W.G. Snuffy Walden The Hardest Working Man In Show Business, Gets Busier! By Darin Scott for more info on Snuffy Walden visit www.snuffy walden.com Guitarist and composer W.G. Snuffy Walden for the past fourteen years has has racked up ten lifetimes worth of of TV & movie composing credits. His lists of credits like, "Thirty Something," "The Drew Carey Show," "The West Wing," "The Wonder Years," "Providence," "Norm," "Felicity," "Three Sisters," "The Flamingo Kid," "The Stand," and many others read like the who's who of television, & movies, of the past decade and a half. And for his brilliant efforts Snuffy has received eight Emmy nominations with one Emmy win for the theme of "The West Wing." And through Snuffy's incredible journey he has changed the face of television & movie music, with his impeccable sense of melody, tone, dynamics, and above all his extreme emotional content. If that isn't enough for ya, Snuffy has just entered the second phase of his career with the release of his hit debut solo recording for the prestigious Windham Hill label, entitled Music By...W.G. Snuffy Walden (Something you read at the end of half of all the shows on TV). With the Snuff's gravitation toward strong heartfelt melodies, crystal tone, his strong sense of groove & meter, & his masterful use of space between the notes, Snuffy has produced a musical masterpiece that like his television & film work will change the face of guitar recordings forever. Honorable mention must also go to the discs producer Jim Cregan (Shamus Of The Hollywood Hills) a great guitarist & composer in his own right, the recordings sympathetic guitar support from Dean Parks & George Doering, and the discs other fine musicians like Bennett Calvay, Gregg Bissonette, Neil Stubenhaus, & Randy Kerber to name a few. My hat is off to Snuffy & his highly esteemed group of colleagues for producing a timeless collection of great music. Do I Hear The Word Grammy ! So let me present the second Tune-Up interview with the highly respected Snuffy. Snuffy Walden Interview T.U: After all these years of being a sideman, & being behind the scenes as a guitarist & composer for television, what prompted you to put out a solo recording? Snuffy: You know I was approached by Windham Hill Records originally to do a soundtrack for a TV show I was doing called "Relativity". So there was already a soundtrack record deal in place, although we never did one. Steve Vining who was part of the label then, had recorded the "Thirty Something" theme with an orchestra years ago. So he was one of the first guys to cover me, & he was a big fan. He said to me "Would you be interested in in doing a record as an artist"? I kind of thought about it, because I was so busy. I told him that I wasn't sure that I wanted to get back into that. I did that in the seventies, & I didn't have great success with it. I mean I was in a band called Stray Dog that was on Atlantic that had sort of underground success, and I didn't know if I wanted to go back there. So I was kind of hesitant about it. So I said let's try this, let's do a few tracks, let's try it out. Let's see if I'm interested & let's see if you're interested. So I did a few tracks, for the Windham Hill compilation recordings Celtic Christmas IV , The Carols Of Christmas II (Which Jim Cregan Produced), Winter Solstice, the Taylor guitar recording called The Sounds Of Wood & Steel, which sold through the roof, & a few others.These recordings were all very popular, & I found that I really enjoyed making that kind of expression again. So I said "Lets Do It". So we took the next year or so grabbing time when I could in between my normal schedule which is seven days a week twelve hours a day. I grabbed the time I could to do a track here or a track there, or cut three basics here. In over the course of about a year, a year & a half I put the record together. TU: When you were writing the music for this record, did you approach the writing differently than when you write for TV or a movie ? Snuffy: When you're writing for film & television your job is to support the film, and it was a little scary at first. It was like riding a bicycle without training wheels, because there were no parameters. You're giving a framework when you're doing film & television of tone, of shape, and tempo. Everything that you are responding to, you're responding off the film, & I had been doing that for about ten years completely. Then all of a sudden I had to write music with no limitations, and it was a little spooky. What I ended up doing in the end with some of the pieces for the record. Was that I took either music that I wrote specifically for a show & developed them into a musical statement of their own, or on the new tunes I tried to create from a visual idea. I even wrote one track to film. I put a bunch of pictures in my computer, And I played to that, because I'm so used to playing to film, that I thought that it was easier to get an idea, then get a visual of the idea, and then perform and then create to that visual, & then refine it. Like I do when I'm writing regular film cues. I tried to tell a story once again with each piece. I didn't want to just pull cues from TV shows & make it a collection of television cues that I had written. I really wanted each piece to have it's own shape, & it's own form, and to live on it's own. The only pieces that we actually pulled from shows, was "The West Wing" material, but those were just bonus tracks, because we had gotten so much response from the music on that show. So people really wanted it on the record. But I didn't think that it really fit with the artist record that I was trying to do. I felt it was something separate. That was why we added it as something separate at the end of the disc. T.U: If I mention a few of the tunes on you record, could you share with the Tune-Up readers what guitars you used on the particular track, & a little bit about the creative & recording process of the tune? Snuffy: Sure. T.U: "Angela Smiled" Snuffy: "Angela Smiled". I was using two different guitars on that, a 1945 Martin Herringbone D-28, and a Taylor 912C. I basically used two Taylors & two Martins pretty much for the entire record. Every now & then there would be something else for some different colors, and Dean Parks brought a lot of his guitars in. So much of this record I performed with Dean. "Angela Smiled" went from something soft in the intro that's where I used the Taylor to something to where the band kicked in where I needed something with more meat to it the bigger bodied Martin. T.U: "Sketches Of Topanga" (Topanga Canyon is a lovely area a little north of Los Angeles and for my money that regions mountains & canyons is the most beautiful area of Southern California) Snuffy: For "Sketches" I used a 1932 000-42 Martin, you know the small the small bodied Martin that Eric Clapton used for his "Unplugged" record. That was the one other Martin that I used on the record. I take that back, I used a 1898 Martin gut string on "Room With A View", that I have had for years. That is a lovely guitar for just playing single notes. It has a very small body, like the small bodied Washburns I used on "Thirty Something". I don't think that there is a spot anywhere on the neck that you can play a chord in tune. Ha- Ha, but it has a lovely soloistic sound for single notes. T.U: "Thirty Something Revisited" Snuffy: I used a Taylor 912C for that. T.U: The slide guitar tune "Eugene's Ragtop". Snuffy: Believe it or not I am using a Valley Arts strat type of guitar with a Roland pick-up on it, playing it through a V guitar system. It's not even a real slide it's synthesised. The V guitar system is a modeler. I originally wrote this tune at home using the Valley Arts guitar & the V guitar system. I then went into the studio and tried to reproduce my original demo with my big rig, but I ended up liking the performance better on the original home demo with the V system. So we ended up using that. TU: What about the electric slide guitar on the tune "Big City" ? Snuffy: For all the electric slide on that tune I used the V system with the Valley Arts guitar. I also used a Eric Clapton Fender Strat for some of the other electric guitar parts on that track. I had a guy that works for me go down to Guitar Center & get an off the rack Clapton Strat, because I didn't wanna play anything that I had around. I had a bunch of electric guitars around, but I wanted to just try something just totally different. I had it strung heavy like an acoustic guitar. T.U: What was Jim Cregan's main contribution as a producer on this record? Snuffy: Jim was so great ! Jim always made me feel comfortable, he really responded to the emotional side of me. I was never a technician from the point of view of playing fast jazz licks, and my worst fear about somebody else producing the record was that they would want me to come in & be something that I wasn't. To make me compete with the players who were amazing technicians, and I was a little concerned about that. And Jim was so wonderful that he responded to everything that I did that was emotional & soulfull. It was great having another guitar player around that I didn't feel paranoid around. Ha-Ha One that I felt was thinking I can do that or I can do that better. Ha-Ha I never got any of that vibe from Jim. Jim always responded to the emotional part of it, & he always let me express myself even to the point of doing takes that I didn't need to do. Then he would go back with me & kick around ideas on how we can make this better. Because he understands the instrument so well and because he's done so many great records, he had this great ability to cut to the chase of the thing. And he was just simply great to work with & I love him. He's a dear sweet man and a dear friend. He's very delightful, and he's a great guitarist. T.U: What was it like working with Dean Parks on this record? Snuffy: With Dean it's like putting on an old pair of shoes, I've been working with Dean for so long.I joke with him all the time that he does me better than I do. Ha-Ha.... Dean is an amazing guitarist. Dean & I have done so much together that there is this understanding, he always knows where I need to go, he knows when he needs to support me, he knows when I don't wanna try to play, & he knows when to tell me you ought to do this yourself. On the television stuff half the time it is me, half the time it is Dean, & sometimes it's George Doering. Dean's a great friend, a real sweetheart. For my live shows in support of this record it will be me, Dean, & George Doering on guitars, Bennett Salvay on keyboards, & percussionist Lenny Castro. T.U: What guitar equipment are you using live? Snuffy: A few different Taylors, a Valley Arts, a great new acoustic guitar amp that I am enjoying called a California Blonde, it's very clear, very clean, and for processing I'll be using some delay & chorusing. We plan on doing a lot of gigs across the U.S this summer & some TV shows to promote the record. T.U: Could you elaborate on some of the writing process for some of your TV shows? Snuffy: Sure. T.U: The Drew Carey Show. Snuffy: I'll go in & do four or five sessions a year where I'll write thirty or forty cues & record them with Dean Parks, George Doering, & myself on guitars, and Frank Morocco on accordion. Then we have a music editor that just puts them in every week. And sometimes we'll have to go in with a forty five piece band to do one of those big production numbers for Drew. On those we'll write & arrange & produce those sessions. The half hour stuff I really don't have the time for the most part to score every week. We do score a show called "Three Sisters" every week, but that' with Laurence Juber. T.U: How do you And Laurence Juber coordinate your guitar parts for that show? ( Laurence Juber is a great guitarist who has released many solo guitar recordings on the Narada label, as well as being a very in demand studio guitarist & the former guitarist for Paul McCartney & Wings) Snuffy: Laurence is a fabulous guitar player & we wrote together for that show in the beginning and he & I both played on the shows main title. But now Laurence performs everything on the show. With this show I had reached a point stylistically where I have done so many acoustic guitar shows, that I didn't want to be repeating myself. And Laurence and I have worked together a couple of times before this show, and he's such a wonderful stylist, a very unique player, & his DADGAD tuning stuff. So what I wanted to do was to introduce Laurence & his music to the producers of the show. And then Laurence & I worked together on stuff and decided what way the show would go musically. It didn't matter who wrote it. I just wanted it to be Laurence's voice in the performance. It's very important for every show that I do to have a specific voice, & on this show I wanted it to be Laurence's. The producers of "Three Sisters" really loved his playing, it wasn't a hard sell at all, and the show is doing quite well. T.U: The show "Providence" that you co-write with Bennett Salvay. Snuffy: Bennett also did the string arrangements on my solo record, as well as playing the Hammond B-3 organ on it. I've been working with Bennett for so long, and he's my dearest friend. I always joke about it, it's hard to tell where I leave off & where Bennett picks up. We approach film the same way. And with "Providence" Bennett writes from a guitar players point of view for that show, even though he doesn't play guitar. It's just from us from working together for so long. T.U: You just won an Emmy for the show "The West Wing" which is is pretty much an orchestrated show, a real departure from your guitar oriented scores. Could you elaborate on the writing process for this show? Snuffy: Everybody thinks that "The West Wing" is scored with a full orchestra. But this year we haven't done any scoring with a full orchestra at all. I have done it all electronically. Nobody notices, because we use such great electronics, and it's all orchestral emulation. But last year I did three or four big sessions with a fifty piece group. The procees when I score for the big orchestra, I'd first play it into the computer the way I wanted it to be , and have guys take it down from the computer & orchestrate it, and get it ready for the full orchestra. Then I'd show up for the date to record it. The rest of the time when I do it electronically, I start out by playing it into the computer the way I like it, using all orchestral samples, and then I take it into the studio & Avi Kipper mixes it for me, & does a great job. The only reason I'm not using the orchestra is because of the time, our schedule has been so tight. I've never been ahead enough on a show this year to do it. I have to be ahead three or four days on a show to go in & score with a full orchestra. T.U: When you write with your computer for "The West Wing" do you play the parts into the computer with your Valley Arts guitar and the V system? Snuffy: No, no, it's all keyboard. I learned to play piano when I first started to do "The Wonder Years", because back then there there wasn't a decent guitar controller. T.U: What are your plans for the future? Snuffy: I'm thinking about doing an electric guitar record. I get emails on my web site all the time, about my old bands, and if I'm still going to rock. Ha- Ha So I've been considering doing a hybrid electric/acoustic record. And I'm looking into doing some collaborations with some other artists. I'm also talking to some other artists about doing some producing, but I can't mention their names until I close the deal. And I have been songwriting with some other writers, & I have been enjoying that. Just trying to branch & do more different things. I've been doing the scoring thing for so long, & I love it, but I want to make sure that I diversify enough, so that in another ten years that I am still enjoying writing for television & film. And I'm afraid that if I just focus on writing for Television for another ten years, that I would just burn out. So I'm looking to diversify, producing, writing, & records. T.U: Any parting comments about your solo record? Snuffy: Hopefully what people will get from the record is that it's honest, it's an emotional expression, and it's a snapshot of where I was the day that I walked into the studio to do it. I didn't do the record to get on the radio, although that would be nice Ha-Ha. Hopefully people will respond to it. One of the heads of A&R at Windham Hill Records called me after he first got the record, and on the record there is a track called "Love Unspoken", and he told me with tears that the tune had helped him connect with his father who had died about a year and a half ago, and you know that was one of the best compliments you could ever give me. Because what happened was it really moved him. And it moved him not because he knew me, but because of that experience that he hadn't fully been able to embrace yet, and that is the highest compliment you could make as far as I'm concerned. That it really made his experience with his father, that it gave it closure, & it gave it a point of reference that would change his life. If for this whole record, if that's all that comes out of it, it was well worth it. Tune-Up would like to thank Snuffy Walden, Jim Cregan, Tim Young, Snuffy Walden Productions, Windham Hill Records, Ray York II & Wagner Music Group for making this article happen.