Bradshaw (Brad) Leigh | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | New York, NY, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Audio Engineer |
| Website | www |
Brad Leigh is an American Audio Engineer, known for having recorded and mixed many recordings including Billy Joel's River of Dreams , Tracy Chapman's Matters of the Heart as well as Julian Lennon's Valotte and Secret Value of Daydreaming
Brad Leigh was born and raised in New York City. While attending Brooklyn Technical High School, he worked as an usher during concerts at Carnegie Hall. [1] After graduation in 1975, Leigh attended Al Grundy and John Woram's Institute of Audio Research and was then hired at Chelsea Sound [2] by Mark Freeh as an intern/assistant engineer/tech. In 1977, he left Chelsea Sound and took an MCI Factory training course to learn to repair MCI pro audio equipment, after which he was hired as a tech by Don Frey at A&R Recording. It was during this time that Leigh first met producer/engineer and owner of A&R Recording, Phil Ramone. The following year, Leigh became the assistant engineer for Jim Boyer who was Phil Ramone's chief engineer. Leigh assisted Boyer until 1979, when Leigh became Phil Ramone's assistant engineer on Billy Joel's Glass Houses . While assisting Ramone, Leigh worked on albums for Paul Simon, Chicago, and Frank Sinatra. [3] He continued to engineer for Ramone through the late eighties. Leigh's first full engineering credit was for the score/soundtrack for the film Reds followed by the original cast album for Little Shop of Horrors and while freelancing, he went on to engineer for Jimmy Iovine, Russ Titelman, Billy Joel and Davitt Sigerson. Leigh has recorded and mixed live concerts for HBO and Showtime using The Record Plant, Effanel, Sheffield remote recording trucks, and has recorded film scores for Marvin Hamlisch, David Grusin and Carly Simon.
In the late 1990s, Leigh accepted a position as Chief Technical Engineer at Sound on Sound Recording, NYC, where he continued to engineer recordings such as Widespread Panic's Til the Medicine Takes [4] and Five for Fighting's debut, Message for Albert . In 2005, Sound on Sound merged with Right Track Recording, [5] changing its name to MSR Studios. [6] Leigh was Chief Technical Engineer at MSR until its closing in June 2016. [7] [8]
While at MSR, Leigh designed and manufactured audio equipment including custom dual 18″ subwoofers which were in both Studio A and Studio C and used on countless records as well as high resolution dynamics meters for the Neve VR console, the Procue personal headphone mixing system and a high quality DVD interface for SACD players. [9] [10]
Live Recordings
Film and Broadway
The 17th Annual Grammy Awards were presented March 1, 1975, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1974.
The Nylon Curtain is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on September 23, 1982, and produced by Phil Ramone.
End of the Century is the fifth studio album by the American punk rock band Ramones, released on February 4, 1980, through Sire Records. The album was the band's first to be produced by Phil Spector, though he had offered the band his assistance earlier in their career. With Spector fully producing the album, it was the first release that excluded original member Tommy Ramone, who had left the band in 1978 but had produced their previous album Road to Ruin. Spector used more advanced standards of engineering, such as high-quality overdubbing and echo chambers. These painstaking methods caused conflict between the band and Spector since the Ramones were accustomed to a quicker recording process. Spector emphasized the production value as well, working with a budget of around $200,000, far exceeding their earlier album sessions.
Philip Rabinowitz, better known as Phil Ramone, was a South African-born American recording engineer, record producer, violinist and composer, who in 1958 co-founded A & R Recording, Inc., a recording studio with business partner Jack Arnold at 112 West 48th Street, New York, upstairs from the famous musicians' watering hole, Jim & Andy's, and several doors east of Manny's Music. The success of the original A & R Recording allowed it to expand into several studios and a record production company. He was described by Billboard as "legendary", and the BBC as a "CD pioneer".
Glass Houses is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on March 12, 1980. It features Joel's first song to peak at No. 1 on Billboard's Pop Singles chart, "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me". The album itself topped the Pop Albums chart for six weeks and was ranked No. 4 on Billboard's 1980 year-end album chart. The album is the 41st best selling album of the 1980s, with sales of 7.1 million copies in the U.S. alone. In 1981, Joel won a Grammy Award for "Best Male Rock Vocal Performance" for his work on Glass Houses. According to music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the album featured "a harder-edged sound" compared to Joel's other work, in response to the punk and new wave movements. This was also the final studio album to feature the original incarnation of the Billy Joel Band, augmented by new lead guitarist David Brown. Multi-instrumentalist Cannata left the band just before the sessions began for Joel's next studio album, 1982's The Nylon Curtain.
The Bridge is the tenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on July 25, 1986. It was Joel's last studio album produced by Phil Ramone as well as the last to feature Joel's long-time bassist Doug Stegmeyer and rhythm guitarist Russell Javors. The album yielded several successful singles, including "A Matter of Trust", "Modern Woman", and "This Is the Time".
The Stranger is the fifth studio album by American singer Billy Joel, released on September 29, 1977 by Columbia Records. It was the first of Joel's albums to be produced by Phil Ramone, with whom he would work for five subsequent albums.
52nd Street is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on October 11, 1978 by Columbia Records. Presenting itself as the follow-up to his breakthrough studio album, The Stranger, Joel tried to give the new album a fresh sound, hiring various jazz musicians to differentiate it from his previous studio albums.
Songs in the Attic is the first live album by Billy Joel, released in 1981.
"Just the Way You Are" is a song by Billy Joel from his fifth studio album The Stranger (1977), released as the album's second single in early November 1977. It became both Joel's first US Top 10 and UK Top 20 single, as well as Joel's first gold single in the US. The song also topped the Billboard Easy Listening Chart for the entire month of January 1978.
Valotte is the debut studio album by singer-songwriter Julian Lennon. The album was produced by Phil Ramone and recorded at several studios from February to August 1984. It was released in October 1984 on Charisma and Atlantic. The album was first certified gold in the United States, in the new year, then shortly afterwards being certified platinum. From the album, four singles were released, each with a music video, charting at various positions on the singles charts in both the United Kingdom and US. "Too Late for Goodbyes", the second US single, and "Valotte", the first US single, were both US Billboard Top 10 hits, the former reaching No. 5 and the latter reaching No. 9. The album peaked at No. 17 in the US and No. 20 in the UK. Lennon toured the US, Australia, and Japan in March–June 1985.
The Secret Value of Daydreaming is the second studio album by singer-songwriter Julian Lennon.
"Too Late for Goodbyes" is the first single from Julian Lennon's debut studio album Valotte (1984). It featured the harmonica of Jean "Toots" Thielemans, and it was a top-10 hit, reaching No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart in November 1984, and No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in late March 1985. B-side "Big Mama" has been described by Lennon as "semi-hard rock".
Ted Jensen is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' Hotel California, Green Day's American Idiot and Norah Jones' Come Away with Me.
A & R Recording Inc. was a major American independent studio recording company founded in 1958 by Jack Arnold and Phil Ramone.
George Marino was an American mastering engineer known for working on albums by rock bands starting in the late 1960s.
"Scandinavian Skies" is a song written by Billy Joel that was first released on his 1982 album The Nylon Curtain. Commentators have noted its Beatle-esque elements and obscure lyrics. Joel has stated that the song was inspired by an experience with heroin. Although not released as a single, it reached #38 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart.
James Boyer was an American audio engineer, known for having recorded and mixed many recordings including Billy Joel's The Stranger, 52nd Street and The Nylon Curtain, and the soundtracks for Yentl and Silkwood, as well as producing Billy Joel's The Matter of Trust: A Bridge to Russia, Rupert Holmes' Partners in Crime and Peter Cetera's Peter Cetera.
"Stick Around" is the first and lead single from Julian Lennon's 1986 second album The Secret Value of Daydreaming. The song was released at a time when Lennon's solo career was at its peak, following his successful with the debut album Valotte (1984).
The Beyerdynamic M 160, sometimes referred to as Beyer M160, is a German hypercardioid ribbon microphone used for speech in broadcasting and for music in live concerts and the recording studio. Introduced in 1957 by Beyerdynamic, the M 160 was initially based on a rugged dual-ribbon transducer element with alnico magnets. The two 15-millimeter (0.59 in) ribbons combine to yield a highly directional pickup pattern. The ribbon assembly is turned 90 degrees away from the usual configuration to make the M 160 an end-address model; the similar M 130 model is a side-address microphone with a figure-8 pickup pattern. The structure later incorporated neodymium magnets as they became available.
Bradshaw Leigh.
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