While on Maui, I had the opportunity to be the co-producer, arranger and director for Buddy Fo's Hawaiian Country BBQ show.   Buddy decided to record one last album at the end of his career (already having over a dozen under his belt by the mid-70's).  George Benson's world-class studio, "Lahaina Sound" is where we chose to do the basic tracks.

Here's a shot of Buddy, David Russel (Benson's chief engineer), co-producer & arranger Jon Melia, and myself recording some background vocals on Buddy's arrangement of  "Shake, Shake Leilani."

In this photo, the 4 of us huddled around the computer, trying to come up with that "just right" sound out of one of the MIDI tracks.   When technology works right, it's wonderful.  When it doesn't, it's just "another day in MIDI hell..."

We enlisted the talents of one of Maui's finest jazz singers, Ellen Rivers, to assist me with some background vocal harmonies.  Ellen and I were originally part of a jazz vocal group that sang for Buddy in December before I joined the BBQ show.

Initially, Buddy wanted to record this project at Walter Becker's world-class project studio in Ulupalakua, Maui.  However, because its construction wasn't complete before we needed to being recording, we chose to track at the Benson facility.  We moved to the Becker studio to complete some overdubs and repairs, and to mix the project.

For those of you who may not remember, Walter Becker is one-half of the Grammy award-winning group, "Steely Dan."  Walter has some of the best recording equipment money can by (or that he can get in trade for an endorsement!).  Of course, all of his platinum albums hang in the out-house behind the control room!

This proved to be a very creative and relaxed space to make music.  The view out the control room window doesn't get much better than this (mountain pasture land overlooking tropical islands in the pacific!).

Here's a shot of me practicing before they lock me in the isolation room to do some sax work on the project.  One of the nice things about the album, "Signature," was that we were able to incorporate a lot of Buddy's roots & love of Jazz into our arrangements.