It
shouldn’t come as any surprise that Lloyd Maines would list Jimmy Day as one of his major
influences — just about any great pedal steel guitar player would; the word
“legend” may be used much too liberally these days, but Austinite Day is one of
the few who truly deserves it.
But with Maines, comparison to Day seems especially fitting. How important is
Day? Let’s put it this way: Name any classic country song, and chances
are about one in three that he played on it. “Crazy Arms,” “Don’t Do It
Darlin’,” etc. — that was him. Name any classic country performer, and
chances are about one in two that he played for them. Lefty Frizzell, Ray
Price, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, ELVIS… You get the idea. The guy
is everywhere.
The same applies to Lloyd Maines. It’s even getting to the point that he’s
popping up in unexpected places. Sure, you know he’ll be on the new Joe Ely or
Terry Allen album, but did you notice that the pedal steel player on Wilco’s
A.M. was… Lloyd Maines? Yep. And take a look at the precursor
to Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, and their seminal piece of alt-country, Anodyne. There he is again. And hey, how about this bunch of kids on Hightone that call
themselves Wagon?
You get the idea. The guy is everywhere.
Yes indeed, Maines’ resum� — and reputation — are getting mighty big.
They’re making him a highly sought-after man. But of late, those jaw-dropping
steel riffs are only one-half of what’s driving Maines’ stock so high. An
increasing number of bands and labels are seeking him out not just to press
pedals, but to twist knobs, as well.
By his own admission, Maines is best known as a steel player, but he’s also
been a producer for almost two decades now. In fact, he began his production
career in 1978 with quite a bang (although he probably didn’t know it at the
time): Terry Allen’s Lubbock (On Everything) took a while to get the
recognition it deserved, but it’s now considered a work of major importance
among the loyal cult that follows the Lubbock songwriter crowd. Allen was
impressed enough to keep Maines on retainer for six more discs, including this
year’s sparkling Human Remains.
Maines also kept himself busy during this period producing his familial
project, the Maines Brothers, which, with siblings Kenny, Donnie, and Steve,
released eight albums between 1978 and 1991, including one which landed on
Mercury/Polygram. Butch Hancock twice tapped him for two of his excellent
albums, Wind’s Dominion and Diamond Hill, while the latter half
of the Eighties saw Maines picking up production work with Jimmie Dale Gilmore,
Andy Wilkinson, and the Texana Dames, before things just flat-out snowballed in
the Nineties: Jerry Jeff Walker (three albums), Will T. Massey, George Ensle,
Jimmy Collins, the Lost Gonzo Band (two), Charlie Robison, Ray Wylie Hubbard,
Chris Wall, Wilkinson again (three more), Richard Buckner, Wayne Hancock,
Robert Earl Keen, Pat Green, Jane Begley, the Great Divide, Larry Joe Taylor,
and Wagon all hired him for everything from obscure cassettes to high-profile
CDs. All of this is in addition to recording steel tracks for Ely, Guy Clark,
David Byrne, the Dixie Chicks, Uncle Tupelo, Radney Foster, Wilco, Ted Roddy,
Bruce Robison, Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, and the Chippy soundtrack.
Sheesh. When does the guy sleep?
“I actually maintain my family life pretty well,” says Maines, taking a rare
break from a soundcheck at Stubb’s before a gig with Ely that night, only a day
after performing with Robert Earl Keen in College Station. “My kids are grown
[his daughter Natalie is a vocalist with the Dixie Chicks]. I just try to make
use of my waking hours in the best way possible. Usually, when I wake up in the
morning, I wake up working or getting ready to do something productive. I try
not to have a lot of wasted hours.”
Indeed he hasn’t — having wasted no time by jumping into producing early in
his professional career; Lubbock came only a year after he recorded the
tracks on Joe Ely that established him as one of Texas’ elite
musicians.
“When I first started working in the studio in Lubbock, I started as a studio
player, a musician on several local projects around there, and I just got
interested in being able to capture music on a format that was going to be
around forever. I still enjoy playing live, but there’s just something about
documenting music for listeners in the hereafter that really appealed to me. I
just kind of developed a real love for it over the years, helping people get
the most out of their music.”
Given the explosion in demand for his producing services (18 projects in the
last three years), it’s obvious Maines has a touch people want. But what
specifically attracts an artist to Maines? What’s the magic secret to making
recordings sound so good?
“Most bands who solicit my production, it’s either because of another project
that they’ve heard, [or] I think I’ve got a reputation of hanging with it
through every thread, every facet of a project. I try not to leave the studio
while anything is being laid down, through the whole enchilada. I think bands
like that, as opposed to someone that is always going to a phone call or has
some other agenda going on.
“As far as any kind of magical thing, I just try to make the artist feel
comfortable, and get the absolute best performance out of everybody I work
with. To do that, there’s a little psychology involved — you have to make them
feel good about what they’re doing. But as far as any magical techniques, I
don’t think I’ve got any. I go into every project without any kind of
preconceived notion of how I want to do it. I try to mold my production around
the artist.
“A lot of it is kind of getting into the emotions of the band. The worst thing
you can do is to get a band uptight, and I tell you, I never, I never talk down to an artist or musician, ’cause you know, being on both sides of the
glass, I try to treat people like I want to be treated. If somebody’s having
trouble with a part, a vocalist having trouble with his vocals or whatever, the
worst thing you can do is to get them uptight about it. You have to use a lot
of psychology, reverse psychology, and you have to value the feelings of the
people you’re working with.”
Maines’ egalitarian outlook also explains the variety of projects that he
tackles. Wayne Hancock was already the toast of the town when he hooked up with
him, and Hubbard is a demigod. But few, outside of the most intrepid Texas
songwriting aficionado (or a professional Texas music critic) are familiar with
the low-budget, albeit charming, recordings of George Ensle or Andy Wilkinson.
Maines says it’s really the music more than the profile that prioritizes his
choice of which offers to accept.
“I like to hear a cassette of their material first, and I just try to see if
it’s something I could contribute to. I never really qualify whether it’s a
type of music I like, because I like to dig into everything. I’d like to do
some real ethnic stuff, I like conjunto. I try not to have any kind of
boundaries… as long as it’s good music. The major label as opposed to the
really low-budget stuff, to tell you the truth, sometimes the low-budget stuff
is the more fun stuff. You don’t have as many executives breathing down your
neck.”
But is Maines, or any producer, really, the key ingredient to a great record?
Music journalists are quick to credit or criticize albums for perceived
qualities or blunders of producers; career turnarounds (better or worse) are
often credited to a change in producers. Is this view really accurate? Maines
says yes and no.
“I tell you what I go by, and I’ve told other producers, and I’ve actually
told artists this, too — a producer is no better than the weakest link of the
band. If you’ve got one weak link in the chain there, you need to strengthen
that link. I think the producer that can do that is doing his job. You can’t go
out there and perform for them. You have to just try and squeeze it out of them
if they’re having a problem. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I try to
take credit or blame for every project I do. I try to not let it out of my
grip, out of my little strings until I think it’s right. And sometimes you just
get it as right as you can.”
Maines’ work with Wagon on their Hightone debut, No Kinder Room, represents his escalating relationship with the new generation of alternative
country acts. Although the Uncle Tupelo clique, which might be thought of as
C&W’s version of shoe-gazer rock, seems markedly different from the
freewheeling rock & roll of Ely and Allen, it turns out that the younger
crowd from Missouri has idolized the late-Seventies work of their West Texas
elders for some time.
“That time period still follows me around, and I’m very proud of that,”
acknowledges Maines. “With Joe’s music we were treading some water that hadn’t
been dealt with before. A lot of the current-day artists, even Nashville
artists, were big Joe Ely fans.
“[A record] that I did that has really gotten me a lot of mileage as far as
press and good karma is Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne. In fact, apparently
there’s an artist from Australia, a singer-songwriter guy, who wants to use me
as producer and Wilco as his band. Some label is trying to meld those two
together. I haven’t called them back yet, but that’s kind of how things happen,
a chain reaction. I’ve worked with Tupelo and Wilco, and now Wilco is trying to
get me with this other deal.
“Those guys were so young in the Seventies that I know they couldn’t have
been listening to Ely back then. The reason they hired me was that they
recorded the album at Cedar Creek [Studios, here in Austin], and they wanted
steel, so they got my number. They chose me because of the early Ely albums —
they were big fans of the first two albums. They got me and Doug Sahm to be on
it. That album will probably go down as a classic.”
Now that Maines’ list of production credits is getting so long, it’s hard to
pinpoint his favorite project. After a long, thoughtful pause, he answers,
“I’ve been proud of them all; all the recent ones really sounded good. Wagon…
Richard Buckner… the early Terry Allen stuff… Hill Country Rain had
some of the finest vocal performances that Jerry Jeff Walker has ever done.”
Later, after a Stubb’s sandwich, Maines comes back to the question: “You know,
I forgot to mention that Wayne Hancock album; and that Robert Earl Keen live
album last year. I guess I should have listed those, I was really proud of
those.”
During a phone call a week later, he adds, “I was thinking about that list of
my favorite albums — I really should have mentioned Rendezvous by the
Lost Gonzo Band and Loco Gringo’s Lament by Ray Wylie Hubbard…”
You get the idea. The guy is everywhere. n
This article appears in November 8 • 1996 and November 8 • 1996 (Cover).