ROBIN ADLER
ROBIN ADLER EXPLORES THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL
San Diego vocalist Robin Adler, veteran of the Peter Sprague group, and her husband, multi-instrumentalist music producer Dave Blackburn, have been lifelong fans of Joni Mitchell. In early 2006 they embarked on the ambitious project of learning her music in all its complexities and through all its epochs. Hoping to honor such a major artist they have produced a tribute show deep in its own right.
Although they often perform as a guitar and vocal duo, Robin and Dave have assembled a group of extraordinary musicians to be the concert band, called Mutts of the Planet, after a line from a Mitchell lyric. The band has evolved fresh arrangements of well-known Mitchell standards such as “Woodstock”, “River” and “Both Sides Now” and tackles some of the most challenging material from the later jazz period in Mitchell’s career. The music is presented along with illuminating details of educational interest about Mitchell’s songs and the circumstances of their creation, which has been a favorite aspect for many listeners. The result has been a hugely successful series of sold out concerts prompting audience testimonials from the website guestbook: “Robin's vocals were dead on. I thought Joni was actually in the room!” ”Robin was incarnating the soul and spirit of our beloved Joni” and “Was it worth the 2,281 miles I traveled to hear it? Oh heck yeah!”
The concert band comprises Robin on all lead vocals, Dave Blackburn on guitars, Barnaby Finch on keyboards (touring veteran of Tom Scott, Lee Ritenour and George Benson’s bands), top San Diego bassist Dave Curtis, Jeff Olson on drums (David Benoit) and Britt Doehring backup vocals.
DAVE BLACKBURN
Guitarist, drummer, producer, recording engineer, and songwriter Dave Blackburn, has performed and recorded with his wife, vocalist Robin Adler since 1990. They share a love of soul, jazz and funk music that reveals itself in all their work. Their latest project together is “The Songs of Joni Mitchell”, an ambitious show featuring a chronological celebration of Joni’s music.
Dave has produced and engineered albums at his studio Beat 'n Track Recording by Joe Rathburn, Peggy Watson, Gary Shiebler and numerous others since 1989, and has written music featured regularly on TV shows and documentaries.
Dave has been a full-time professional musician since arriving in California from the U.K in 1981. Formally trained in music, both in Great Britain and at JazzSchool in San Diego, he has won several first-place awards in area song contests which led to three years of teaching songwriting and music theory at MiraCosta College and to the writing of his teaching text "Songwriting Skills." He also holds B.A and M.A degrees in English from Warwick University (U.K) and UCSD (USA) respectively.
Dave teaches guitar and drums in addition to his performing and recording work.
BEAT 'N TRACK RECORDING & MASTERING SERVICES
Beat ‘n Track Recording and Mastering has been in business since 1989 and has been the birthplace of dozens of fine CDs from the San Diego, CA area. Originally an analog 8-track, then going digital in the early 90’s, and currently a high definition Logic Pro 9/Mac-based DAW studio, Beat ‘n Track offers extremely high end sound in the most breathtaking country surroundings.
The signal path is as pure and high-end as can be found; top quality mics such as the A-T 4060 with NOS Amperex tube, Royer R-121s ribbons, Cascade Fathead 11 ribbon, CAD Trion condenser and ribbon,DPA 4061 miniature omnis, and many more are fed through a short silver core Zaolla snake to boutique preamps: the Focusrite ISA-428 (with Neve designed circuits and Lundahl transformers) and the Universal Audio LA-610, an all tube unit with T4 optical compressor as used in the legendary Teletronix LA2A, plus the AEA TRP for the ribbon mics. Then the signal passes through the high end Focusrite 192kHz D/A converters and via a RME Fireface 800 into the Macintosh running Logic Pro 9 for tracking and mixing. The whole studio is clocked to an Apogee Big Ben master clock for the ultimate resolution. The Mac is loaded with the finest plugins available including almost the entire Universal Audio UAD-1 & 2 suite of vintage emulations (Pultec, Fairchild, 1176, LA2A, Dimension D, Plate 140, to name a few), Roger Nichols' D4 and Detailer, plus the Waves 5 linear phase mastering bundle and PSP mastering processors. This is all monitored through JBL self-tuning monitors (LSR4308s), finally reaching the ears of a highly experienced critical listener with a deep understanding of the recording process and music genres from jazz to rock to soundtrack work.
Contact Dave for more details and pricing info.