Jerry was doing a session at SonyTree in Nashville. It was a beautiful studio and the head engineer, Bart, ran a tight ship. His sessions were all efficiency and order. He took really good care of the artists. Interns ran to and fro making sure that the coffee never ran out and that the machines in the control room remained in good working order. In other words a pretty business-like environment, not the kind of place you would expect to cry.
Well, the session musicians were recording several songs a day. The entire ensemble would multi-track, meaning they would all record at once as a band and then individuals would fix any little glitches they made, on their own track. The fiddle player Andrea Zonn was playing a soft pretty passage along with piano to "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." All these tough, seasoned musicians and recording engineers were weepy by the end of the take, it was so profoundly beautiful and perfect.
Andrea popped her head in the door of the control room and in her sweet southern drawl said, "I think I can do it better, ya'll"
p.s. The postscript to this story is that as Andrea was holding out the long, last note a huge clap of thunder can be heard on tape. It was so loud that it was picked up in a soundproof, underground studio. It actually fits perfectly in the song and the producer left it there. Every Christmas when we are listening to that song we kind of chuckle about the perfection of that moment.
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