Bones Howe Interview (1979)

by Joelle Steele (Nancy Martelli)

I grew up in a family that had extremely eclectic tastes in music. I grew up listening to everything from opera to “grand ole opry.” We had about 500 albums, plus about 200 old 78s. I also read all kinds of music magazines, and I ended up co-owning and producing in a recording studio. And that’s where I first learned about Bones Howe. A few years later, I was living in Los Angeles when I interviewed him at a cafe in Hollywood.

NM: Tell me a little about your roots, and how you got your nickname.

BH: I was born Dayton Burr Howe in 1933. It was during the Great Depression and we lived in Minneapolis. We moved to Florida when I was about eight. I was called “Bones” in high school because I was skinny. I listened to my parents 78s as a kid. And after high school I was a drummer with a jazz group, and a few years later I graduated from Georgia Tech. You could say that I drummed my way through college.

NM: Did you take music lessons?

BH: No, I’m a self-taught drummer. I also taught myself how to repair radios and that led me to Georgia Tech.

NM: What was your degree?

BH: Electronics and communications.

NM: And where did you go after that?

BH: Straight to California, to Hollywood.

NM: Was your plan to be a drummer there too?

BH: No, but for me it was always about music. That’s my true love, my passion, you could say. In Hollywood, I was looking to merge music with its production, so I was making the rounds to all the recording studios. I finally got a job as an apprentice recording engineer and then became a mixing engineer. Then I became an independent producer.

NM: What kind of artists have you worked with?

BH: A very diversified group of musicians and music so far. Elvis for one. But like you I have very eclectic musical tastes. In the 1960s I worked with Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, the Association, the Mamas and the Papas, B.B. King … it’s a very long list.

NM: When we spoke on the phone you mentioned working with Elvis. What was that like?

BH: I didn’t like his music at first. It wasn’t jazz – that was my thing. And I didn’t think I would work well with him, so I was surprised to find that he was a professional, very involved with everyone who worked with him, including me. I still have some of the tapes we worked on.

NM: Do you think that you were successful in working with musicians because you were one yourself?

BH: Yes, absolutely. I’m far less of an engineer than I am a producer. I want to work directly with the music, to make it shine.

NM: I grew up in Monterey, California, and when I was 16, I went to all the performances at the Monterey Pop Festival.

BH: Yeah, Monterey Pop. The summer of love. I did some of the engineering there, and I was the chief engineer for the film.

NM: I read about a couple songs that defined your love of music and your ability to create unique productions. One of them was performed at Monterey Pop: California Dreamin’.

BH: Right. That was just four tracks, recorded live, and mixed later. Two vocals, bass, drums, guitars, and keyboard. We added another layer of vocals. Basically overdubbing and bouncing. It was very creative and it was fun. The reverb – echo – was added over the original and the overdubbed vocals.

NM: And that leads me to the other song, Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.

BH: Yes, the 5th Dimension. They wanted to record Aquarius, a song from Hair. I went to New York to see the musical but the song was disappointing. Not really a complete song at all. But in the musical there was this other song called Flesh Failures, and I thought that the two together might make a complete song. We tried it and it just didn’t work. But then I heard the intro to a Frank Sinatra song and I called an arranger and said that I wanted something like that as an intro to Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.

NM: So, three half-tunes became one great song.

BH: Right, but it took a lot of experimenting with those three tunes until everything finally came together into that, as you say, great song. It was number one for several weeks and the LP it was on went gold.

NM: Any parting advice for aspiring producers out there?

BH: Never turn down an opportunity, no matter how small. Great things can come from the smallest things. Listen to every kind of music you can. Learn your craft. Keep your mind open to new sounds. Experiment with those sounds. And above all, be a professional. Music is big business.

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