157 - Music is in the Blood :: Tony Morra

Tony started his professional career in the music industry in 1980 at the age of 16 years old. Playing drums since the age of 3 Tony had been pounding on his dad’s 1948 Radio King drum set that was a fixture in the basement of his Queens, NY home! Not only was Tony’s dad a professional musician but his grandfather and his great grandfather back in Italy were as well.  It seems that music was Tony’s destiny. With so many musicians in the family, Tony’s listening palette was broad and wide! Opera and Big band jazz were the main stays on the turntables back then. As was the Beatles, Bee Gee’s, James Taylor and all the pop artists of the day. One influential film Tony remembers was “The Glenn Miller Story”. In the story “Glenn” is searching for that “sound”. Tony’s Mom would often refer to this, as Tony would come up from the basement looking for that “sound” on his drums - bewildered as to how the drums sounded so big and fat on the records. The quest was on for the “Holiest of Grails” a great drum sound!  As time passed, Tony went on to work in the Studio and Live concerts with the likes of Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Selena Gomez, Carrie Underwood, Ramone, Diane Warren, Keith Thomas, Kip Winger, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Broening, Amy Grant, Donna Summer, Roberta Flack, Paul Taylor, Discrete Drums Loop Series, Toby Mac, Cindy Bradley, Jay Soto, Stephanie Smith, Ayeisha Woods, Rebecca Saint James, Britt Nicole, Stevie B, Sweet Sensation, Kathy Troccoli, Regie Hamm, Crystal Lewis, Avalon, John Elefante, Van Zandt and on.  His career has taken him from NYC to LA to his current residence in Franklin, TN. (A quaint city 14 miles outside of Music Row in downtown Nashville.) Tony is a successful session drummer and producer in Nashville. After years of touring, he had the good fortune to get into the session scene in town. The scene was healthy but still changing. Session work was going through some severe changes due to budgets and technical changes.  After an encounter with LA session musician J.R Robinson, Tony was convinced that the future of tracking was going to be done in the home. Now for a gtr track or vocal overdub maybe so, but drums? Here we go again searching for that “sound” in a 25 x 25 Garage built for storing cars and gardening equipment not killer drum sounds. With much investigation and a great builder with vision, they turned the Garage and Utility room into what now is one of the busiest drum tracking rooms in town.  For 8 years now Tony Morra has been tracking drums for demos, custom records, indie projects. Sounds about right, but NO! There’s more!( Billy Mayes moment) Tony is tracking drums for Masters, Television, Film, Loop Libraries you hear on TV and on radio everyday. Tony is one of the leaders in home recording through the Internet since it was possible to do so! He has been a beta tester for many online programs that make it easier to do sessions in real time. What was thought to be a little drum room for some extra work has turned into a livelihood. Tony’s clients span the world! These sessions are done at his home with the sounds rivaling those done in the largest and most expensive studios.  A big part of Tony’s career was happening when he thought he had no career! In between gigs and tours in NY when work was lean, Tony would find work as an assistant engineer at jingle studios for jingle writer friends of his. He would also get to play live drums for them from time to time, but this was when the industry was moving to drum machines and loops. These experiences, which he took for granted in that he was just “collecting a check when gigs were slow”, gave him a wealth of knowledge of the recording industry and working with midi and sequencers. Mind you this is before Pro Tools! All editing was done with a razor and a prayer. Oh and he knows how to align a tape machine!  That knowledge has paid huge dividends in that beyond being an accomplished musician, he is an accomplished tracking engineer. Still Tony will bring in Top Nashville engineers to help dial in new sounds and experiment with gear.  His room is outfitted with the best gear there is, Daking, API, GML, Avalon, Neve EQ’s, DBX 160’s, Distressors, Telefunken Pre’s, vintage Orbans and so on! The mics are no joke; Neumann U47, AKG’s, Audio Technica, KM 184’s, modified Ribbons.........and a ProTools HDX system.  It’s a new world and a new frontier in recording. Tony’s embracing it! Using what’s available to make the finest quality Drum Tracks available for those who might never have been able to afford to do so and for those where budget is not even a concern.  Some Things That Came Up:  -3:00 Italian Family Legacy  -7:00 Music was in the family blood.  -10:30 Sitting in with Margaret Manning.  -11:45 Compliments to Tony’s drumming Dad  -13:45 George Lawerence now has Tony’s Dad’s Big Band Charts  -14:50 Playing drums while Mom did housework -18:30 Worked at The Modern Drum Shop in NYC and studying with Joe Cusatis -19:50 The Ted Reed Book and The Bellson Book  -20:00 Cusatis Method: Play any rhythm with the right hand and fill in the triplets with the left.  -24:05 The lost art of teaching swing  -27:00 Trying to impress music teacher at private school  -29:45 Auditioning for Queens College  -30:10 Danny Gottlieb, Rod Morgenstein in the neighborhood  -31:55 Tympani Tuning Incident  -35:00 Driving vans for a zipper company  -36:00 Drinking Grappa with Marco Soccoli -38:00 Hanging with world class drummers at Manny’s Music  -38:30 Drum Programming inspired by Sammy Merendino  -39:00 Wedding bands in NYC were a right of passage  -40:33 Intern for “The Jingle Queen of NY” at age 23, learning engineering, MIDI  -43:00 Incorporating clicks and loops. The early days  -47:00 Getting the gig with SWEET SENSATION  -48:00 Playing with The Shirelles, The Platters, The Coasters as well as singer songwriters like Lisa Loeb at The Bitter End. Playing with Dee Dee Ramone at CBGB’s.  -50:00 Living next to John Gotti, the prevalence of drugs in the neighborhood.  -52:00 Moving to Nashville in 1997 and meeting Tony at a Virgil Donati clinic.  -53:50 The California Connection  -55:40 Living at Dianne Warren’s house.  -1:00 Temptations vs. Spiritually Aided Faith -1:01 Working with Kathy Troccoli -1:06 Chatting with John Robinson -1:08 MD. Hiring Musicians. CCM World. Paul Chapman -1:11 Genesis of creating The Downtown Batterie -1:19 The FAST Five! Rush, Pink Floyd, Journey… -1:20 Music and Sports analogies    Follow:  www.downtownbatterie.com Twitter: @TonyMorra4 IG: @ajmorra