Hi all, just thought I'd share what I gathered from the making of Brothers In Arms, as more of an overview... Please let me know what you think. Enjoy!
2 - 31 October 1984: Dire Straits rehearse material for the album at Phil Manzanera's The Gallery studios in Chertsey, England. Mark would play each song first on an acoustic guitar, and everyone would work out their parts from there. Gradually, they would fine-tune the songs and arrangements.
2 November - 21 December 1984: The first set of sessions took place at AIR Studios in Montserrat, with Neil Dorfsman as engineer & co-producer. They were off to a slow start, however, with erratic weather affecting the studio's power generator for the first two weeks... So it was harder to record at first.
Typically, Guy Fletcher would program a drum machine and sequencer as a guide, and the band played live to that in the studio - guitars, bass, drums & keyboards. Plus the usual overdubs. They recorded onto their own Sony digital 24-track tape machine - state-of-the-art at the time, but this had its own problems including tape dropouts.
However, about six weeks into the sessions, it became clear the drum parts weren't happening, so they let Terry Williams fly home early for Christmas...
Hal Lindes had also left early in the sessions for more personal reasons, with Jack Sonni taking his place.
3 January - 6 February 1985: The band continue recording on Montserrat for a second round. This time, session drummer Omar Hakim was flown over for a few days to help salvage the record. As Omar remembered it, they basically re-recorded some songs with him, Mark and John playing together - this way, a solid foundation was there... Others had drums overdubbed to them, e.g. "Money For Nothing" which had Terry's drum intro and tom-tom fills, and "Why Worry" which only had a click track.
Sting also recorded his vocals for "Money For Nothing" in early January. He was on holiday on Montserrat; he'd stopped by for dinner with Mark and the band, and the collaboration happened from there... Right place, right time as Sting said.
Not only that, Omar Hakim recalled meeting Sting at that said dinner. He soon auditioned for and got the gig with Sting for the Dream of the Blue Turtles album & tour in 1985-86.
7 February - 10 March 1985: Final overdubs and possible mixing at the Power Station in New York, USA. They invited more session musicians to contribute parts, including Jimmy Maelen, Michael & Randy Brecker, Mike Mainieri and so on... John sprained his wrist whilst jogging in Central Park, so session bassists Tony Levin and Neil Jason were invited to overdub bass parts. There was also one incident on "Your Latest Trick" where Randy Brecker's saxophone suddenly disappeared on the Sony 24-track, but luckily it was retrieved with the help of a technician.
12-31 March 1985: Mixing and additional edits at AIR Studios, while the band are busy rehearsing for the tour.
Please bear in mind I had to word this a bit carefully due to some conflicting accounts/recollections, to keep it more simple. Dates are taken from the BIA 85/86 tour program. Thank you!
