The desire to “try something hard” is what led legendary TV composer Mike Post to make the first original albums of his 60-year career.
Message from the mountains & echoes of the delta, released in April, was just that for the composer. Post was a member of the Wrecking Crew as a teenager, won the first of five Grammy Awards at age 24, and has a resume of tracks and scores (literally scores of 'em) that includes The Andy Williams Show, The Rockford Files, Hill Street BluesThe Law and order franchise and The Greatest American Hero (several of which won Grammys and led to various hit singles Advertising sign charts). He has also produced and co-produced a few albums, including Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs and Van Halen IIIalong the way.
“It's not time-consuming, but it's what I've been doing all these years, making records or producing other people,” says Post. Advertising sign. “My day job, I work the TV season. I go to work in September and leave at the end of May. So I just went about other people's business.”
The Message The project, Post says, was inspired by a drive through the desert during the early days of the pandemic. “I'm down a hole on Spotify listening to bluegrass,” Post recalls. “That idea struck me: 'I wonder if anyone has really tried to do a big piece with a five-piece bluegrass band and an orchestra.' And I thought, “that's going to be really hard, because bluegrass players don't read (music) and orchestras don't jam, so how are you going to get them to talk to each other?” Then I kind of laughed to myself. “Come on, you haven't done anything hard for so long.” Not that it's easy to make music for TV or put out music every week for shows, but it's just there for me, it's intuitive. So I thought, “You know, you're the guy who did 'Classical Gas.' as an arranger and producer when you were 23. You can do that. Get to work!'” (This single, performed by Mason Williams, reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won three Grammys.)
Post made Message from small pieces of music composed on a drawing table at home. As he progressed, he expanded his vision to include blues in the mix, though this part of the second half of the track also touches on prog rock and jazz fusion. The resulting 25-track project features players such as banjoist Herb Pedersen, fiddler Gabe Witcher, dobroist Mike Witcher and Patrick Sauber on guitar and mandolin on the bluegrass side. and on the blues side, it includes guitarists Sonny Landreth and Eric Gales, bassist Abe Laboriel Sr. and drummer Abe Laboriel Jr. and keyboardists Robert Turner and Jon O'Hara. Amy Keys provides vocals as well as the album's intro track.
The orchestrations, meanwhile, took place over two days with an 80-track set Post assembled at Sony's stage in Culver City, California, after pandemic restrictions were lifted. “That was incredibly satisfying,” recalls Post, whose TV tracks are usually assembled with synthesizers, samples and other technology. “Literally the first two or three tracks we recorded, I was like, 'Holy sh-t, these people are players!' They had no problem with the time. They had no problem taking a non-classical, rhythm section, bluegrass or blues oriented lick and playing the hell out of it. I was amazed, (it was) more than I could have hoped for.”
Message begins with, well, a message — written by Mark Wilding (Scandal, Grey's Anatomy) and recounted by Keys — about American immigration from Europe, Ireland, Latin America, and Vietnam and noting that “coming to the United States has never been for the faint of heart.” It wasn't something Post expected, but the track's all-American approach made it a fitting perspective for the music.
“(The album) is about how this country is so different because of its diversity, because of where everyone comes from and how much they gave up to get here,” Post explains. “Art reflects life, always — that's a cliché, but it's true. Do we really care about our fellow man…or are we just being selfish? These are complex problems with no simple answers. We really have to look at our humanity to understand what is right and wrong.”
With Message out, Post says “there are some discussions” about showing it live, but no firm plans yet. “I don't have that performance gene,” he admits. “I don't have this thing where I'm dying to go out and play in front of an audience. However, these tracks are pretty unusual, and if there's an audience that wants to see them live, I'm interested. It would be very difficult to do – and probably very expensive – but it would be worth doing because it's so unusual.”
The effort also whetted Post's appetite for doing more work on his own. He mentions mixing the “wildness” of the Middle East with “an aggressive rhythm section” or delving into Irish flavors with an orchestra. “There are other genres that would be interesting,” he says, “and I've just scratched the surface of those two stripes, bluegrass and blues. There's a lot more melody and harmony and rhythm where that material came from, so maybe I'm not done.”
