the dallas recordings

[demonchaser]

Originally Posted by bluecrystal

but still, no one knows what was recorded??

From various Stevie interviews, this is the best I can figure out.

Stevie started recording with Sheryl Crow. After the initial sessions with Sheryl, Stevie recorded four songs with Dallas Austin. In one of the media blurbs it mention that one of the songs was the title track Trouble in Shangri-La. Stevie scrapped the songs because they sounded too R&B and did not fit with the songs that she had recorded with Sheryl. Stevie and Sheryl then did another recording session that produced TFFT. Stevie received Everyday from John Shanks and then asked him to finish producing the rest of the album.

As mentioned above, Bombay Sapphires is most likely a second song. Stevie said that she ended up producing it because the first version was too R&B and the John Shanks version was too rock and roll.

POTU is a good possibility as well. Stevie stated that when her assistant gave her the Shanks version she was not very hopeful because she had recorded it so many times and nobody including Sheryl knew what to do with it.

So my guess is John Shanks tried to redo the Austin tracks. Stevie mentioned that she wrote FFG as the last track since she felt the the album needed another rocker... so I doubt that is number four.

Not sure when Love Changes, Love Is or I Miss You fit in. Also, there were several articles where it was mentioned that Sheryl wanted Stevie to write a song for Sheryl's album and that is how You're not the One came about. So I never considered that to be an option, but considering the R&B vibe to it, maybe it was a leftover from that session as well.

Of course this is all based on my memory of Stevie's memories.

[vermicious knid]

Thanks, that's a nice summary.

[SpyNote]

Originally Posted by bluecrystal

but still, no one knows what was recorded??

Nothing has ever been confirmed. All of us have been speculating about these sessions for years. When the alternate recording of Bombay Sapphires surfaced years ago, I thought maybe this could be one of his productions because of the heavy bass presence, which is very unusual for a Stevie studio recording, but standard on most R&B productions today.

[LukeA]

I wonder if the reason why it all fell apart was when Stevie realized Dallas was a coke addict (he was... don't know if he still is).

I mean, the only reason why she wanted to work with Dallas & Rodney Jerkins was because she loved the TLC song "Unpretty", an R&B song. For her to dismiss the results as "too R&B" (which I'm not disputing- that was her reason) seems to suggest something else as the reason why.

[BombaySapphire3]

Originally Posted by LukeA

I wonder if the reason why it all fell apart was when Stevie realized Dallas was a coke addict (he was... don't know if he still is).

I mean, the only reason why she wanted to work with Dallas & Rodney Jerkins was because she loved the TLC song "Unpretty", an R&B song. For her to dismiss the results as "too R&B" (which I'm not disputing- that was her reason) seems to suggest something else as the reason why.

If she had liked the results I think she may have been able to look past his addiction as long as it was not impacting the work ..I am certain she has had to work with alot of people addicted to coke since her own trip to Betty Ford 22 years ago .Mick Fleetwood among them.It would also seem that one of the most notorious cokeheads in the history of rock might have been a least a bit empathic toward Dallas's plight?

[strandinthewind]

For what it is worth, Dallas Austin had nothing but complimentary things to say at the time, e.g.:

Yeah it goes both ways. Groups like TLC, they can start with a hi-hat, or they can start with some song I was singing in my head while coming to the studio, or they can start with a track I end up writing a song to later. Or say like Stevie Nicks, who I'm working on now, she has been such a great songwriter, period. The thing that has made her Stevie Nicks is pouring out her feelings to people. So, that's something that I can't go in and damage, in a sense, because that's what made her career. So I'll take your idea of a song, and I'll produce it and make it where people can get it, and I'll arrange it and make it where they can understand it-as close as possible without taking away the essence of what you do and what you display in it.

It's funny, in working with Stevie Nicks, I asked her, "So do you want me to fly your guys' vocals, or do you guys sing them down?" And she was like, "Fly 'em ?" She was like, "No, we just go in there, all three of us at once, and we'll sing 'em all the way down, and go in and do the other parts. And we'll stack 'em at that point, or something." And I said, "Oh, that's cool." And they was like, "But you guys fly them down?" and I was like, "Yeah, we take eight bars in and move those through the song, and that takes us five minutes. They've been recording and performing since '78. I've been learning. I was eight years old trying to figure it out. So just the difference in my technique and her technique, or Fleetwood Mac's technique, is really interesting, and it's working really great.

http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_dallas_austin_producing/

He also said somewhere that he was unsure if the sessions would make the final record.

And - here is what La Nicks said about Dallas:

Nicks started recording the album in Atlanta with producer Dallas Austin of TLC fame after noticing how much TLC's 1999 hit Unpretty resembled her layered style. However, the songs they cut together were scrapped.

"The whole album was going a certain way and Dallas had to move on, he can't spend a year doing an album,'' Nicks says on the telephone from her Santa Barbara, Calif. home. "I came back to L.A. and started to do other songs with Sheryl and I realized the record was going in a completely different direction. The songs didn't fit. The songs that I did with him were very R&B and then I'm dueting with [country's] Natalie and all of a sudden this record was not making any sense at all.''

http://www.nicksfix.com/article_miam..._may1_2001.htm

So, I do not think it is anything other than what they said it was.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

oo! I like that song. It is avalible on Sheryl Crow's importCD soak up the sun, and on the single for the song soak up the sun. Its a cool kissoff song. Just very matter of fact. Stevies lyrics, and sheryl sings lead, with stevie weaving in and out.

The only thing that confuses me about it is at the end she says "I cannot pretend...you're not the one." It's yet another murky lyric from Ms. Nicks.