R-e/p: We’ve talked a lot about the control room. Let’s discuss the studio for a while. For example, how many mikes were used in the sessions?
RF: As it turned out, I used about 28 microphones.
R-e/p: That seems like quite a few mikes for a relatively small studio. Why were so many mikes necessary?
RF: Seven were used on the organ. Garth (Hudson) has got this elaborate Lowrey organ with a Leslie on each of two keyboards. One Leslie is a model 103, of which very few were made. It has stationary speakers with a phasing device in the tube-type amplifier, as well as two rotors.
There was also a Hammond organ with a Leslie. Sometimes Garth would play both organs at one time, so we were miking three Leslies.
R-e/p: How about the other instruments?
RF: I often use a lot of mikes on the drums; I used about seven or eight. I wanted to mike everything kind of tight in this case. Bob had an electric and an acoustic guitar, as well as his vocal mike. And it all had to be ready to go because they would just say “OK” and boom, you go.
R-e/p: We’d like to know a little more about the miking, and the diagram you’re doing will help. But you just raised an interesting point. That is, what kind of a recording artist is Bob Dylan? What was it like working with him? Dick mentioned and you are also hinting that Dylan needs an engineer who’s on his toes.
RF: Right. Robbie came in that first morning and said to me, “There are going to be no overdubs. We’re doing it live. This is it, what’s happening here is it.” Bob doesn’t overdub vocals.
R-e/p: It sounds like Dylan was in the studio to perform, period.
RF: That’s really true. The record was really a performance, as far as I’m concerned. It wasn’t like we were “making a record.” It was more of a performance, and Bob wanted it to sound right, to come across. When he starts playing, there’s nothing else happening but that, as far as he’s concerned. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone who performs with such conviction.
R-e/p: Maybe we can back up a little and get some information on how the album was first conceived. And how long did Dylan work on it?
RF: I can tell you what I know, although I don’t know everything. A few weeks before we started the album, Bob went to Now York by himself. He stayed there for two to two and a half weeks and wrote most all the songs.
One of the classic songs, “Forever Young,” he told me he had carried around in his head for about three years. He gets an idea for a song sometimes, he said, and he’s not ready to write it down. So he just keeps it with him and eventually it comes out.