“Walk This Way”: Rap & Rock Icons Revisit A Classic Track
MIDTOWN MANHATTAN: We bump into Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels in the elevator at Manhattan Center Studios. Though not exactly a shocking encounter, as we’re our way to visit his session in Studio 7, the meeting is no less thrilling: “You’re D.M.C.!” we gush. “Awesome!”
DJ Johnny Juice with D.M.C. freestyling
We’re about to flash back to 1986, the year of that famous Rick Rubin produced worlds-collide moment that is Run-D.M.C. doing Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry.
Inside Studio 7, as Aerosmith producer Jack Douglas greets D.M.C., Public Enemy DJ Johnny Juice is already going on the turntables – that classic “Walk This Way” beat and iconic riff pumping through the studio monitors.
They’re all here to work on a “Walk This Way” remake to benefit The Felix Organization / Adoptees For Children, the charity D.M.C. co-founded with Sheila Jaffe. A new lyrical spin on the classic tune will help them promote the cause and raise the funds to send 200 foster kids to Camp Felix, the organization’s Putnam County summer camp.
Public Enemy bassist and producer Brian Hardgroove is co-producing the session with Douglas, the producer of the original Aerosmith track and the 1975 album, Toys in the Attic. Tommy Uzzo (L.L. Cool J, Method Man, Redman) is engineering. And we’ve got a front row seat on the action, as D.M.C. is freestyling with Johnny Juice on the decks.
“Man, the original sounds so incredible,” says D.M.C. “It’s funny, when we did this originally, we had never even heard the vocals – never heard it past the first guitar riff because the DJ would never let it play that far! Rick Rubin said ‘take the record, go sit in the basement, and learn the lyrics.’
“When we finally heard the lyrics, we got on the phone with Rick and said “Nah, you’re taking this rock-rap stuff too far. Africa Bambaata won’t understand one word he’s singing! But Jay knew what to do, he was like ‘Don’t do it like Steven and them, do it like it’s a rap written by Run-D.M.C.’ Me and Run, we weren’t getting it yet…”
And they weren’t necessarily sold on the idea. “We didn’t even know who Aerosmith was,” D.M.C. emphasizes. “I remember when we first met them in the studio, I was like “The Rolling Stones are here!” Because we knew who Mick Jagger was, but we didn’t know Steven Tyler.”
Listening back to the Aerosmith version in Studio 7, D.M.C. muses, “When you think about it, Steven is rapping on this song.”
Here, Douglas interjects, “Yeah, we didn’t know what else to do with it. We had the track and then we got the title from the movie Young Frankenstein. We’d all gone to see the movie one morning, and you know how the hunchback says [read in Igor voice] ‘Walk this way…’ Well, we came back to the studio and tried that line as the chorus! That’s how it all came together.”
Adaptation of a Classic: “Walk This Way” Anew
Referencing both the Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. versions of the track in Studio 7, Douglas, Hardgroove, D.M.C. and DJ Johnny Juice work out a slightly new arrangement for the Camp Felix-inspired take off. Then D.M.C. walks everyone through the Camp Felix lyrics before taking to the booth to lay down his verses, emphatic and strong.
D.M.C. in the vocal booth
Later, they track the musicians – including Andy Bassford on guitar, and singer Jean Beauvoir on the chorus – via the studio’s Neve VR console into Pro Tools. This is a highly capable room, with access to one of the largest tracking spaces in Manhattan (the Grand Ballroom) as well as microphones and gear of most every flavor.
Douglas notes, “I’ve worked out of Manhattan Center many times. I did the Supertramp record [Some Things Never Change] downstairs! We also mixed Aerosmith’s A Little South of Sanity here.”
With only one day to get the entire piece done in NYC, Hardgroove tracked the bass parts for “Walk This Way” ahead of time on his Pro Tools 9 system at home in Santa Fe. “I made the effort to get the bass as ‘classic’ sounding as possible,” he explains. “I used my Steinberger Synapse XS-1FPA-Custom with a little compression. When Jack and Tom Uzzo heard it, they dug it. No need to re-track it.”
When Hardgroove began producing sessions out of Manhattan Center’s Studio 4 (aka The Fuse Box) last year, he brought in manufacturer sponsors, including Sennheiser, to enhance the studio’s recording capabilities. So the mic cabinet here runs deep with Sennheiser and Neumann models – including Neumann U47s and 47 FET, U67s, U87s and TLM mics and Sennheiser 421, 441, MKH 8000 and 800 series and Evolution 900 series mics.
Tracking “Walk This Way,” Uzzo describes, “We used the Sennheiser MKH800 on D.M.C.’s rap, as a distance mic on the electric guitar, and to record the cowbell. We used a 421 as a close mic for the electric guitar. The singers (other than D) were recorded with a Neumann U-67, all through the Neve mic pre’s.
“The interesting thing about the session was the sound of the MKH800. I had never used one before. We compared to the U-67, and of course it sounded a little different, but the quality was very high, as you hear on D’s vocal. The pad also worked well, and didn’t destroy the sound, making it useful for the loud things like the cowbell.”
Co-producers Jack Douglas and Brian Hardgroove
But gear aside, this session was about old friends coming together to revisit a classic track for a worthy cause.
Says Hardgroove: “This project is close to me for a few reasons: first, my parents adopted three girls when I was a young boy, second – back in the day, I could hear Run-DMC spinning “Walk This Way” in Jamaica Park (Hollis, Queens) from my bedroom and third, I got a chance to bring some of my best friends together to work for a terrific cause.”
Manhattan Center chief engineer Darren Moore was gladly on hand to assist. “This is putting me back in junior high school in Brooklyn,” he said. “I totally remember the first time I heard this track. The first time hip-hop went pop.”
For more information on The Felix Organization / Adoptees For Children, and to donate to this cause, visit http://www.adopteesforchildren.org.
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