If there's one thing Danny Kortchmar hates, it's being typecast as a member of L.A.'s "Mellow Mafia." It's true that he has won considerable notoriety playing guitar for soft-rock honchos like James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt and Carole King. He's co-written quite a few tunes with Jackson Browne and co-produced two albums for former Eagle Don Henley. But with his

greased-back black hair and clipped, tough-sounding accent, Kortchmar is the archetypal New York street kid. His direct, point-blank manner cuts right through any visions of health-food cafes; Jacuzzis and laid-back vibes that the names listed above may conjure up.

Comfortably settled in a lounge at Record One-the L.A. studio where he does many of his projects-Kortchmar seems intent on clarifying his musical identity once and for all. "It's all very funny," he reflects, "all this stuff about the 'California Sound.' First of all, I know very few people here who are actually from California. And the whole idea of the California Sound became a big thing in the Seventies, but it's got nothing to do with the Eighties.

"The idea of identifying me as a part of the Mellow Mafia at this point is just ridiculous. Just listen to the albums I've done over the past five or six years. Don Henley's Building the Perfect Beast is about as California-sounding as the 1812 Overture. It doesn't have anything to do with acoustic guitars or 'I gave my love a cherry . . .' or whatever. I'm a soul guy."

What Kortchmar does derive from his days as a sideman for the Seventies' leading singer/songwriters is a deeply ingrained respect for "the song" as the most important aspect of any recording venture. It's an orientation that led him naturally and easily from playing sessions to producing them. In April, he was in the midst of producing an album for EMI artist Eric Martin. Kortchmar has filled the tracking rooms and corridors of Record One with the cream of L.A. session musicians, including drummer Rick Marotta, bassist Randy Jackson, guitarist Waddy Wachtel and keyboardists Paul Shaffer and Bill Payne. They're all members of an extended musical family, and all are more than happy to lay down a few grooves for "Kootch"-to use the teenage nickname that has stuck with Kortchmar throughout his career. But for all the instrumental prowess these players have brought to the record, Kortchmar has kept the project squarely focused on the songs themselves.

"I just like songs," he offers. "I've always related to them. Even growing up as a guitar player, I wasn't fascinated just with the guitar. I was fascinated with how the guitar fit into the song as a whole. The guitarists I was attracted to were guitarists who played parts in songs-guys like Steve Cropper or Curtis Mayfield during his Impressions days. When everyone was raving about Eric Clapton, I was listening to Steve Cropper. Nobody could understand why I would be interested in somebody who was just playing rhythm on these soul records, rather than a pyrotechnic wizard or a guitar hero like Clapton. Not that those guys aren't great. They are. But I was much more interested in the little details that Cropper or Mayfield or Cornell Dupree would add to records they played on." Given this song orientation, it isn't too surprising that Kortchmar's first professional musical outing-following a series of R&B cover bands he played with as a kid-was a group called the Flying Machine with James Taylor. But when the group couldn't get a major label to cough up a contract, the Flying Machine foundered. Kortchmar went on to a bizarre assortment of late-Sixties gigs, including six months with the Fugs-then and forever the undisputed masters of New York's Lower East Side post-beatnik ribaldry. They paid Kortchmar $100 a week, and he played on their Tenderness Junction LP.

From there, Kootch moved on to a psychedelic band, Clear Light. The group had already passed the zenith of its career-namely an underground radio hit, "Mr. Blue," and a cameo role in James Coburn's film, The President's Analyst-but his five-month tenure with them brought Kortchmar out to California. One of his earliest California projects was a hand called the City, which featured an ex-Brill Building singer/ songwriter named Carole King. After the City disbanded, Kortchmar went on to play on King's breakthrough album, Tapestry.

The Seventies had arrived, and the singer/songwriter vogue was in full swing. Another member of the new elite was Kootch's old crony, James Taylor. The guitarist got together with drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Lee Sklar and keyboardist Craig Doerge to back Taylor on his first national tour They became Taylor's permanent backing band and one of the most sought-after session groups of the singer/ songwriter era. As the Section, they even went on to record several albums of their own.

The Section, though, was only one of several super-sessioneer groups Kortchmar has belonged to over the years. Another was Attitudes, which Kortchmar describes as a "space funk band" and which included drummer Jim Keltner. The group's pianist was David Foster, who soon became a multi-platinum producer. Between projects like this and session work with Linda Ronstadt, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Jackson Browne, Kortchmar's reputation as an ace session guitarist grew.

In addition to playing guitar for Browne, Kortchmar also struck up a fruitful songwriting partnership with him. The two co-wrote "Shakey Town," "Tender Is the Night," "Knock on Any Door" and "Somebody's Baby," the latter recorded by Browne for the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack.

"Jackson and I live near each other, so we spend a lot of time just hanging out and tossing ideas around," says Kortchmar. "My style is very rhythm-oriented, and I think it was kind of new for Jackson. You can see my influence on 'Somebody's Baby,' for example. It's more of a standard rock-style song, as opposed to the kind of song Jackson often writes. He has this sort of linear style of writing a wonder inventive style of his. But 'Somebody's Baby' has more of a standard verse-chorus-bridge type of form."

Kortchmar could have easily coasted for years on his mid-Seventies session and songwriting credits and his work with the Section. But the late Seventies brought several turning points in his career. In fact, one of the reasons the Mellow Mafia tag irks him so much is that he took several very deliberate steps to change the way people perceived his work. One of these steps was a 1980 Asylum solo album called Innuendo.

"It's all hard rock," Kortchmar beams. "I knew I was going to be seen as James Taylor's guitar player for the rest of my life unless I did something to change that. Innuendo was what I did. Also, I was determined: I was through playing laid-back music. It was never what I'd had in mind in the first place. I wanted to play very raucous, aggressive stuff. I like music that has a groove and that's intense. Those are the qualities I'd like to be known for as a record producer, too.

"Also, back in '78, when the punk revolution came along, I had a feeling the California Mellow Mafia sound was going to be hopelessly outdated. I said, 'Man, this spells doom for a lot of us unless we change up. Our stuff is going to sound so hopelessly laid-back and dated that it's going to seem like we're all on Thorazine.' Don't get me wrong. I'm proud of all the soft-rock stuff I did with Carole King and everyone else. I think their work is brilliant; I always will. But I knew I had to do something to establish myself so that I would not be listed with these people."

Around this time, Kortchmar branched out into record production. His first shot was producing an album for Carole King's daughter, Louise Goffin, in 1979. Kortchmar found the move a fairly painless one. "The producers I had worked with as a guitarist really did a lot to prepare me," he explains. "Especially Peter Asher ~Linda Ronstadt's and James Taylor's producer. Peter really encouraged all the musicians he worked with to think like producers, to play parts a producer would tell you to play. After working with him for so many years, I felt I was pretty qualified to produce."

Kootch's interest in more aggressive musical styles and his newly acquired production chops came together on I Can 't Stand Still, the 1982 album he co-produced with ex-Eagle Don Henley. Henley, another old friend from the Seventies, thought of Kortchmar when he needed someone to help him produce his solo album. "Don being such a brilliant guy, everyone wanted to produce him" Kortchmer reports. "He just felt he would get along with me best. And he also knew I would take chances. He was afraid of being too safe and predictable, which is a wonderful attitude when you consider that a lot of artists are afraid of just the opposite. They're afraid to depart from the style they're known for. Henley also wanted to get funky on the record. With my R&B background, he knew he could get that from me.

Along with his production work, Kortchmar began writing songs with Henley, contributing to I Can 't Stand Still and Henley's second solo outing, Building the Perfect Beast. "That second record is much more adventurous," Kortchmar says. "We also better defined Don's style."

The third member of the production team for both Henley albums was engineer/producer Greg Ladanyi, another Jackson Browne alumnus. Kootch likes to work with Ladanyi on a regular basis, as the guitarist (admittedly not a technical producer) is content to leave most of the knob-twirling to Ladanyi.

"I'm not the kind of producer who usually has his hands on the board. In other words, I'm not an engineer-producer. I'm more of a musician-producer. My areas of expertise in record production are picking songs and arranging the songs."

A typical Danny Kortchmar production begins with a careful selection process, where the best material for the record is chosen. Not surprisingly, Kootch places a great deal of emphasis on the lyrics.

"Lyrics, to me, are not like the tambourine overdub," he says. "Lyrics are what the song is about. Remember, I'm spoiled from working with the very best songwriters, who all write great lyrics. So when somebody brings me a song which is very interesting musically, but has cliche-ridden lyrics or approaches its subject matter in a hackneyed way, it's a bad song as far as I'm concerned."

Once the songs are selected, the preproduction phase begins. In the case of his work with Don Henley, Kortchmar plays an active role in demoing each song in advance. "I have a little Fostex 8-track setup at my house," he explains. "Usually, Don and I demo the songs there. When we get into the studio, we know exactly what we're going to do. The song is storyboarded, as it were. With Eric Martin's project, I started by listening to his demo about 50 times. I listened until I started to hear a way of recording each song that I felt would be right for it. Each song dictates its own approach. And then, we rehearsed for three days before we did any recording."

Only after these preliminaries are squared away does the project enter the recording studio. As mentioned earlier, one of Kortchmar's favorite places to work is Record One, the studio owned and designed by yet another top L.A. producer, Val Garay. "Val built this place for us," says Kortchmar. "That is, for the musicians, the producers and the whole gang of people who worked together in the Seventies. So I feel the most comfortable here. I also feel that, soundwise, I know what I'm getting here. Outside of Record One, Greg and I have also been doing some work at the Complex, which was built by George Massenberg. George has built his own computer console, and we love mixing on it."

The groove is an all-important production consideration for Kortchmar, so he likes to keep his basic tracks solid and simple. "For the Eric Martin record," he says, "Greg and I recorded the basic tracks with just three instruments. We want to know what we have. We wanted to be sure the basic rhythm instruments are working together perfectly before we start adding things. Once we have that, we overdub from there. If session players are needed, there's a pool of L.A. musicians I draw from. There are so many excellent players out here, and they're all like different colors on a pallet. Each musician has a different style and, of course, a different personality."

Many musician-producers prefer not to play on records they produce. Some want to maintain a detached, objective perspective, while others feel their role as producer gives them enough to worry about. But Kortchmar has made his guitar talents a part of his production expertise. "I figure I'm always going to play on a project," he explains. "It's one of the ways I can speak more easily, rather than trying to verbalize musical ideas. The best way I can establish the kind of pocket I want is to go out and play it with the band. Engineer-producers can't just grab a guitar and say, 'It goes like this.' But I came up as a player and I see no reason not to use this valuable tool.

"But what you don't want to do," he continues, is tie the musicians down. You let them play swinging parts. What I believe in is creating an atmosphere in the studios that's creative and upbeat. In other words, I'm not the sort of producer who sits around with a big serious expression on his map all the time. I believe there has to be a joy involved. Music is a joyous experience, and that joy should come through on the grooves.

Having made his mark as a musician, songwriter and producer, Kortchmar plans to do quite a bit of each in the near future. Although still relatively new to producing, be has a clear-cut idea of the type of productions at which he excels.

"I like to work with the type of artists that have a vision," be concludes, "a point of view, a style. something they stand for. As a producer, what you want to avoid are artists you have to save people who have no style of their own and want you to impart a style to them. I don't need to be a Svengali. I don't believe in playing ~ psychological games with artists in the studio, and I don't believe in treating them with kid gloves, either. What I say to them, in so many words, is this: 'You be the artist and I'll be the producer. Being the artist means you have a point of view. You use these particular colors and this particular in type of brush stroke. That's your style. If you don't have that, you're not an artist.

By his own definition, Danny Kortchmar more than qualifies to be called an artist. You can call him a consummate craftsman who's learned all the skills necessary to bring a good song to life on vinyl. Or call him a master musician who has made the recording studio his ultimate instrument. But whatever you do, just don't call him "laid back."

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