Known as the "Father of Audio" in Arizona, Jack Miller has had a long history in the recording world that includes hit-making, late-'50s sessions in Phoenix with Duane Eddy and Lee Hazlewood and a stint in Hollywood with RCA where he worked with artists like The Rolling Stones, Anthony Newley, Herman's Hermits and The Monkees. Jack has been busy ever since, becoming a partner in Arizona's legendary Audio Recorders in the '60s and forming Jack Miller Productions in 1978. Now in his 70s, Jack is still recording, working extensively with Canyon Records on their catalog of Native American music.
I know that you grew up in Chicago. Is it true you went around recording weddings with a mono tape deck?
When I was 16 years old I recorded weddings and funerals.
How did you step into that career?
Well, it ended up being that someone we knew had a funeral and they said, "Can you record it?" We said, "Sure." So we took our disc recorders (we didn't have tape at the time) and recorded everybody talking about the deceased. They were just thrilled. They told their florist about it. The florist then contacted us and said, "I can probably sell these things. For a cut I will give you the names and you can go ahead." We started selling weddings and funerals and bar mitzvahs — we did a lot of stuff.
Would you get acetates pressed up for people?
Yeah. We actually cut a disc, and then we took that and played it on a turntable and cut another disc. If it was a 15-minute thing, there would be probably five discs, both sides. I think we sold the discs for 10 bucks apiece.
Did you have a business partner that was doing these recordings with you?
Three of us. Dale Blackwell went on to be the guy who invented the black boxes in aircraft. Dave Johnson — his dad was the manager or CEO of WLS in Chicago — the Prairie Farmer station. We actually got a lot of our equipment from their used stuff. We rebuilt it and made stuff for ourselves.
Did you have any studio experience in Chicago?
I worked at [Bill Putnam Sr.'s] Universal Recording in Chicago just before I came out to Phoenix. They hired me to edit a program called The Man on the Street — that's all I did. One day I was getting ready to go home, and Louis Prima and Keely Smith came in and said, "We're ready to do our session here." Ruby, the owner's wife, said, "I don't have you booked. I have no engineers here." He said, "Oh, I need this. It's a demo for Capitol and I need it tonight." She said, "I've got Jack. He can turn the equipment on." So I did my very first live musical session with Louis Prima and Keely Smith. I think it was "Old Black Magic," but I can't remember for sure. When he left he said, "That was great," so I was happy.
Were you terrified?
I wasn't, because he totally made me at ease. He said, "All we want to get is the melody and the chords down on a disc." He brought the band. When I went to work at RCA I met Bill Putnam and I said, "You probably don't remember me, but I used to work for you." He says, "I don't remember you." [laughter] I never talked to him because his wife hired me, and I just did my editing over in my little corner.
How did you end up in Phoenix?
My dad and I were researching a job for him in L.A. We spent two days in L.A. and he said, "I don't like the thought of living here." It's too hectic. The people were different. We stopped in Phoenix at my aunt's house and spent the night. We went out to eat and drove around town. We liked the town. We called my mom, said, "Sell the house. We're moving to Phoenix."
When you worked in L.A. at RCA, there weren't that many engineers in the world that recorded music for a living.
We had seven engineers at RCA. I went in there as if I had been there 10 years. I was making more money than three of the guys that were already working there. That caused some animosity. The union thing — if you worked there a minute over eight hours, you got time and a half for the eight hours. If you worked a minute over 10 hours, you had double time from the beginning. No matter what your regular day was, you got double time. If you worked there around the clock, you got triple time and it would never stop triple time until you had a time off. There was also a union rule that said you could not return for 12 hours from when you left so that people had a chance to sleep. To override that the bosses would say, "There's a room here. You can sleep in it for the four hours you've got before your next session." So you'd sleep there and not leave. You were making triple time through all that time. I went home with a month's paycheck that was like a year's worth in Phoenix.
Did that help you when you moved back?
Yeah. I had a big family, and we went through money. We came back, bought a house.
How many years were you working in L.A.?
Two and half years. My daughter came home one day and said she needed more lunch money. I said, "How come you need more lunch money?" She said, "To give to the drug dealer." I said, "Are you buying drugs?" She said, "No, but that's to keep them off my back." I said, "We're going back to Phoenix." Over there you're a little fish in a huge pond and here you're the guy. It was more comfortable here. I liked working over there. I liked the pressure. I liked the pay. I got paid really good.
Was recording starting to move into more tracks as you were there?
Just as I was leaving we started tracking on The Monkees, where they would hire a theater out for months at a time and work on a song for four or five weeks. It was absolutely no fun. It got to be where you were no longer recording performances. That was the way things were going.
Why was this so protracted?
It was actually a vocal overdub. I worked from Wednesday at 3 pm until Monday morning on one of their sessions. Just one vocal for "Last Train to Clarksville." As the producers were leaving they said, "We haven't got anything. You can just dump all those tapes. I think when they really got down to doing it, it didn't take more than a take or a take and a half to finish the thing up. They had been doing their TV show — they were just totally whipped. I'm not sure that they weren't on some sort of substance either, because we had that a lot. Herman's Hermits — I worked on almost all their hits. Peter Noone overdosed in the studio and was lying on the floor unconscious and throwing up. I ran outside and they had guys from the Teamsters union sitting there — some union thing with the film company. I said, "I'm going to call an ambulance." They said, "Don't call an ambulance. We'll take care of it." They came into the control room, cleaned up the floor, cleaned up Peter, carried him out to the semi truck and took off. We had a lot of that. Waylon Jennings, my good buddy, came in to do a session, and they went out back to have a smoke break. Thirty minutes later I said, "They're supposed to be back." We went out the back door and there were cop cars all over the place. People were being written up for smoking marijuana, and they were all hauled off.
I know you worked with David Hassinger and The Rolling Stones.
I was second man when Stones came in and did "Satisfaction." That was originally recorded to be a quiet tune. They added that [riff] to make it more raunchy, because the producer [Andrew Loog Oldham] said, "You can't sell that." They just came in and recorded it. It was a three-hour session and they did (I think) three songs.
Hassinger worked on a lot of legendary sessions.
I was second engineer on a session with him and a producer and he got into a fight. I stood in front of the board so they wouldn't mess up the mix and to keep the board safe while they were slugging it out. I mean, they're hitting each other. They are not just pushing and shoving.
He seems really opinionated.
He is, but he's really a good guy. He taught me so much stuff. One day I walked into Charlie's office and Dave Hassinger had him up on the wall by his shirt collar, yelling at him. I said, "I'll come back." He put him down and he said, "No, it's okay. We were just talking." He told Charlie, "We need more security on our stuff that's around here because stuff is going to walk out. The cartage guys come in with all the drums and those things and they go out with the drums, and we never know what's going on." Charlie said, "We've never lost anything yet. Don't worry about it." So the next week we lost a harpsichord. The week after that we lost the celeste. So we had a little meeting about watching equipment and stuff like that, and David says, "When are we going to clamp down?" Charlie says, "Well, you've got a good point there." [Dave] says, "If you get something that works, I'll bring back the harpsichord and celeste." He had stolen them. He was proving a point. They walked over to the new studio when they first built it at 6363 Sunset Boulevard. He says, "This is a parquet floor." Charlie says, "Yeah, isn't it beautiful?" He says, "Yeah, but it's going to be full of cigarette burns." Hassinger took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it out on the floor, leaving a burn, and he says, "That's going to happen."
After working in L.A. and coming back to Phoenix, you went more into doing TV and radio commercials?
Yeah. That's where the money was. We were doing more commercials than any studio I know of in the whole Western hemisphere. We were doing commercials for Chicago, Minneapolis and all kinds of places. We also did film for advertising and things like that.
