I’ve been fortunate enough to work with James Taylor’s early albums a lot through my job. When I was looking at the track sheets for his In The Pocket album, I remember seeing a track labeled “voice organ.” The labeling seemed oddly specific, and I had absolutely no idea what that was. When I played the track, it sounded like voices singing notes but unnaturally so. It definitely had a mechanical feel to it, almost like a Mellotron. Having never heard this album before and really digging it upon first listen, I mentioned it to my mentor shortly thereafter and also brought up this voice organ track I saw on the track sheets. “Oh, yeah, the voice organ. I helped build that,” he said. “What? You built that?” I asked. “Yeah. They recorded that album at Warner Bros. Studios while I was a tech over there. They wanted to have voices that they could play on a keyboard, so we recorded people singing single notes to tape and basically built a keyboard system so they could trigger the recorded voices.” Ask, and you shall receive, as they say.
Song: “Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream”
Artist: James Taylor
Songwriter(s): James Taylor
Album(s): In The Pocket
Release Year(s): 1976
Song: “Morning Glory”
Artist: Oasis
Songwriter(s): Noel Gallagher
Album(s): (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?
Release Year(s): 1995
I Wish You Would Hear Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6jFrq03xPtVVOexYHZF1OW?si=bc9df95d2d854d