Pribek

Lou Whitney, who played bass on and produced “Trouble Ain’t Over”, is a guy that should get way more recognition than he does.

So, I was real glad to see this Universal Audio interview with Grammy winning (for The Raconteurs album, “Consolers of the Lonely”) engineer, Vance Powell, in which Vance mentions Lou…

Then in ‘90, another opportunity came up in a roundabout way. I got asked to go to work at a club in Springfield, Missouri. A bunch of really cool music came out of the area. The other person I always want to mention–because he’s so brilliant–is a guy there who owned a studio by the name of Lou Whitney. Lou is well known for doing the first Del-Lords record. He worked on the first Roscoe’s Gang record with Eric Amble. He’s just a real roots-rock genius. Back in the early ’80s and ’90s, he was really doing some cool stuff. And still does, still has a studio there. So I went to work at this club, and my goal was to work at the club and get a gig in Lou’s studio. Within about a year I had actually done that. I’d gone to work for Lou, sort of being his second. We toured with Dave Alvin, did a Scott Kempner record, and we made a whole bunch of records at his place. With Lou it was the same thing: He just gave me the keys, and said, “Come and go as you please. I’ll pay you five bucks an hour.” Actually, I think maybe he paid me ten. Either way it didn’t matter. I was getting to make records. It was awesome.

Congratulations Vance and very cool that you take the chance to recognize the dudes on the way up.