Roy Halee
| Roy Halee | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Roy Decker Halee 1934 (age 81–82) Long Island, New York |
| Residence |
Boulder, Colorado [1] Stuart, Florida [2] |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | record producer and audio engineer |
| Known for | recording engineer for Simon and Garfunkel |
| Children | Roy Halee, Jr.[3] |
| Parent(s) | Roy Halee (father) |
Roy Halee is an American record producer and engineer, best known for working with Simon and Garfunkel.
Early life
He grew up on Long Island, New York. His father, also named Roy Halee, provided the singing voice for Mighty Mouse in late 1940s Terrytoons cartoons, as well as the voices of Heckle and Jeckle from 1951 through 1961.
Career
Halee started working as a cameraman for CBS Television in the 1950s. He was also studying to be a classical trumpet player.[2]
He became an audio engineer for CBS Television, working on many shows and the top rated The $64,000 Question television quiz show.[2]
As television shows moved to the West Coast, he lost his job in a union dispute and layoff at CBS Television. He went to work for Columbia Records in New York as an editor and later as a studio engineer, working with Bob Dylan, including the first long-format radio single, "Like a Rolling Stone".[4]
After working with the Lovin' Spoonful, the Dave Clark Five and the Yardbirds, he began his partnership with Simon and Garfunkel.[4] He has also worked with other groups such as the Byrds, Journey (on their first album Journey), Willie Nile, Laura Nyro, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Blue Angel. Halee was named to the TEC Awards Hall of Fame in 2001.
Simon & Garfunkel
Halee discovered that the uniqueness of Simon & Garfunkel harmonies could only be achieved by recording both voices on the same microphone at the same time. That technique did well, as the song "Mrs. Robinson", from the 1968 album The Graduate, won him a Grammy Award.[4]
Three more Grammy Awards followed in 1970 for his work on the album Bookends and the song "Bridge Over Troubled Water".[4]
Halee co produced and engineered singer songwriter Albert Hammond's self titled 3rd solo album released in 1974. Songs such as "Half a Million Miles from Home" were outstanding in their own right, but as the production resembled Simon and Garfunkel songs such as "America" or "The Boxer", this is a compliment to the talent of Halee, and it was a brilliant complement to the unique voice and melodies of Hammond.
He was best known for producing several albums with Simon & Garfunkel. He is mentioned in their 1965 song "A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)", written by Paul Simon. He also co-produced Simon's first solo album after the Simon & Garfunkel years and went together with Simon to South Africa in 1985 to record something new that "wasn't written yet, we were going with nothing, so it was a gamble. A lot of people thought we were nuts", Halee says. It led to the Grammy Award-winning album Graceland. "I was having a ball recording these guys. For a guy from my background, everything was so organised generally. Here in the rawness of this, the earthiness, I was in seventh heaven."[5] After Graceland, Roy Halee continued travelling with Simon as an engineer, this time to Brazil and West Africa, which resulted in the album The Rhythm of the Saints, with "all congas, bass drums, bata...everything imaginable.[6]"
Personal life
His son, Roy Halee, Jr., is a post-production mixer for the CBS television program 60 Minutes in New York City.[3]
References
- ↑ Buskin, Richard, "Paul Simon 'You Can Call Me Al' : Classic Tracks", Sound on Sound magazine, September 2008
- 1 2 3 Jackson, Blair, "Interview: Roy Halee", Mix magazine, October 1, 2001
- 1 2 Vilkomerson, Sara, "Countdown to Bliss: Roy Halee Jr. and Yvonne Miller", The New York Observer, April 4, 2005
- 1 2 3 4 Mix Foundation. 2001 Hall of Fame Inductee Roy Halee
- ↑ Marre, J., (Documentary, ISIS Productions/Daniel Television/Paul Simon 1997)
- ↑ Luftig, S., The Paul Simon Companion, Four Decades of Commentary, pp. 197–198 (Biography, Schirmer Books/Omnibus Press New York, 1997)