The brainchild of noted producer (and jazz label GRP records founder) Larry Rosen, Georgia on My Mind: Celebrating The Music of Ray Charles is a tribute to the music of one of America’s greatest musical legends. The show —now running in a six week engagement at The Venetian Theatre in Las Vegas — features a lineup of award-winning stars including Emmy Award winner Clint Holmes, 10-time Grammy-winning vocal group Take 6, six-time Grammy nominee Nnenna Freelon and Grammy award winning sax phenom Kirk Whalum. And to bring the FOH input counter even higher, the show includes the Las Vegas Mass Choir and the Las Vegas All-Star Big Band under the direction of musical director David Loeb.
“Our mission is to honor Ray’s life and his music,” said Rosen. “It is extremely important that people understand that this music, which was created in America by a diverse society, is celebrated all over the world. The music is a melding of blues, jazz, gospel, R&B and lots of soul. It will make you clap your hands, move your body and enjoy being alive.”
The musical revue includes Ray Charles classics such as “Hit the Road Jack,” “I Got a Woman,” “What’d I Say,” “Hallelujah,” “Georgia on My Mind,” “America” and more.
“For the past several years, Larry Rosen has been producing these concerts called Jazz Roots at performing arts centers. It started in Miami at the Art Center, with five concerts over the course of a season. He was asked by Atlanta to do something for them at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre,” explains co-producer Peter Primont, who has been working with Rosen, focusing on logistical, business and production aspects.
Primont adds that “Larry came up with the concept for the show because ‘Georgia on My Mind’ is such an iconic song and the official song of the state of Georgia. He built the show around that.” However, things changed dramatically after that Atlanta show, when it was then performed in at the Smith Center in Las Vegas.
“In the audience at that show was Rob Goldstein from the Sands Corporation,” says Primont. “Rob spoke to Larry after the show and said he should bring it to The Venetian Hotel. This current run at the Venetian is long — the song lineup is the same, but the production is much more elaborate here than at a performing arts center.”
Beyond the staging, the first two shows at The Venetian were captured to multi-track, with the tracks mixed for a special Sirius XM broadcast on Sept. 23, in honor of Ray Charles birthday. There is also talk of a PBS special as well.
The FOH Position
At the front of house helm for the show is engineer Tony Huerta, who also has been doing FOH for Take 6 for the past eight years.
“I do a lot of symphony and big band shows throughout the year with Take 6, so it was just a good fit,” says Huerta, who began as a professional singer, and later opened a recording studio, which “was my passion and my love. Then clients wanted me to mix their front of house. I came in very green and didn’t know the equipment, but I was self-taught on every major mixer for all brands over the years and now I can walk in and mix on anything.”
For Georgia on My Mind, Huerta chose a Roland V-Mixing system. “I normally tour with the Roland M200i,” he says. “It’s the little one, but has enough capability to be like a [Yamaha] M7 — and it’s light enough to check in with a case at less than 50 pounds wherever we go. It’s nice to have something that doesn’t change with each gig, when you have a new line array each night. I’m mixing this show on the Roland M480 — the 48-channel board, linked together with a sidecar M200i for all the Take 6 and all the other vocals.
The show opens with Clint Holmes doing a few songs with the band. Then he brings out Kirk Whalum, and then they’re joined by Take 6. Later, Nnenna Freelon comes on and does some songs with Holmes, and then she does a few songs by herself, and it slowly builds up, so each artist gets a spotlight and each does duets. At the end, it’s everybody, plus the gospel choir — another element that gets added in throughout the show.
With six lead singers, a gospel choir, a big band, plus soloists, there’s a lot going on that stage. Huerta is running 52 inputs from the stage, plus seven channels for the big surround sound feed at the end. “It’s a huge show, and lots of fun,” Huerta says.
In terms of effects, his palette is entirely within the Roland box. “I’m using all inboard effects, all inboard compression — it all sounds really good.”
What’s in Your Room?
The Venetian Theatre previously hosted long-term runs of Phantom of the Opera and Faith Hill/Tim McGraw, yet oddly enough, one of the “issues” Huerta faces is a lack of the room’s lack of ambience, rather than the boominess of most halls. “The house actually sounds incredible,” he says. “The walls have fabric back-lining, and every hard surface appears to be covered in something soft. The roof is mesh and looks like a big dome. You think you’re going to have issues with that, but it’s mesh and above that, the whole ceiling is treated with baffling. So it’s a tight, dry house — 1,800 seats and totally dry. It’s a great space, although I have to run a reverb that sounds like what the space should sound like. I run one reverb throughout the show to match the shape of the room.”
Another factor in choosing the Roland platform was its “ease of recording. XM Radio just aired the entire show — we were able to track it on the Roland gear, 48 tracks of 24-bit/48k Hz WAV right off the board via Ethernet, and we were able to mix it in two days, and now it’s out on XM.”
Huerta is also pleased with the Meyer Sound MICA house system, which, after the Phantom run, was reconfigured and greatly expanded, with more MICA boxes as well as Meyer 1100LFC subwoofers added in a flown array
“This system was installed originally for the Faith Hill/Tim McGraw shows,” Huerta says, of the ready-to-rock rig. “It’s a huge system, with way more headroom than I need for a big band show, even by the end of the show, when we’re really getting into it and pushing it hard.”
From the Stage
“Everyone on stage is on wedges, except for Take 6, who are on in-ears that are fed from the M-200i at front of house.” All 10 stage monitors are Meyer UM-100P’s. “There are a lot of wedges and it’s a very live stage,” Huerta notes. Monitor engineer Nick Spraul mixes on a Yamaha CL5.
“Take 6 is on Shure PSM900’s and Westone ES5’s earbuds, which I love. They are totally enclosed, so I run a couple Shure VP-89S shotgun mics at the audience and feed them into the in-ears to give them a representation of what’s going on in the house.” says Huerta.
“The stage feed is split out via Dante to Nick on monitors and to me at front of house via REAC, with two Roland digital snake heads up here — a 32-channel and a 24-channel,” he continues. “All the channels land into the Roland R-1000 record unit [rack mount 48-track] and then they tie out to the FOH mixers.”
The venue turned out to be the right choice at the right time. “After tracking, the WAV files would be loaded into Pro Tools,” says Huerta, “and I had two days to turn around the first two shows for the XM broadcast. The Venetian was nice enough to already have a recording studio in the basement so I could get all these [broadcast] mixes done!”
Whole Lotta Miking!
“Take 6 is on Shure’s ULX-D wireless with some KSM9 HS capsules and some Beta 58 capsules. They do a lot of beat-box stuff, and condenser mics have a hard time with that low end — it’s like sticking a mic in a kick drum! That’s why we use the Beta 58’s, which are also very clear on the low-end. Holmes is on a KSM9 capsule, but — like the other singers in the show — are on a Shure UHF-R system. Take 6 tours with the ULX-D system. With those, you can do four units per rack space and it’s only 30 pounds for eight channels.”
The choir is miked with four Shure SM81’s, on stands. It’s kind of like air miking, which lends to that big gospel sound,” Huerta explains. “One problem was keeping the drums out of those choir mics, so we have a good piece of plexi between the two, which really helps out.
Most of the horn section is miked with Sennheiser MD-421’s for saxes, with the rest of the horns on Shure Beta 57’s — mainly to tighten up the section and not have so much bleed. Kirk Whalum’s sax is on a Shure 98 — he brings his own. The piano is captured using two side-address Shure Beta 181’s with the lid closed, which Huerta feels gives a natural sound with little chance of feedback.
Drums are individually miked with Shure 98’s, with an Audix D6 on kick, Shure Beta 57 on snare and for overheads, two Shure SM81’s that are up high and spaced out a bit. “That wide thing gives me a better image out front,” says Huerta.
Big Show, Big Finale
“The show’s a monster to mix with so many moving elements and artists coming on and off and working together,” admits Huerta. “It’s a tough one, especially when the gospel choir, the full horn section and all the artists are out there. It’s a lot to fit between two speakers.”
And if that’s true, the finale has to be even bigger. “During ‘America the Beautiful’ at the end, there are [onscreen] fireworks going off from the video feed, where there’s a flyover with jets coming across the screen from the right far away. As they get to the stage, the sound shifts from the front of the stage and back through the surround system in the theater — and a lot of low-end.”
Coming Up
Georgia on My Mind: Celebrating The Music of Ray Charles runs through Oct. 29 at the Venetian Hotel. Next month, two shows are slated in Miami and Orlando and after that, there’s talk of future performances as well. Sounds like an idea that Ray himself would approve of.
Georgia on my Mind: Celebrating the Music of Ray Charles
Venue: The Venetian Theatre, Las Vegas
Sound Company: Self-contained
Crew: Tony Huerta, FOH engineer; Nick Spraul, monitor engineer.
SOUND SYSTEM
Main P.A.: Meyer Sound MICA line arrays.
Subwoofers: Meyer 1100LFC’s in cardioid array, flown.
FOH GEAR
Console: Roland M480 with M200i sidecar.
Outboard: All onboard effects.
Recorder: Roland R-1000
MONITOR GEAR
Console: Yamaha CL5
Stage Wedges: Meyer Sound UM-100P’s
IEMs: Shure PSM900, Westone ES5’s (Take 6)
Wireless Mics: Shure ULX-D (Take 6) with KSM9 HS and Beta 58 transmitters; Shure UHF-R (other vocalists).
Digital Snakes: Roland S-3208, S-2416 and S-1608
