Harmonies on Stage.
Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:17 am
In the Billion Dollar Baby book, Bob Greene describes a scene where Shep confronts Alice about the harmonies on stage and says, “They’re really bad. You guys need to practice before the next show.” Alice makes all kinds of excuses, “My monitors are bad, we know the parts, we never could do harmony on stage”.
While this is going on, Mike is hitting on a young lady so Bob documents both conversations simultaneously so it’s kind of humorous. This goes on for a full page as Shep really tries to get Alice to agree to practice the harmonies with the group but Alice resists.
It didn’t seem like Shep was able to convince Alice to practice the harmonies with the band.
It didn’t seem like live harmonies were a strength of the band.
Why did Alice resist practicing?
Did he just feel it was hopeless and wouldn’t help?
To be fair, unless you’re the Eagles, The Beatles, CSN&Y, most hard rock bands have limited harmony chops as they tend to be instrument driven rather than vocal harmonies driven. It's almost like the instrument volume is so high that subtle vocal harmonies get lost.
Mostly it’s just a lead singer doing all the vocals.
While this is going on, Mike is hitting on a young lady so Bob documents both conversations simultaneously so it’s kind of humorous. This goes on for a full page as Shep really tries to get Alice to agree to practice the harmonies with the group but Alice resists.
It didn’t seem like Shep was able to convince Alice to practice the harmonies with the band.
It didn’t seem like live harmonies were a strength of the band.
Why did Alice resist practicing?
Did he just feel it was hopeless and wouldn’t help?
To be fair, unless you’re the Eagles, The Beatles, CSN&Y, most hard rock bands have limited harmony chops as they tend to be instrument driven rather than vocal harmonies driven. It's almost like the instrument volume is so high that subtle vocal harmonies get lost.
Mostly it’s just a lead singer doing all the vocals.