Music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Academics have argued that categorizing music by genre is inaccurate and outdated. Music can be divided into different genres in many different ways; the artistic nature of music means that these classifications are subjective and controversial, some genres may overlap. There are varying academic definitions of the term genre itself. In his book Form in Tonal Music, Douglass M. Green distinguishes between form, he lists madrigal, canzona and dance as examples of genres from the Renaissance period. To further clarify the meaning of genre, Green writes, "Beethoven's Op. 61 and Mendelssohn's Op. 64 are identical in genre – both are violin concertos – but different in form. However, Mozart's Rondo for Piano, K. 511, the Agnus Dei from his Mass, K. 317 are quite different in genre but happen to be similar in form."
Some, like Peter van der Merwe, treat the terms genre and style as the same, saying that genre should be defined as pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language." Others, such as Allan F. Moore, state that genre and style are two separate terms, that secondary characteristics such as subject matter can differentiate between genres. A music genre or subgenre may be defined by the musical techniques, the style, the cultural context, the content and spirit of the themes. Geographical origin is sometimes used to identify a music genre, though a single geographical category will include a wide variety of subgenres. Timothy Laurie argues that since the early 1980s, "genre has graduated from being a subset of popular music studies to being an ubiquitous framework for constituting and evaluating musical research objects". Among the criteria used to classify musical genres are the trichotomy of art and traditional musics. Alternatively, music can be divided on three variables: arousal and depth.
Arousal reflects the energy level of the music. These three variables help explain why many people like similar songs from different traditionally segregated genres. Musicologists have sometimes classified music according to a trichotomic distinction such as Philip Tagg's "axiomatic triangle consisting of'folk','art' and'popular' musics", he explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria. The term art music refers to classical traditions, including both contemporary and historical classical music forms. Art music exists in many parts of the world, it emphasizes formal styles that invite technical and detailed deconstruction and criticism, demand focused attention from the listener. In Western practice, art music is considered a written musical tradition, preserved in some form of music notation rather than being transmitted orally, by rote, or in recordings, as popular and traditional music are. Most western art music has been written down using the standard forms of music notation that evolved in Europe, beginning well before the Renaissance and reaching its maturity in the Romantic period.
The identity of a "work" or "piece" of art music is defined by the notated version rather than by a particular performance, is associated with the composer rather than the performer. This is so in the case of western classical music. Art music may include certain forms of jazz, though some feel that jazz is a form of popular music. Sacred Christian music forms an important part of the classical music tradition and repertoire, but can be considered to have an identity of its own; the term popular music refers to any musical style accessible to the general public and disseminated by the mass media. Musicologist and popular music specialist Philip Tagg defined the notion in the light of sociocultural and economical aspects: Popular music, unlike art music, is conceived for mass distribution to large and socioculturally heterogeneous groups of listeners and distributed in non-written form, only possible in an industrial monetary economy where it becomes a commodity and in capitalist societies, subject to the laws of'free' enterprise... it should ideally sell as much as possible.
Popular music is found on most commercial and public service radio stations, in most commercial music retailers and department stores, in movie and television soundtracks. It is noted on the Billboard charts and, in addition to singer-songwriters and composers, it involves music producers more than other genres do; the distinction between classical and popular music has sometimes been blurred in marginal areas such as minimalist music and light classics. Background music for films/movies draws on both traditions. In this respect, music is like fiction, which draws a distinction between literary fiction and popular fiction, not always precise. Country music known as country and western, hillbilly music, is a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s; the polka is a Czech dance and genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particular
Mac Davis
Morris Mac Davis is a country music singer and actor from Lubbock, who has enjoyed much crossover success. His early work writing for Elvis Presley produced the hits "Memories", "In the Ghetto", "Don't Cry Daddy", "A Little Less Conversation". A subsequent solo career in the 1970s produced hits such as "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me", he starred in his own variety show, a Broadway musical, various films and TV shows. Davis graduated at 16 from Lubbock High School in Texas, he spent his childhood years with his sister Linda and working at the former College Courts, an efficiency apartment complex owned by his father, T. J. Davis. Davis describes his father, divorced from Davis's mother, as "very religious strict, stubborn". Though Davis was physically small, he had a penchant for getting into fistfights. "In those days, it was all about football and fistfights. Oh, man, I got beat up so much while I was growing up in Lubbock," Davis said in a March 2, 2008, interview with the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal newspaper.
"I was 5 feet, 9 inches, weighed 125 pounds. I joined Golden Gloves, but didn't do good in my division." After he finished high school, Davis moved to Atlanta, where his mother lived, to get out of Lubbock. Once he was settled in Atlanta, he organized a rock and roll group called the Zots, made two singles for OEK Records and promoted by OEK owner Oscar Kilgo. Davis worked for the Vee Jay record company as a regional manager, also served as a regional manager for Liberty Records. Davis became famous as a songwriter and got his start as an employee of Nancy Sinatra's company, Boots Enterprises, Inc. Davis was with Boots for several years in the late 1960s. During his time there, he played on many of Sinatra's recordings, she worked him into her stage shows. Boots Enterprises acted as Davis's publishing company, publishing songs such as "In the Ghetto", "Friend, Woman, Wife", "Home", "It's Such a Lonely Time of Year", "Memories", which were recorded by Elvis Presley, Nancy Sinatra, B. J. Thomas, many others.
Davis left Boots Enterprises in 1970 to sign with Columbia Records, taking all of his songs with him. One of the songs he wrote in 1968, called "A Little Less Conversation", was recorded by Elvis Presley. Presley recorded "In the Ghetto" in sessions in Memphis. According to record producer Jimmy Bowen, "Ghetto" was pitched to Sammy Davis, Jr. but Mac Davis, guitar in hand, played the song in a studio, with onlookers such as Jesse Jackson and other members of the black activist community. Mac Davis, the only white man in the room at the time told Bowen, "I don't know whether to thank ya, or to kill ya." Mac Davis recorded the tune after Presley's version became a success, was released in a Ronco In Concert compilation in 1975. It was released on a campy Rhino Records Golden Throats compilation in 1991; the song became a success for Presley and he continued to record more of Davis's material, such as "Memories", "Don't Cry Daddy", "Clean Up Your Own Backyard". Bobby Goldsboro recorded some of Davis's songs, including "Watching Scotty Grow", which became a #1 Adult Contemporary success for Goldsboro in 1971.
Other artists who recorded his material included Vikki Carr, O. C. Smith, Kenny Rogers and The First Edition. "I Believe in Music" considered to be Davis's signature song, was recorded by several artists before it became a success in 1972 for the group Gallery. He became known as a country singer. During the 1970s, many of his songs "crossed over" scoring on both the country and popular music charts, including "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me", "One Hell of a Woman", "Stop and Smell the Roses". During the 1970s, he was active as an actor, appearing in several movies, as well as hosting a successful variety show. Davis soon decided to pursue a career of his own in country music. After several years of enriching the repertoires of other artists, his big success came two years after signing with Columbia, he topped the Country and Pop charts with the song "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me". It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America in September 1972.
Some of Davis's lyrics invoked overtly sexual relationships. In the song "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me", he pleads with a woman not to become too enamored with him, because he does not want to commit to a full-time relationship. Other successful songs, such as "Naughty Girl" and "Baby Spread Your Love on Me", contained similar lyrics. In 1974, Davis was awarded the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year award; some of Davis's other successes include the songs "Stop and Smell the Roses", "One Hell of a Woman", "Rock'N' Roll", "Burnin' Thing". At the end of the 1970s, he moved to Casablanca Records, best known at the time for its successes with disco star Donna Summer and rock'n'roll band Kiss, his first success for the company in 1980 was the novelty song "It's Hard to Be Humble", a light-hearted look at how popularity and good looks could go to one's head. The song became his first Country music top 10 and a rare top 30 hit in the UK. (It was translated into Dutch as "Het is moe
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or "the King". Presley was born in Tupelo and relocated to Memphis, with his family when he was 13 years old, his music career began there in 1954, recording at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was a pioneer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues. In 1955, drummer D. J. Fontana joined to complete the lineup of Presley's classic quartet and RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage him for more than two decades. Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. With a series of successful network television appearances and chart-topping records, he became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll.
His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, made him enormously popular—and controversial. In November 1956, Presley made his film debut in Love Me Tender. Drafted into military service in 1958, Presley relaunched his recording career two years with some of his most commercially successful work, he held few concerts however, guided by Parker, proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and soundtrack albums, most of them critically derided. In 1968, following a seven-year break from live performances, he returned to the stage in the acclaimed television comeback special Elvis, which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of profitable tours. In 1973, Presley gave the first concert by a solo artist to be broadcast around the world, Aloha from Hawaii. Years of prescription drug abuse compromised his health, he died in 1977 at his Graceland estate at the age of 42.
Presley is the best-selling solo artist in the history of recorded music. He was commercially successful in many genres, including pop, country and gospel, he won three competitive Grammys, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. Elvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Gladys Love Presley in the two-room shotgun house built by his father, Vernon Elvis Presley, in preparation for the birth. Jesse Garon Presley, his identical twin brother, was delivered 35 minutes before stillborn. Presley became close to both parents and formed an close bond with his mother; the family attended an Assembly of God church. On his mother's side Presley's ancestry was Scots-Irish, with some French Norman. Gladys and the rest of the family believed that her great-great-grandmother, Morning Dove White, was Cherokee. Vernon's forebears were of Scottish origin. Gladys was regarded by friends as the dominant member of the small family.
Vernon moved from one odd job to the evincing little ambition. The family relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance. In 1938, they lost their home after Vernon was found guilty of altering a check written by his landowner and sometime employer, he was jailed for eight months, while Elvis moved in with relatives. In September 1941, Presley entered first grade at East Tupelo Consolidated, where his teachers regarded him as "average", he was encouraged to enter a singing contest after impressing his schoolteacher with a rendition of Red Foley's country song "Old Shep" during morning prayers. The contest, held at the Mississippi–Alabama Fair and Dairy Show on October 3, 1945, was his first public performance; the ten-year-old Presley was dressed as a cowboy. He recalled placing fifth. A few months Presley received his first guitar for his birthday. Over the following year, he received basic guitar lessons from two of his uncles and the new pastor at the family's church. Presley recalled, "I took the guitar, I watched people, I learned to play a little bit.
But I would never sing in public. I was shy about it."In September 1946, Presley entered a new school, for sixth grade. The following year, he began bringing his guitar to school on a daily basis, he played and sang during lunchtime, was teased as a "trashy" kid who played hillbilly music. By the family was living in a Black neighborhood. Presley was a devotee of Mississippi Slim's show on the Tupelo radio station WELO, he was described as "crazy about music" by Slim's younger brother, one of Presley's classmates and took him into the station. Slim supplemented Presley's guitar tuition by demonstrating chord techniques; when his protégé was twelve years old, Slim scheduled him for two on-air performances. Presley was succeeded in performing the following week. In November 1948, the family moved to Tennessee. After residing for nearly a year in rooming houses, they were granted a two-bedroom apartment in the public housing complex known as the Lauderdale Courts. Enrolled at L. C. Humes Hig
Funk rock
Funk rock is a fusion genre that mixes elements of funk and rock. James Brown and others declared that Little Richard and his mid-1950s road band, The Upsetters, were the first to put the funk in the rock and roll beat, with a biographer stating that their music "spark the musical transition from fifties rock and roll to sixties funk". Funk rock's earliest incarnation on record was heard in the late 1960s through the mid-1970s by acts such as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Eric Burdon and War, Rick Derringer, David Bowie, Wild Cherry, Average White Band, Gary Wright, The Bar-Kays, Black Merda, Parliament-Funkadelic, Betty Davis and Mother's Finest. During the 1980s and 1990s funk rock music experienced a surge in popularity, with bands such as Tom Tom Club, Pigbag, INXS, Talking Heads, the Fine Young Cannibals and Cameo dabbling in the sound. Groups including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Incubus, Mr. Bungle and Faith No More notably combined funk rock with metal, hip hop and experimental music, leading to the emergence of the genre known as funk metal or "punk-funk".
Funk rock is a fusion of rock. Many instruments may be incorporated into the music, but the overall sound is defined by a definitive bass or drum beat and electric guitars; the bass and drum rhythms are influenced by funk music but with more sonic intensity, while the guitar can be funk- or rock-influenced with distortion, similar to overdrive or fuzz. Jimi Hendrix was the first well-known recording artist to combine the rhythms and riffs of early funk with his rock sound; the earliest example is his "Little Miss Lover". The live album Band of Gypsys features funky riffs and rhythms throughout and his unfinished album included a couple of funk rock songs such as "Freedom", "Izabella" and "Straight Ahead". George Clinton has been considered the godfather of this genre since 1970. Clinton created the name "P-Funk" for the innovative new concepts of funk that he culled from former members of James Brown's band and new young players such as Eddie Hazel, his groups and Parliament defined funk since the release of the influential funk rock Funkadelic classic Maggot Brain.
Funk rock albums by the group include Cosmic Slop, Standing on the Verge of Getting It On, Hardcore Jollies and Let's Take It to the Stage. Albums such as One Nation Under a Groove and Electric Spanking of War Babies had a bit more radio-friendly sound but still preserved much of group's funk rock approach; this work served as the primary influence on an entire generation of funk and hip hop artists from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Snoop Dogg. Other pioneers evolved in the 1970s in the form of British rock band Trapeze and post-punk act A Certain Ratio, American artists Rick Derringer, The Bar-Kays, Black Nasty and Mother's Finest. "We called ourselves funk rock," recalled Mother's Finest singer Glenn "Doc" Murdock. "I think. We had a house where we all lived and we named it'Funk Rock, Georgia'. We felt. We played with Lynyrd Skynyrd and AC/DC; those bands had a lot of funk in their music. The real problem for us was, they told us we were too loud."Grand Funk Railroad pioneered the bass driven hard rock funk style in 1970 so well portrayed in their song "Inside Looking Out" and picked up by Rage Against the Machine.
Singer-model Betty Davis recorded important funk rock albums. The iconoclast composer and guitarist Frank Zappa demonstrated the merge of styles in albums like Overnite Sensation, in themes such as "I'm the Slime", covered decades by Funkadelic. Funk rock acts were not favored by R&B recording companies. For example, guitarists of Chic wanted to be a glam funk rock band like Kiss, but they became a disco act after being turned down by recording companies. Despite its considerable influence on popular music, funk rock was not a visible phenomenon during the 1970s. Only a few funk rock acts could be seen on record charts, notably David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Gary Wright and Wild Cherry; when Glenn Hughes left Trapeze and joined Deep Purple along with David Coverdale, Deep Purple's next two albums contained elements of funk and soul. When Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple in 1975, the band's next album Come Taste the Band with Tommy Bolin was more funky than its predecessor Stormbringer. However, Deep Purple broke up in 1976 and Tommy Bolin died from a drug overdose.
British guitarist Robin Trower's albums In City Dreams and Caravan to Midnight, produced by veteran R&B producer Don Davis and featuring former Sly & The Family Stone bassist Rustee Allen, are pioneering funk rock albums. In the late 1970s Iggy Pop released Bowie-produced LP The Idiot. From the start of the 1980's, funk musicians Rick James and Cameo as well as new wave band Blondie and post-punk band Talking Heads each created their own brand of funk rock. One famous disco & rock song of the period was "Another One Bites the Dust" by British rock icons Queen. In the 1980s, some synth-funk and synthpop bands such as Thomas Dolby, Scritti Politti, Howard Jones made the basic funk beats along with elements of new wave which makes this a basic synth-funk song; the funk rock genre's representatives from the 1980s to present day include INXS, the Fine Young Cannibals, Jane's Addiction, Faith No
LP record
The LP is an analog sound storage medium, a vinyl record format characterized by a speed of 33 1⁄3 rpm, a 12- or 10-inch diameter, use of the "microgroove" groove specification. Introduced by Columbia in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry. Apart from a few minor refinements and the important addition of stereophonic sound, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums. At the time the LP was introduced, nearly all phonograph records for home use were made of an abrasive shellac compound, employed a much larger groove, played at 78 revolutions per minute, limiting the playing time of a 12-inch diameter record to less than five minutes per side; the new product was a 12- or 10-inch fine-grooved disc made of PVC and played with a smaller-tipped "microgroove" stylus at a speed of 33 1⁄3 rpm. Each side of a 12-inch LP could play for about 22 minutes. Only the microgroove standard was new, as both vinyl and the 33 1⁄3 rpm speed had been used for special purposes for many years, as well as in one unsuccessful earlier attempt to introduce a long-playing record for home use by RCA Victor.
Although the LP was suited to classical music because of its extended continuous playing time, it allowed a collection of ten or more pop music recordings to be put on a single disc. Such collections, as well as longer classical music broken up into several parts, had been sold as sets of 78 rpm records in a specially imprinted "record album" consisting of individual record sleeves bound together in book form; the use of the word "album" persisted for the one-disc LP equivalent. The prototype of the LP was the soundtrack disc used by the Vitaphone motion picture sound system, developed by Western Electric and introduced in 1926. For soundtrack purposes, the less than five minutes of playing time of each side of a conventional 12-inch 78 rpm disc was not acceptable; the sound had to play continuously for at least 11 minutes, long enough to accompany a full 1,000-foot reel of 35 mm film projected at 24 frames per second. The disc diameter was increased to 16 inches and the speed was reduced to 33 1⁄3 revolutions per minute.
Unlike their smaller LP descendants, they were made with the same large "standard groove" used by 78s. Unlike conventional records, the groove started at the inside of the recorded area near the label and proceeded outward toward the edge. Like 78s, early soundtrack discs were pressed in an abrasive shellac compound and played with a single-use steel needle held in a massive electromagnetic pickup with a tracking force of five ounces. By mid-1931, all motion picture studios were recording on optical soundtracks, but sets of soundtrack discs, mastered by dubbing from the optical tracks and scaled down to 12 inches to cut costs, were made as late as 1936 for distribution to theaters still equipped with disc-only sound projectors. Syndicated radio programming was distributed on 78 rpm discs beginning in 1928; the desirability of longer continuous playing time soon led to the adoption of the Vitaphone soundtrack disc format. 16-inch 33 1⁄3 rpm discs playing about 15 minutes per side were used for most of these "electrical transcriptions" beginning about 1930.
Transcriptions were variously recorded inside out with an outside start. Longer programs, which required several disc sides, pioneered the system of recording odd-numbered sides inside-out and even-numbered sides outside-in so that the sound quality would match from the end of one side to the start of the next. Although a pair of turntables was used, to avoid any pauses for disc-flipping, the sides had to be pressed in a hybrid of manual and automatic sequencing, arranged in such a manner that no disc being played had to be turned over to play the next side in the sequence. Instead of a three-disc set having the 1–2, 3–4 and 5–6 manual sequence, or the 1–6, 2–5 and 3–4 automatic sequence for use with a drop-type mechanical record changer, broadcast sequence would couple the sides as 1–4, 2–5 and 3–6; some transcriptions were recorded with a vertically modulated "dale" groove. This was found to allow deeper bass and an extension of the high-end frequency response. Neither of these was a great advantage in practice because of the limitations of AM broadcasting.
Today we can enjoy the benefits of those higher-fidelity recordings if the original radio audiences could not. Transcription discs were pressed only in shellac, but by 1932 pressings in RCA Victor's vinyl-based "Victrolac" were appearing. Other plastics were sometimes used. By the late 1930s, vinyl was standard for nearly all kinds of pressed discs except ordinary commercial 78s, which continued to be made of shellac. Beginning in the mid-1930s, one-off 16-inch 33 1⁄3 rpm lacquer discs were used by radio networks to archive recordings of their live broadcasts, by local stations to delay the broadcast of network programming or to prerecord their own productions. In the late 1940s, magnetic tape recorders were adopted by the networks to pre-record shows or repeat them for airing in different time zones, but 16-inch vinyl pressings continued to be used into the early 1960s for non-network distribution of prerecorded programming. Use of the LP's microgroove standard began in the late 1950s, in the 1960s the discs were reduced to 12 inches, becoming physically indistinguishable from ordinary LPs.
Unless the quantity required was small, pressed discs were a more economica
Memories: The '68 Comeback Special
Memories: The'68 Comeback Special was a 1998 double album released by RCA Records, a repackaging of material from the 1968 Elvis Presley television special, Elvis. Twenty-two of the album's 35 tracks were unreleased recordings, including several alternate takes; the album is named after the song "Memories" which appears twice on the album
Record producer
A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performer's music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has varying roles during the recording process, they may gather musical ideas for the project, collaborate with the artists to select cover tunes or original songs by the artist/group, work with artists and help them to improve their songs, lyrics or arrangements. A producer may also: Select session musicians to play rhythm section accompaniment parts or solos Co-write Propose changes to the song arrangements Coach the singers and musicians in the studioThe producer supervises the entire process from preproduction, through to the sound recording and mixing stages, and, in some cases, all the way to the audio mastering stage; the producer may perform these roles themselves, or help select the engineer, provide suggestions to the engineer. The producer may pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record label's budget.
A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording and production of a band or performer's music. A producer has many roles that may include, but are not limited to, gathering ideas for the project, composing the music for the project, selecting songs or session musicians, proposing changes to the song arrangements, coaching the artist and musicians in the studio, controlling the recording sessions, supervising the entire process through audio mixing and, in some cases, to the audio mastering stage. Producers often take on a wider entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules and negotiations. Writer Chris Deville explains it, "Sometimes a producer functions like a creative consultant — someone who helps a band achieve a certain aesthetic, or who comes up with the perfect violin part to complement the vocal melody, or who insists that a chorus should be a bridge. Other times a producer will build a complete piece of music from the ground up and present the finished product to a vocalist, like Metro Boomin supplying Future with readymade beats or Jack Antonoff letting Taylor Swift add lyrics and melody to an otherwise-finished “Out Of The Woods.”The artist of an album may not be a record producer or music producer for his/her album.
While both contribute creatively, the official credit of "record producer" may depend on the record contract. Christina Aguilera, for example, did not receive record producer credits until many albums into her career. In the 2010s, the producer role is sometimes divided among up to three different individuals: executive producer, vocal producer and music producer. An executive producer oversees project finances, a vocal producers oversees the vocal production, a music producer oversees the creative process of recording and mixings; the music producer is often a competent arranger, musician or songwriter who can bring fresh ideas to a project. As well as making any songwriting and arrangement adjustments, the producer selects and/or collaborates with the mixing engineer, who takes the raw recorded tracks and edits and modifies them with hardware and software tools to create a stereo or surround sound "mix" of all the individual voices sounds and instruments, in turn given further adjustment by a mastering engineer for the various distribution media.
The producer oversees the recording engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as "the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record", like a director would a movie. Indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation is music director; the music producer's job is to create and mold a piece of music. The scope of responsibility may be one or two songs or an artist's entire album – in which case the producer will develop an overall vision for the album and how the various songs may interrelate. At the beginning of record industry, the producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live; the immediate predecessors to record producers were the artists and repertoire executives of the late 1920s and 1930s who oversaw the "pop" product and led session orchestras. That was the case of Ben Selvin at Columbia Records, Nathaniel Shilkret at Victor Records and Bob Haring at Brunswick Records.
By the end of the 1930s, the first professional recording studios not owned by the major companies were established separating the roles of A&R man and producer, although it wouldn't be until the late 1940s when the term "producer" became used in the industry. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1960s due to technology; the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously. All of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio where the performance was recorded. With multitrack recording, the "bed tracks" (rhythm section accompaniment parts such as the bassline and rhythm guitar could be recorded first, the vocals and solos could be added using as many "takes" as necessary, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. A pop band could record their backing tracks one week, a horn section could be brought in a week to add horn shots and punches, a string section could be brought in a week after that.
Multitrack recording had another pro
