Cruisin' Deuces is available for purchase through various sources
The two tracks I did for this record were from my first time in the studio with Danny. When I walked into the room, he took one look at my Chuck Taylor high-top shoes and said "That hair doesn't fool me, I can tell you're a redneck." Turned out that between Danny, John Previti and me, we had over 20 pairs of Chucks. It was a match made in the shoe store!
The first tune we did that day was "So Good". Danny explained the groove as a "D.C. Shuffle". I knew exactly what he meant; working with Danny and John was like coming home.
The next tune we tackled was "Beat Of The Night". The track had already been recorded, but there was an issue with the drum sound he wanted to fix. At the same time, he decided to have John re-cut the bass along with me for feel. We went through it a time or two and got John's re-cut down. Then I set about the task of fine tuning my part with the various brass punches already recorded. The hard thing about this was there was no click, and the time fluctuated slightly as all music does (and should!) in the real world. I had to learn every little nuance of the track and the way it ever so slightly floated in time to get it right. It ended up being one of the hardest tunes I've ever recorded, but Danny made the process it seem easier than it was.
After we finished tracking, he wanted to take a rough mix of the day's work, but Ed Eastridge (studio owner and engineer) had to head out to a function. Since I'd done a fair amount of work at Big Mo in the past, he asked me to run the roughs for Danny. This gave Danny another opportunity to test my skills, this time as an engineer. He wanted various effects added at different places which normally wouldn't have been a problem. However, Ed had recently updated several things in the control room and the patch bay was one of them! I was flying by the seat of my pants trying to give Danny what he wanted. I think I sweat more running the roughs for him than I did behind the drum kit!