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“It took me literally two years to find guys who could play the music,” Holvay recalls. “These are the road dogs — they go out with the O’Jays and the Temptations when they tour. The bass player’s main gig is in Al McKay’s Earth, Wind & Fire. The drummer is currently out with Robert Cray. They work with all those acts, so they are masters of that music.”
“Duane Benjamin, the horn and string arranger, is also a trombone player and has played with Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin. He’s done strings for every R&B star in the business.
The horn parts he writes are right on, too. I can tell him, ‘This is like an Impressions type tune,’ and he says to me, ‘I know exactly what you want.’ I can tell all these guys, ‘This is the groove,’ and bam!, there it is.”
As on the previous release, the recordings on This Girl were carefully built from the ground up, instrument by instrument, by Holvay, engineer Steve Cohen, and mixer Cameron Lew.
“I record the basic tracks in Steve Cohen’s studio, Lake Transfer, in North Hollywood” Holvay says. “He lays down a click track so that, as I bring in musicians, the time will be right. I’ll sit on the mic, sing a work vocal and play the guitar. Steve finds the right tempo. I may add a scratch bass line, because I also play bass. Then I bring in Stu Pearlman on the keyboard.”
“In order to get that Morris Jennings (Chicago soul session drummer), we cut the final drum track in the kitchen at my house — Steve happened to be over at my house one day; we were in the kitchen, which is tiled and has a high wooden ceiling, and after I described the sound I wanted, he clapped his hands and said, ‘You know, this would be a cool place to cut your drums.’ I said, ‘Can you do that?’ And he said, ‘Yeah,” and Les Falconer recorded the drums on Steve’s laptop in my kitchen.”
The elegant string and horn arrangements on This Girl were crafted in the classic manner of the noted Chicago R&B arranger Johnny Pate. “I sent MP3s to Duane Benjamin. He booked a big studio, Echo Bar, out in North Hollywood, and the strings and horns were recorded there. We used six strings, and we doubled them, and two trombones and two trumpets, and we doubled those. That’s why it sounds so fat.”
A lot of time and effort went into the creation of the sound heard on This Girl, which some might consider “old school.” But it’s also as modern as yesterday: Anyone who also cocks an ear to contemporary radio will be immediately struck by the similarity between Holvay’s music and “Leave the Door Open,” the 2021 smash hit by Silk Sonic, the hot neo-soul unit fronted by Bruno Mars and Anderson.Paak.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Holvay learned that there is just one degree of separation between his music and Mars’ during a chance encounter with the young star in a Sherman Oaks restaurant a few years ago.
Holvay recalls, “One of the members of the MOB was Little Albert Maligmat, who was later in the Society of Seven. They were from Hawaii — they were the big show band over there. Bruno, who was born and raised in Hawaii and like Albert is from a Filipino background, said, ‘I was supposed to take Little Albert’s place in the Society of Seven. He was my idol.’ Then later he hooks up with Anderson.Paak, and they’re doing vintage soul music!”
He adds, “The fact that Silk Sonic was recognized for record of the year and song of the year at the Grammy Awards this year really legitimized the music that I’m doing and the music of anyone else doing something similar.
The Recording Academy said, ‘People like this music, and it’s valid today.’ It’s not just some guys trying to bring back the past.”