Braxton. We've talked about Steely Dan. We've talked about Babyface and Eric Clapton.
I want to I know our chronology today is all over the place. I want to go backwards to talk about arguably one of the best records ever made is Stevie Wonder's songs, The Key of Life, and you played on Az. Now, you probably didn't use a nylon acoustic on that. I did not. Do you remember what you used? He wanted a
Dean Parks: steel string acoustic.
So my steel string acoustic had been stolen a couple of months before. I hadn't found a replacement yet, so I had taken my old Martin D. Okay. 38 D 35,
Mason Marangella: uh,
Dean Parks: 12, 12 string Martin, which are already been reinforced. With a fretboard this thick, just so it wouldn't warp, because it was having warping problems. And I, uh, strung it as a six, and then here Stevie Wonder wants me to play a part, and I just horse through it, and I think it was in B minor too.
Mason Marangella: Should we, uh, should we go to the steel string? Okay. We can hear it on the, hear it on the real deal? Sure. Alright. We have our steel string acoustic back and uh, we're going to play through a little bit of as, but before we do, I want to just ask what was, how did you get the call for this session when we're kind of the specifics we know about the guitar was a 12 string converted to a six string.
Uh, but tell us about the story.
Dean Parks: Uh, yeah, I've got a call through the Motown contractor, Ben Barrett, and, uh, Stevie Wonder session at, I believe it was at midnight or 11 p. m. at Crystal. And uh, okay, so I got there, and uh, no Stevie, but it was getting a mix up. I heard the thing as it was all done. I mean, it sounded like.
thing. Herbie Hancock solo and everything was on it. I don't know why exactly he wanted to add acoustic, but that was the idea. The deal and I basically waited a couple hours and then Stevie showed up about 1:00 AM and they had a good chart for it, uh, and uh, did no instruction as to if he wanted strumming or picking.
I think I probably ended up doing.
And, uh, okay, so we're doing the take, uh, and, uh, at about 545, 5 minutes and 45 seconds, he came on the talk back without stopping the tape, said, Oh, take a solo, take a solo. So there I'm on this big baseball bat of a guitar.
Soloing with Herbie Hancock on that thing. That was, that was a fun moment. But he did no other takes or anything. He says, fine, that's it. And you can barely hear it there. There's a similar situation on Inner Visions, on the song Visions. He'd wanted an acoustic on that, on that album. And I brought a steel string acoustic and a nylon because I didn't know what he wanted.
And, um, so I did a take through on the steel string and, uh, and I, he says, is there anything else? And I said, well, I have a nylon string. You might want to see how it sounds on that. Okay. And he played the steel string while I was doing the nylon string and, uh, end up with both on. Wow. Both in first takes.
That's right. I wish I could go back and tune it up a little bit. But he likes first takes is what I learned from the Stevie Wonder. Yeah.
Mason Marangella: So time actually playing like on as, how much time do you think you actually like spent physically recording?
Dean Parks: Uh, however long the track is. I think the track is about seven, six minutes or something.
That
Mason Marangella: is it. And the first take solo.
Dean Parks: That's it. Wow. That's incredible. I mean, the solo was on the same track. Yeah, yeah. He didn't stop. He just landed. So he just transitioned out of the rhythm part and
Mason Marangella: started just going for a solo.
Dean Parks: Yeah.
Mason Marangella: Wow. That's incredible. And despite, didn't anybody like look at you?
It's the opposite
Dean Parks: of a Steely Dan record, for instance.
Mason Marangella: Was anybody like looking at the guitar like, what is this thing? No
Dean Parks: one gave a slightest hint. Bit of curiosity about the guitar or anything.
Mason Marangella: That's incredible, man. Well, Dean, I am so appreciative of you going through just a fraction of your incredible career as a session guitarist.
Before we finish today, though, I have a couple of questions for you. Okay. One thing that I've been doing with these interviews is taking a few pictures from back in history of some of these session guitarists. Oh, okay. You warned me
Dean Parks: about this.
Mason Marangella: And, and I want you to just explain maybe what was going on or anything that you remember about the photo.
So I'm going to bring out my phone here and I'm going to show you a couple of, of shots and I want you to just tell me what's going on in these particular photos. So the first of which I believe it's the, the oldest of, of the photos is, looks like a, a photo of you here. You got a chart. Your hair is long.
Right. That's me. Do you remember roughly when this was? Well, that's
Dean Parks: the guitar I played on, uh, Josie.
Mason Marangella: Okay.
Dean Parks: Number one. And, uh, you know, it could have been with the Crusaders, uh, cause I remember a camera hopping around there one time.
Mason Marangella: Uh
Dean Parks: huh. Uh, Crusaders about the time we were recording, uh, the B. B. King, uh, record maybe.
Mason Marangella: So you could be sitting right next to Joe Sample. Yeah.
Dean Parks: Yeah,
Mason Marangella: yeah,
Dean Parks: so samples piano would have been over here.
Mason Marangella: Yeah,
Dean Parks: and the drums would have been over here And the bass would have been here, which I think was pops pops pop. Well, maybe wait Oh, maybe maybe James Jamison played a little bit on that album.
You can check and see okay, so that was interesting Yeah, and it could have been Paul Jackson also.
Mason Marangella: Okay,
Dean Parks: or Sometimes there was two guitars
Mason Marangella: Do you know what studio this would have been at?
Dean Parks: Oh, don't know. No.
Mason Marangella: Alright, and then uh, next one is you and the late, great Walter Becker. You guys have some Sadowski guitars there.
Okay, well
Dean Parks: that's definitely me sitting in on one of their live shows. That's, this is probably the sound check.
Mason Marangella: You think this is 90's?
Dean Parks: Yeah, definitely. It's when they were touring again, but early in their touring. Well, it's by the time John Harrington was the other guitar player. So it's, uh, you know, one of the years where he was new.
And you can use the Guitron amp like you have here. Yeah, that's where I saw the Guitron. Yeah. It's for John Harrington. Yeah, he makes sounds so good. Yeah. So, and this is Walter's guitar he lent me to, uh, for me to sit in. They brought out an amp and guitar. Yeah, your Sadowski,
Mason Marangella: or his Sadowski.
Dean Parks: Yeah. Mm hmm.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. And, uh, and this has been 90s. And for the, the previous picture, when do you think that, that one was with the Crusaders? You think that was 70s?
Dean Parks: Yeah.
Mason Marangella: Yeah.
Dean Parks: Yeah, definitely 70s. I would
