Production Duo Wendy & Lisa

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It – Episode "Production Duo Wendy & Lisa"

Host: Tiffany Hansen (filling in for Alison Stewart)
Release Date: March 28, 2025
Duration: Approximately 25 minutes

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1. Introduction to the Episode and Guests

The episode begins with Tiffany Hansen introducing the theme of the day, which is part of WNYC's Women's History Month series titled "Equalizers: Women in Music Production." The focus is on Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, the first women ever nominated for the Grammy for Producer of the Year as part of Prince and the Revolution. They are joined by Susan Rogers, Prince's longtime staff engineer and a prominent figure in music production education.

Notable Quote:

"Today, we're revisiting conversations in our Women's History Month series, Equalizers, Women in Music Production." (00:38)

2. Purple Rain Era and Grammy Nominations

Tiffany Hansen sets the stage by highlighting the significance of Wendy and Lisa's contributions to Prince and the Revolution, particularly during the "Purple Rain" era. Released in 1984, "Purple Rain" earned the band Grammy nominations for Producer of the Year and Album of the Year, marking a historic moment for women in music production.

Notable Quote:

"Purple Rain came out in 1984 and earned the band that nomination, as well as one for Album of the Year." (01:58)

3. Roles and Approaches to Production

The conversation delves into the roles Wendy and Lisa played as producers. Lisa Coleman discusses her inclination towards production as an integral part of music-making, rather than viewing it as a separate role. She emphasizes the natural integration of producing within the creative process.

Notable Quote:

"I never really thought of myself as a producer. I just thought I was a music maker." (04:03)

Wendy Melvoin echoes this sentiment, explaining how their partnership inherently involved producing each other, creating a dynamic and collaborative environment.

4. Collaboration with Susan Rogers

Susan Rogers joins the discussion, bringing her extensive experience as Prince's staff engineer and her work with other notable artists. She highlights the intense and collaborative nature of their work during the "Purple Rain" sessions, reflecting on the mix of talent, energy, and dedication that defined that period.

Notable Quote:

"We were young and we had that combination of seriousness that young people have and great doubt and then overconfidence." (09:05)

5. Song Highlight: "Let's Go Crazy"

The episode features a segment of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy," one of the iconic tracks from "Purple Rain." This serves as a backdrop for further discussions on the production techniques and the creative atmosphere of the time.

Notable Quote:

"This life, you're on your own. And if the elevator tries to break." (08:17)

6. Reflections on Working with Prince and the Revolution

Wendy and Lisa share their memories of working with Prince and the Revolution. Wendy describes the unique energy and the high level of commitment from everyone involved, which contributed to the extraordinary quality of their work.

Notable Quote:

"The energy was huge." (09:48)

Lisa adds that their daily routines were intense, involving long hours of recording, rehearsing, and creative exercises, which shaped their professional lives profoundly.

Notable Quote:

"It was our life. That's how we spent our life." (10:35)

7. Skills and Contributions of Wendy & Lisa

Susan Rogers praises Wendy and Lisa's innate musicality and technical skills. She highlights Wendy's exceptional guitar work and Lisa's mastery of keyboards, noting their ability to create and sculpt music with both a gentle and firm hand.

Notable Quote:

"They are so deeply, innately musical. When Lisa's on a keyboard, especially on piano, you can just feel her heart going right to her hands." (11:23)

Wendy and Lisa emphasize the importance of having a collaborative partner in production, which allowed them to push creative boundaries and produce exceptional music.

8. Challenges and Strategies for Women in Music Production

The discussion shifts to the challenges women face in the music production industry. Susan Rogers and Patrice Rushin explore the systemic issues that hinder women's participation and advancement. They advocate for creating more opportunities and providing encouragement for women to enter and thrive in production roles.

Notable Quotes:

"We need to allow women the room and space and the encouragement to do it." (19:11)
"It's going to take some time. ... people let go of the just the automatic default goes to man." (20:40)

Wendy and Lisa concur, emphasizing the need to change the automatic bias that assumes producers are male and to support women in breaking into various genres beyond pop music.

Notable Quote:

"I think it's going to take a long time before a lot of records are produced by women and people let go of the automatic default goes to man." (20:40)

9. Involvement in Prince Documentary

The conversation touches on the new documentary about Prince, which includes perspectives from Wendy and Lisa. Both express mixed feelings about their participation, acknowledging the complexity and emotional weight of recounting their experiences. They highlight the challenges of portraying authentic narratives amidst ongoing complications.

Notable Quotes:

"I think it's a shame that it ended up being as complicated and fraught as it ended up being." (22:31)
"We were pretty raw emotionally about the whole thing." (23:39)

Wendy mentions the pressure and the personal nature of contributing to the documentary, recognizing their role in preserving Prince's legacy while navigating personal sentiments.

10. Conclusion

The episode concludes with reflections on the enduring impact of Wendy and Lisa's work with Prince and their ongoing efforts to support and inspire women in music production. Tiffany Hansen wraps up by teasing the next installment of the "Equalizers" series, promising more insightful conversations with influential women in the industry.

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Key Takeaways:

• Trailblazers in Production: Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman broke barriers as the first women nominated for Grammy Producer of the Year, setting a precedent for future female producers.

• Collaborative Creativity: Their work with Prince and the Revolution was marked by intense collaboration, mutual production, and a shared commitment to excellence.

• Technical Mastery and Musicality: Both Wendy and Lisa possess exceptional technical skills and a deep musical intuition, enabling them to create innovative and emotionally resonant music.

• Advocacy for Women: The episode underscores the ongoing challenges women face in music production and highlights the need for systemic changes to foster a more inclusive and supportive environment.

• Legacy and Documentation: Wendy and Lisa's involvement in documenting Prince's legacy reflects their dedication to preserving authentic narratives amidst personal and professional complexities.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• "Purple Rain came out in 1984 and earned the band that nomination, as well as one for Album of the Year." – Tiffany Hansen (01:58)

• "I never really thought of myself as a producer. I just thought I was a music maker." – Lisa Coleman (04:03)

• "The energy was huge." – Wendy Melvoin (09:48)

• "We need to allow women the room and space and the encouragement to do it." – Lisa Coleman (19:11)

• "I think it's going to take a long time before a lot of records are produced by women and people let go of the automatic default goes to man." – Allison Stewart (20:40)

• "I think it's a shame that it ended up being as complicated and fraught as it ended up being." – Wendy Melvoin (22:31)

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This episode of "All Of It" offers a comprehensive look into the pioneering roles Wendy and Lisa have played in music production, their collaborative synergy with Prince, and the broader conversation around gender dynamics in the industry. It serves as both an inspiration and a call to action for fostering greater inclusivity and recognition of women behind the scenes in music.

Transcript

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[WNYC Studios]

Listener Supported WNYC Studios this is all.

[Tiffany Hansen]

Of it on wnyc. I'm Tiffany Hansen filling in for Allison Stewart. Thanks so much for spending part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming or on demand, we are grateful you're here on the show. Today, we're revisiting conversations in our Women's History Month series, Equalizers, Women in Music Production. You'll hear from Wendy and Lisa, Patrice Rushin, 2025 Grammy producer of the Year nominee, Alicia, and more. So let's start the show with some Prince and the Revolution.

[Prince]

I never meant to call you any.

[WNYC Studios]

Pain.

[Prince]

I don't want to watch the answer.

[Wendy Melvoin]

I only want to see you.

[Prince]

Landing in the black hole Rain Purple.

[Tiffany Hansen]

Rain Purple Rain Wendy and Lisa were the first two women ever nominated for the Grammy for Producer of the Year as part of Prince and the Revolution. Purple Rain came out in 1984 and earned the band that nomination, as well as one for Album of the Year. Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman were, of course, members of the Revolution before they stepped out as a duo on their own, releasing a series of albums on which they continued to serve as producers. They're also Grammy and Emmy Award winners. During their conversation with Allison, they were joined by another legend of music production, Susan Rogers, Prince's longtime staff engineer, who has also engineered musicians including David Byrne, Barenaked Ladies, and Wendy and Lisa. She's currently a professor in the Department of Music Production and Engineering at Berkeley. She called in to say hi to her old collaborators and friends. Here's our Equalizers installment with Wendy and Lisa and Susan Rogers.

[Lisa Coleman]

So the Revolution is officially credited as.

[Susan Rogers]

Producers on Purple Rain.

[Lisa Coleman]

Wendy, back in those early days, did.

[Susan Rogers]

You think of yourself as producers or was that just part of the music making process?

[WNYC Studios]

Well, that's a really good question because I think growing up, my ear kind of gravitated toward a producer's mind. I always heard things certain way and wanted to learn how to tweak certain things and was very interested in the actual recording process and all the gear and the technical side was always very interesting to me. So I always kind of I'm an autodidact kind of gearhead, so it wasn't it wasn't sort of out of character for me to want to go in that direction. I kind of always do that. And as Wendy and Lisa were kind of always producing each other as well, which is an interesting anomaly between the two of us as, as, as music partners, we, we are always producing each other. So it's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting question, but it's not far fetched from who I actually am.

[Susan Rogers]

How about for you, Lisa?

[Allison Stewart]

Yeah, I, I'm more the sort of it's all part of the same thing kind of person, I think, in terms of the whole arrangement usually. So it's, you know, just as the song happens, I think it's natural to serve the song and make it as good as it can be. And if that's what producing is, then that's what we do. But yeah, it's all part of the same thing. For me, it was. I never really thought of myself as a producer. I just thought I was a music maker.

[Susan Rogers]

Wendy, what did you learn about production while working with Prince and the Revolution?

[WNYC Studios]

The thoughtfulness about what's happening in an actual recording studio. And a great engineer can teach you that. And we worked with some fine engineers and I think I learned a lot about I can get the sounds that I want and arrangements that I want and musicians that could work for this or couldn't work for that or in. Prince was just, I mean, obviously he's a guy that could do it all himself. But there were some incredible lessons to be learned from his discipline and his thoughtfulness behind a board and how he ran a studio. So I learned a lot from that for sure. And you know, we had an engineer that we worked with for many years, Susan Rogers, that really taught me a lot about sound and about technique and I've carried that with me.

[Susan Rogers]

Hold the thought on Susan Rogers. We're going to talk about her in just a minute. Lisa, what is something from that time in your life that you still use today in your production in your music making?

[Allison Stewart]

Oh, wow. Well, I was thinking, well, Wendy was talking, you know, also about what, what I've learned and part of the working in the studio is just not to be intimidated by the gear. And, and it was great because we were younger and Prince was fearless and he played the studio like an instrument. He was just all over it. And so to witness that and to have that be the way that I learned was just great because, you know, I'm not afraid of pushing buttons and like, let's try this or you know, Just experimenting with the studio and not always, you know, being too intimidated by technology and, you know, like, I don't know how to work it. It really doesn't matter. Just turn it on and start fiddling. If it sounds cool, you're on the right track. That's where I'm at.

[Susan Rogers]

You're listening to another installment of our March series, Equalizers. I'm speaking to Wendy and Lisa, the first woman to be nominated for the Grammy for producer of the Year as part of Prince and the Revolution. Let's listen to a song from Purple Rain and we'll talk about it on the other side with a special guest. Here's let's Go Crazy.

[Prince]

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. Electric word, life. It means forever and that's a mighty long time. But I'm here to tell you there's something else. The afterworld. A world of never ending happiness. You can always see the sun, day or night. So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, you know, the one doctor, everything will be all right. Instead of asking him how much of.

[Lisa Coleman]

Your time is left, Ask him how.

[Prince]

Much of your mind, baby. Cause the messy life Things are much harder than the after world. This life, you're on your own. And if the elevator tries to break.

[Lisa Coleman]

You down I'm crazy. I want to bring in another guest here. We're celebrating women in production and engineering all month. And if we're doing that, we're going to talk to engineer Susan Rogers. She has just been named by Wendy. Susan was Prince's staff engineer throughout the 80s and has engineered many other musicians, including David Byrne, Barenaked Ladies, and Wendy and Lisa. She's currently a professor in music production and engineer at Berklee School. Susan, welcome.

[Patrice Rushin]

Hi, Allison. Hi, Wendy and Lisa. Nice to join you all.

[WNYC Studios]

Hi, darling.

[Patrice Rushin]

Hi.

[Lisa Coleman]

Susan, what do you remember about the sessions around Purple Rain?

[Patrice Rushin]

Oh, golly. It was such an intense time. And when I think back to it, that was over 40 years ago. And we were young and we had that combination of seriousness that young people have and great doubt and then overconfidence. And you pile all that together and then when you add the raw talent of Wendy and Lisa and Prince and the revolution, you combine all that. It's pretty potent mixture. We didn't realize it at the time, but we can look back on it now and realize, damn, we had it going on, didn't we?

[Lisa Coleman]

Wendy, what do you remember about that time?

[WNYC Studios]

Well, she's. She's spot on. I would just I would just add to the. The energy kind of like the, the system, the dynamics between everybody and what they were giving. Everybody gave their A game, so you knew what you were doing was something kind of otherworldly because you could just feel that it. It felt different than most stuff. And I'm sure every artist at some point in their career taps onto something that feels bigger than them. And that whole time felt bigger than all of us, but bigger than the sum, bigger than the one it was, the sum total of all of it. So I remember a million different things, but the energy was huge.

[Lisa Coleman]

Lisa, how about you?

[Allison Stewart]

Yeah, yeah, right on. Everybody also, it was just. We worked from morning to night. It was, you know, it was all day, every day. It was our life. That's how we spent our life. We woke up in the morning and went to the warehouse and it was either recording, rehearsing, doing acting lessons, you know, doing dance lessons for the film. You know, all this stuff. It was a daily thing and it was all day. So I just remember that being just a whole new kind of life.

[Susan Rogers]

Susan, you've also worked on Wendy and Lisa's albums. We're gonna talk about them like they're not here.

[Lisa Coleman]

What do you think their skill set is?

[Susan Rogers]

What do they do better than anyone else?

[Patrice Rushin]

Oh. Oh. They are so deeply, innately musical. When Lisa's on a keyboard, especially on piano, Wendy said it once. She pets the keys, you can just feel her heart going right to her hands. And the way she coaxes music out of an instrument is astonishing. It's really breathtaking. And Wendy's skill set on guitar and her ear and her taste, and you can imagine her thinking as she plays, she's filtering all the things she might be playing and then deciding on, here's what would be perfect in this moment, you're. You're watching maestros. Is that, is that the, the feminine pronunciation of maestro?

[Lisa Coleman]

Let's do it.

[Patrice Rushin]

Watching masters at work, when, when you work with them, it's. It's really amazing.

[Susan Rogers]

Okay, we're going to talk about you like you aren't here. Susan. Wendy, why was Susan the right person to work with on your albums after the Revolution?

[WNYC Studios]

Because she's superlative. I mean, if you get a, get a list in high school of who's the funniest, who's the best, who's this? Susan's at the top of that list. And it was a no brainer for me and Lisa to use her because she has an incredible ability to learn the technical side of what she does, which I mean, just listening to her talk and as a teacher, now anyone's blessed to have her as their teacher because the way she can explain something in terms for the. For the common man is spectacular. And in the studio, it's very same. And her enthusiasm and the love that she cares and approaches everything from, like, a piece of gear to the sound coming through the speakers. I remember one time Susan was explaining to me how women and men differently hear low end, and that women hear low end more of a. More warmth. And I've never forgotten that. And when I listen back to the albums that me and Lisa did with Susan, there's a kind of puffiness to the sound of those records, for lack of a better way to describe it, a puffiness that has a lot of warmth as well. But there's a punch to it that only. Only at the time I could imagine, only Susan could have done. I've tried to recreate that kind of stuff, and I've never been able to recreate the kind of ear she has. She has a singular ear.

[Lisa Coleman]

Lisa, how about you?

[Allison Stewart]

Oh, wow. I mean, I. I just can't say enough. And, yeah, she's a unique creature. The. The. The. The amazing technical knowledge that she has. It. It's just incredible. She can build something out of nothing. You know, I asked her. I had a trouble, a problem with one of my keyboards back in the. In the 1900s, and things were very difficult back then. And she, like, just put a tuning knob on the front of my keyboard. She just drilled a hole and somehow figured out how to do that. And, you know, and. And so that's just amazing in itself. And then her heart, the heart that she puts into everything. Wendy said she cares about everything that she does. She cares about the music and the way that you're doing the music. And then, like, if you're hungry or something, like, she's the package. She's just an incredible person.

[Lisa Coleman]

Susan, we have a song here that.

[Susan Rogers]

You worked on for Mother of Pearls called from your 1990 album, Erotica, if I'm saying correctly.

[Lisa Coleman]

What did you want to highlight this track?

[Susan Rogers]

Eroica. Thank you.

[Patrice Rushin]

Yeah, we spent a lot of months on that album, and it was delightful because it's wonderful working with Wendy and Lisa, and you learn so much from. Any technical professional who's worked with them will admit how much they've learned about music and the art of sound from working with Wendy and Lisa. Every track on that record is marvelous. I just picked this one because it's the most recent one I've Listened to, they're all really fabulous. But this really does feature the best of what Wendy and Lisa do. And you'll hear that quality in it of sculpting music with a gentle and firm hand. You. You hear their musical minds at work, and that's always a treat.

[Susan Rogers]

Let's listen to Mother of Pearl.

[Wendy Melvoin]

Drowning Passions Falsely Made Cold Stare Mixed Light and Size Me Up. Make sure that it fits and I'll be so nonchalant.

[Lisa Coleman]

Susan, before we let you go, something I wanted to ask you about. What is. Because you're a professor at Berkeley, what is something that we could do better to make more space for women in production?

[Patrice Rushin]

Oh, gosh, Allison, that's a really hard question to answer. I know. I've been asked, and I'm sure Wendy and Lisa have too, for over four decades. It's a complicated equation. There are reasons why women choose not to enter these fields, and then, of course, there are reasons why women want to and are blocked. But, wow, it's a bigger question than I can answer.

[Lisa Coleman]

Susan Rogers is a professor in music production and engineering at Berkeley and a.

[Susan Rogers]

Veteran of recording engineering.

[Lisa Coleman]

Susan, thank you so much for being with us.

[Patrice Rushin]

Thank you for having me. Bye, buddies. I miss you guys.

[Allison Stewart]

I love you both. Love you.

[Lisa Coleman]

Wendy, did you want to answer that question, how we can make more room.

[Susan Rogers]

For women in production?

[WNYC Studios]

Susan's really correct. We could spend an entire hour just talking about the difficulty and try and come up with some kind of master plan. We've been literally trying to figure this out for ages. And I think I've spent a lot of time in other studios now working with a lot of different people and trying to get my hands on producing other people. And there are a lot more engineers that are female that are coming up, and there are a handful of women coming up in the producer world that are getting their hands on more pop music. I'd like to be able to see more producers in different genres of music, not just in the pop world. Like, there's a lot of, like, DJ female DJs that are turning into to producers, but they're doing a lot of dance music. I'd like to see a lot more women getting into a room that can, like, actually work with either a band or artists and do the best for the artist and get the best out of their songs. You know, to get in the room with a woman who could produce a record as well as someone like Mitchell Froome could, or, you know, there's. The list goes on and on and on. I think that we Just need to allow women the room and space and the encouragement to do it. And I think a lot of it, and I don't want. This is not like man, woman, blah, blah, blah, but a lot of the guys gotta, gotta make a little bit more room. There's, it's a, there's a little bit of a. I don't know, there just seems to be not as much room as I'd like to see some of the men give these women. There's, it's like, it's still, it's very similar to the, the cooking world and a lot of men chefs and women chefs. It seems to be, there's a, that's a very common thread between female producers and male producers. You could draw a correlation between male chefs and female chefs if you look at it closely.

[Susan Rogers]

That's interesting. What do you think, Lisa?

[Allison Stewart]

Wow. Well, I think, not to disparage men or anything, but get out of the way. I think it's a matter of education and I think it's just going to take some time. And I think that for lots of people, women included, when you say who do you want to produce your record? In your mind you automatically think a man producer. You say who produced the record? You think it's a man. So I, I think it's going to take a long time before a lot of records are produced by women and people let go of the, just the automatic default goes to man.

[WNYC Studios]

That's true. And I, I would add too, that, that because so many people are doing their records in their, in their houses now, I mean, there's really everything is streaming and everybod doing everything in their room. Women are doing a lot more themselves. So it's just the 1%. They're actually getting really, really famous and being able to stream or actually get signed. I mean, the women are out there, but the, the, you know, the 1% is, is almost non existent.

[Lisa Coleman]

Wendy.

[Susan Rogers]

Lisa, we booked you months ago, not months ago, weeks ago to be a part of our series. But you happened to show up on a day that the daily. The New York Times did a podcast about Prince and the documentary that we will not see, we will not see for Netflix. You're in the documentary. It includes details about Prince, the women in his orbit, some complicated relationships. Wendy.

[WNYC Studios]

Indeed.

[Susan Rogers]

Have you had any thoughts about the documentary? Never. It might never be seen.

[WNYC Studios]

Yeah, I've had many thoughts about it. I think it's a, I think it's a shame that it, that it ended up being as complicated and fraught as it ended up being. I wish it hadn't ended up being that way. So many complications. I can't really get into the details of it because it could get me in trouble. But I will say that it's there. There are some magical moments in that documentary, and I hope at some point the world can see them.

[Susan Rogers]

Lisa, how did you decide to be part of the documentary?

[Allison Stewart]

Wow. It took a long time. It took a lot of conviction, to be honest. I think Wendy and I were like the last interviews to be done, and there were a lot of reasons. I wasn't sure that it was time to do that big documentary. And we had just come off, like, touring and grieving and doing a lot of that processing. And I kind of was. Needed a break from it.

[WNYC Studios]

We were pretty raw.

[Allison Stewart]

Yeah, we were pretty raw emotionally about the whole thing. But I decided to be part of it because I felt like I had a real honest opinion and experience of Prince. And I wanted to share my point of view, you know, because there started to be a lot of negativity put out and, you know, so that was a little difficult.

[Lisa Coleman]

Wendy, did you want to add something?

[WNYC Studios]

I'm just in wholehearted agreement with Lisa. There was a lot of difficulty around it, and it was true. Lisa and I were kind of the last holdouts. And I think it was Questlove that came up to me and Lisa, like, at the ninth hour and said, could you guys just please, please do it. You know, it's. It's part of you. You're. You're the legacy. You gotta. You guys gotta do this. And we were like, okay, let's. Let's go for it. But we were. We were the holdout. We didn't know that it would be the right time. And. And that's not. I mean, not to say that what Ezra did or what anybody's involvement was, was wrong. It was just basically from. For me and Lisa, wasn't time we were cutting, kind of holding on to, like, our experience of it. And we just was like Jesus at our time to be involved in that. Is this the right thing for the Wendy and Lisa to do? It was, you know, dare I say, slightly more selfish, I guess.

[Tiffany Hansen]

You've been listening to an installment of our Women's History Month series, Equalizers. Women in Music Production, featuring Wendy and Lisa and engineer Susan Rogers will be back with Patrisse Rushin and more Equalizers. Stay with us.

[Progressive Insurance]

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