Sound Check
Former Butler resident Jim Anderson won a Grammy Award in February as the surround mix engineer on the Best Surround Sound Album, Patricia Barber's “Modern Cool.”
He attended the pre-telecast ceremony in Los Angeles, where most of the awards are presented, and then walked the red carpet before the evening show that was broadcast in prime time.
And though this is his 10th Grammy Award, he said this one is special.
“The other nine awards have been for either the album or the artist ... and have been a combination of Grammys and Latin Grammys, too,” Anderson said.
“The others were for the project, and I have the statues, but that's just doing your job. This one was just for engineering, true recognition from your peers.”
Anderson emphatically credits his upbringing in Butler as putting him on the path to his current success.
“This is really the culmination of 40 years of work,” he said by phone recently before a class he teaches at New York University's Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music. He's been a professor there since its founding in the fall of 2003, and he served as the department's first chairman from 2004 to 2008.
Currently he teaches freshmen classes, mostly Engineering the Record and Audio Ear Training for Producers, he said.
“Our students have gone on to be performers (Elle Varner was nominated for three Grammys this year), music industry professionals who work at record labels, some run their own record labels, production companies/studios, music managers, radio, television. The list is quite impressive,” he noted.
Born and bred in Butler, Anderson graduated from Butler High School in 1969. While in high school, he was active in the marching band, concert band and orchestra and served as music director for “The Pajama Game” musical.
He had encouragement from many teachers, he said.“When I was at Butler High, you could do both the vo-tech classes and the college prep, so I had a daily electronics class and at the same time I was taking advanced algebra,” Anderson recalled. “I never had a study hall!”He said, “I owe my career to the hard work of many dedicated teachers and institutions while I lived in Butler. I was a member of the Butler County Symphony and Summer Concert Bands while in high school and was trained on French Horn by E. Richard Hall (teacher in Butler Junior High) before entering college.“I'm still in touch with Vincent J. Sanzotti, who was assistant band director during my time in high school and I still support the symphony and the Butler Little Theatre, since those were two institutions who helped me in my early days.”He also credits Ron Lockwood, long involved with the BLT.For four years while he was a teenager, Anderson delivered the Butler Eagle from his family's house on Roosevelt Boulevard. He is the son of the late Mary and Carl Anderson. His sister, Eleanor Smith, still lives in Butler.“When I was a newspaper carrier, once a year I was allowed to take my earnings and buy electronics, tape recorders, a whole stereo system,” he said.And now, he's worked at the sound studios at George Lucas' Skywalker ranch in California, where “Modern Cool” was mixed.“It's great there, no distractions. You can get a lot of work done. It looks deserted because everybody's working,” he said.Anderson's education includes earning a bachelor's in music education at Duquesne University in 1973.“I began studies for a master's in music education, but stopped to take a job at National Public Radio (NPR) in the fall of 1974, in Washington, D.C.”He worked for NPR until August, 1980, then moved to New York City in 1981 and freelanced doing audio work until starting at NYU in 2003.In addition to teaching, he continues to be active in music projects outside of the university. “I was with the Cuban jazz pianist, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, last week, engineering his next album. We'll be finishing it over the summer,” Anderson said.He's also working on Patricia Barber's latest album, “Smash.”Now that the red carpet is rolled up and the spotlights have dimmed for another year, what does the Grammy Award mean to Anderson?“It makes you want to work even harder to get another one. It really does.”
