March 22nd and March 24th brought us two special guests for two great shows!
This March, C4RM was joined by four-time GRAMMY® Award winning producer and curator Cheryl Pawelski and five-time GRAMMY® Award winning engineer Michael Graves to present two projects, each with incredible sound, brought about by loving attention to the art of audio restoration and mastering.
First, on Friday night March 22nd, they presented their restoration of Nina Simone’s Little Girl Blue. This very special presentation was the 3rd in C4RM's 2024 series celebrating albums from 1959, the Greatest Year in Jazz! Nina’s first album from 1959 was painstakingly restored by Cheryl and Michael and re-released in 2021.
Then, on Sunday March 24th, Cheryl and Michael hosted a second event featuring the Stax Records anthology Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos which just won the 2024 GRAMMY® Award for Best Historical Album. This amazing release brings together 146 demos from the legendary Stax Records, including 140 recordings that are previously unreleased. This collection combines both songwriter demos of some of music’s biggest songs with full blown arrangements of never released tracks. Cheryl and Michael took us through the 17+ year process of bringing this collection to life, as well as share stories and insights from their lives in the music industry.
Friday night with Nina
During the Q&A for Nina Simone, eager listener Ava took the mic and shared... "This is my first time listening to Jazz...and you know what? I LIKE JAZZ!"
Sunday afternoon full of Soul
We wrapped the Stax presentation with a hand-picked selection of songs that Cheryl and Michael chose for us to listen to 1) Staple Singers - Hear My Call, Here
2) March Wind - Until I Lost You
3) Henderson Thigpen - Woman To Woman
4) Mack Rice - Dy-No-Mite (Did You Say My Love)
5) Joe Shamwell & Eddie Floyd - Don’t You Know That It’s All Right
6) Homer Banks - I’ve Got A Feeling (That We’ll Be Seeing Each Other Again)
7) Rufus Thomas - Come On Dance With Me
8) Shirley Brown - I Don’t Care Anymore
9) Bettye Crutcher - Too Much Sugar For A Dime
10) Eddie Floyd - Stay With Me Cheryl and Michael had a great time and we hope to have them join us again soon at C4RM to share more insight into the world of making great music!
ABOUT Cheryl Pawelski
Four-time GRAMMY® Award-winning producer, Cheryl Pawelski has for years been entrusted with preserving, curating, and championing some of music’s greatest legacies. Before co-founding Omnivore Entertainment Group, she held positions at Rhino, Concord, and EMI-Capitol Records.
In addition to producing releases for Omnivore Recordings, Pawelski is a sought-after producer and resource for artists, estates, media entities, and labels. She has served as a Governor, Secretary, VP, and Trustee for The Recording Academy and serves, or has served, on the Board of Directors of the Blues Foundation, the Advisory Council for The Recording Academy’s Producers & Engineers Wing, the Advisory Board for Women In Vinyl, the Advisory Board for the Center For Recorded Music, the Farm Aid Development Advisory Council and the External Advisory Board/Music Industry Liaison for Joey’s Song.
ABOUT Michael Graves
Michael Graves is a multiple GRAMMY® Award winning mastering engineer and founder of Osiris Studio. During his career Graves has worked with clients from all over the world and has gained a reputation as one of the leading audio restoration and re-mastering specialists working today, earning 5 GRAMMYs and 14 GRAMMY nominations.
These and other projects have received favorable reviews and critical acclaim by many major news organizations including National Public Radio, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The L.A. times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Rolling Stone, Mojo, Uncut, Down Beat and many others. Michael is currently on the Advisory board of Music Memory (2011-Present).
More from Nina, Stax, Cheryl, and Michael
Listen to Nina sing and play My Baby Just Cares for Me in 1988 when, after being used for a Chanel No. 5 commercial, it climbed to number 5 on the UK charts in 1987, almost 30 years after it was released.
Check out the Stax family as they share stories and insight that was Written in Their Soul
Hear Cheryl and Michael talk more about Written in Their Soul and all the love and labor that went into this incredible collection.