SPECIAL SKILLS
"I think people skills helped me
the
most to become successful. That and
diplomacy and patience."
POINTERS FOR THE
JOB SEARCH
"When I started out, there weren't
any schools that taught mastering.
You
had to find someone and become an
apprentice. I don't know how much schooling you
need, but I don't know if there is
an engineer who would let you in the door if
you didn't have some schooling."
DENNY PURCELL, MASTER ENGINEER, PRESIDENT OF
GEORGETOWN MASTERS
Growing up in a musical family in Indiana,
Denny Purcell fell in love with songs
through the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Joni
Mitchell. "I had three Bob Dylan records:
one to listen to and figure out what he said,
one to play after that, and one to keep."
Early on, he knew that he wanted to be involved
in the creative process of music. A
musician in the late 1960s, Purcell moved to
Nashville in the early 1970s after gaining
some initial engineering experience in New
York. He drove an ice cream truck until
he landed a job as second engineer at
Quadrafonic Sound Studios. There he worked
with artists like Jimmy Buffett, Dan Fogelberg,
Linda Ronstadt, Joe Walsh, Neil
Young, and many others. When Young's producer,
Elliot Mazer, wanted to record
the artist's Time Fades Away Tour, Purcell and
Gene Eichelberger built Masters
Wheels and Purcell manned the
mobile studio for the next two
years.
Purcell returned to Nashville
in 1974. "I worked at a gas
station
trying to figure out how to get a
job [engineering]. I remember
washing the windshields of people
I knew. They would ask me what I
was doing and I told them I was
getting back in the business. One
fellow looked at me and said,
`It's
nice to see people with goals.'"
Persistence paid off and although
CASE STUDY:
"If money is your goal, your
career will be short lived. Music
is an art form. The most impor-
tant things in music are the
song, the performance, and the
production."
THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT
THIS JOB:
"Running the business. I like to
come
to work and play. I haven't grown
up
yet."
THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS JOB:
"Getting to share a day or two
with
some of the most well-known people
in the music business on a
one-to-one
level."
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