Tad Wise (With Tony Levin & Jerry Marotta) - For The Record (2021)

March, 2020, Woodstock NY. --The town newspaper I write for slips into a coma and won't regain consciousness for several months. Like the rest of the state Woodstock is headed for lockdown. Sequestered with my fiancee, a fresh series of songs become my diary. I send off a few to Tony Levin and Jerry Marotta. They sign on.

Tony shows up at Dreamland Studio in duster, hat, mask and gloves. Jerry, in the safety of his drum-cave, is more casual. He counts off nine consecutive takes of "The Wrong Heroes." [Note: I haven't played a professional gig in over fifteen years.] Tony offers, "Well, that last one was interesting. Can we top it?"

We do. And I know I’m in for the ride of my life.

Except for "Maybe We Needed Him" (recorded last) and "Goodbye John" (completed shortly before the death of John Prine on April 7th, and recorded first), these songs appear in the order in which I wrote
them. That's why "Something Had To Come" seems so disrespectful. At its creation, however, we'd lost a few thousand Americans because our president thought wearing a mask undignified.

I don’t know where I find the courage but, first off, I tell Jerry, “I know what I want [gulp] so I’ll produce.” But soon after, in the stillness of a de-sanctified church called “Dreamland” with a crippled world frozen-in-place outside, we seem to slip into the Woodstock of my youth. Here music has no borders or rules yet. For instance, Jerry shows up one morning tinkering with a box. "Haven't used this Linn drum since the record I did with Paul. That is..." He looks up. "Before he was 'Sir.'"

Half an hour later the studio sounds like a rain forest at dawn.

Next Jerry has a mic set up and commences singing background vocals before I've even attempted the lead. I signal for my own mic ten feet away. Our voices lock and we create the intro for…likely the best love song I'll ever write…without a word passing between us.

I take some breaks to make some cash (thank you, Lizzie Vann.) By November we’re done. My only regret is that Eric Parker--stalwart cohort through the ghost years--remains unrepresented.

Then one night the insanity of our nation's worst president fumbling through our darkest hour finally grabs me by the collar and MAYBE WE NEEDED HIM is the result. Eric and I have it in two takes, I add the harp, and off it goes to Tony (in total isolation by now), who fires back his killer stutter-step bass line.

And so? If my own "Love In The Time of Cholera," coincides with a couple of legends having nothing better planned during Covid?--I’ll take it.

Five songs from FOR THE RECORD are available as singles for free. But better mixes and, indeed, "the narrative" is only available when listening from beginning to end.