Chords for Producer/Engineer Al Schmitt On Recording Toto's "Rosanna"

_ _ _ _ It's our honor and pleasure to present Mr.
Al Schmidt 21 Grammy Awards and Bill Gibson our chapter trustee _ _ _
Yeah, what happened _ was _ I got a call to
_ _ From Jeff Picarro saying that they the guys got together and wanted me to do this record with him
_ So do boys and I was honored out obviously and so we went in [N] the first day we're at Sunset Sound and _
_ _ _ This was the first tune and everybody was in the room at the same time they were all
including Lenny Castro on on Congress and _
_ _ So _ _ _
They
We've got the sounds and all and David Page said well
When is Al gonna start getting sounds and I said we're all set come on in and listen
So they came in and listened I had recorded the first rundown that they did and it sounded great
they were all thrilled with the way the _
Sounded went back out and the next take was it it was [E] that was it including the piano solo
it was [N] amazing and then right after that we did Africa and _ _
_ _ _ _ _ With Africa
Jeff Carroll went out in the room and played drums for about
maybe two minutes
Just got in his groove and played his groove and then he came in and we kept listening and listening and he
picked one bar and
we made a tape loop we put a mic stand out and _
Put the tape around it and it just and that was it.
It's a one bar loop
Africa if you listen carefully to it, you'll
You'll hear that's one bar over and over again, but that was the groove
_ They were fun to work with and it was some crazy times because those were the days when everybody had gone really wild and _ _
_ _ So but it was a lot of fun and it's very really fond memories
So is that everybody including the engineer was going crazy, too?
No, I was the only one I was the one who had the butterfly net to capture people and _ _ _
_ _ That's good man, so
_ Did you did you overdub the vocals on the this tune?
Yeah, I did a lot of the vocals.
I did the horns
_ _ Greg Lidani mixed it and I I was in Europe and
_ _ At the monitor the Montserrat Jazz Festival and I got in a little bill accident
and so I was in a hospital in Italy for a while and then they flew it flew my son and I back to
Switzerland _ and I was staying there for a while
So in the meantime, they had to get the record mixed and so Greg Lidani went together _
Mixed the record and did a great job _ _
Yeah, that's it's an amazing story how you were tumbling down the yeah Yeah well
We came around as guy was driving a car and my son was in the backseat
We had had a day off in between recording and he came around the turn.
He was going pretty fast
We were just in we were in our Usta and Italy
Cindy Alps
_ Came around the corner the car was stopped there and he hit the brakes and turned and we went
rolling down the side of the mountain _
so
_ He got the driver got hurt much worse than I did and
They had to fly him off to Milan where they had better hospitals, but
_ _ [F#] _ They kept me my son and I in hospital Aaron.
What we were healthy.
Should I tell him the story about the two?
_ _ _ Years before somebody gave me a 200 year old bottle of cognac _ _
_ Great great and I had the bottle and I kept thinking one of these days I'm gonna you [D] know
I drink this so as I'm rolling down the hill in Italy, _ _ _ [C] _ _
I
Holding my son who is I think 10 [G] and
_ I'm thinking I'm never gonna see my little guy who was three years old
And I'm never gonna taste [A] that 200 year old corner _ _ _
So
What happened I was still on crutches when I came home
_ _ When I got off the plane I came home and when I got in the house I
Called some friends up and I said I'm gonna open that bottle of cognac
Anybody wants to come over and try [E] some it's welcome.
I had thought while I was going down.
Why was I saving that?
You know
Now _ I'm never gonna get to taste it it's refreshing to hear that you thought of your son first, oh, yeah _ _ _ _ _
Let's go back to Rosanna and and the vocals on that you didn't use auto-tune did you? _ _
God forbid no.
Yeah, I don't know
[Fm] _ _
_ [N] So no, I didn't tell it was right, you know, they kept you know, and they were great, you know, they were _
_ Bobby who sang lead on a lot of that stuff was
_ amazing _ _ _ _
So, so how long did it take you to do the lead vocal track on that? _
_ _ _ On on
_ Rosanna itself probably was done.
Most of it done in a day.
Yeah, I'd say one day.
Did you comp it together then?
Yeah, there was some copying done
But you know, we were in no water tune or anything
_ Yeah, so I guess we don't need it no and we don't need beat detective either well I just did a
record with an artist where we did everything live and
_ _ _ All in the center of the room at Capitol and with no earphones everybody close around and
_ And _
_ Finish it when when I went to we were mixing there was one thing at the end of a
_ Word that where you just went under a little bit and I tuned it _ _
and
On the playback.
He said it went by and he said what's that?
_ _ I
Said well, you went a little under his
Put it back.
He made me put it back.
You're gonna leave it that way.
He wanted it to be totally honest.
So I
Try to stay away from
_ Tuning as much as possible.
Fortunately, I get to work with great singers and and most of the