Recording engineer John Neff talks about his fascinating music background

 Had a great talk with my friend John Neff.  John Neffis a recording engineer and producer, based in Portland, Oregon for the lastfive years, currently operating out of two studios. His record career startedin 1965, with the making of The Ascots record, “So Good”, which he wrote. Asecond single followed in 1967, with an album in 1969. From 1971 to 1973 he was staff session guitarist workingfor  producer Don Davis at United Soundin Detroit, playing on close to 200 songs for such artists as Mary Wells, IsaacHayes, Johnny Nash, Curtis Mayfield, Billy Paul, The Spinners and others.   The mid 70s saw him touring the US and and internationallywith several Detroit based groups. In 1977 he joined Steppenwolf and touredwith them, followed by Hoyt Axton and Redeye in the late 70s. 1979 saw a move to Maui, Hawaii, where he retired fromtouring but not the music business. Neff did a morning radio show for nineyears, started a Hawaiian record company and built a recording studio withWalter Becker from Steely Dan. Artists worked with there include Buffy Ste. Marie, DonaldFagen and Willie Nelson.  Moving back to the mainland in 1993, he spent a dozen yearsin Hollywood, nine of which were working with film director David Lynch. Herecorded the scores for and mixed the films, “The Straight Story” and“Mulholland Drive” for which he received a technical Oscar nomination. He alsomixed all of David’s earlier films in 5.1 surround for their DVD releases andhas an album out with Lynch titled “BlueBOB”.    A move to Marin County in 2005 resulted in John working atthe legendary Plant Studios with artists such as Journey, Sammy Hagar, MichaelFranti and more. John has mixed 17 Feature Films, and three shorts, andworked on approximately 450 music recordings over the last fifty years in thebusiness, and been nominated for a Grammy as well as receiving numerous Goldand Platinum awards.Download Standard Podcasts