New producers for Stevie? Is she too difficult?

[mitzo]

Originally Posted by sparky

Until Mirage, Lindsey did a great job producing Stevie. The only great song he did on that record was Gypsy. That's Alright could have been produced by Helen Keller. The songs structure is simple, it was an old song, it was done. IMO any country artist could have made it a hit then and likely could now. Its great composition. From Stevie's most fertile songwriting period.

Past that, I don't think he did a song of hers justice. Other than Goodbye Baby, I think he did a terrible job on that record. Say You Will didn't even belong on a record. Let alone be a title track. Whatever veto power he had should have been swung down on that piece of MOR no hook junk. It was not up to snuff. And he trashed her other songs on SYW other than EFO which was very well done and stuck out like a sore thumb on that middling over wrought chunk of a record.

After Bella Donna Stevie's song selection and production started a swift decline. Jimmy was the last person with taste that she listened to. She was very powerful and I think her instincts were influenced by her ego, her drug use, and her irrational connection to songs that while they may have had significance to her, may not have been very good songs at all. See any song on Street Skank or OSOTM.

Thank god for Dave Stewart. Even TISL had junk on it. Everyday was a throwaway gimme to give a producer songwriting money. Love Changes ditto. I have no idea what the hell happened to Love Is. Live it is fantastic. The record version is a snore. I suspect it was a label scam to connect her Sarah, who was effectively done as a commercial force though no one knew it at the time. Either way the end result was a big bad clunk of a song that deserved better.

So is she difficult to produce? Not if she respects you and the label gets the hell out of the the way. And her judgment is in check. Otherwise? Look at history. She pumped out a lot of junk. We may love most of it, but post Wild Heart, there is a lot of junk. And Lindsey no longer helps. I don't want to hear anything he produces of her. Ever again. His SYW songs are a train wreck.

It neve ceases to amaze me how we seem to be listening to totally different Stevies. I thought Stevie on SYW was the best Stevie had heard since Tango and Rock a Little. On SYW all her tunes were jiggled and fiddled by Linds into interesting soundscapes with lots of delicious things to hear on every listen. He even made the best silk purses he could out of sow's ears like SYW and Silver Girl.

She was so dreary on TOSOTM and SA and TISL. Either trying too hard or just smothered under crappy half-hearted production. The only track on TISL I liked and clung to was in fact Love Is. Vastly prefer that to the bawling tedium of the live version.