When Kim Carnes hit the top of the pop charts in spring 1981 with Bette Davis Eyes, the song’s sleek, modern sound bore almost no resemblance to the demo that had first crossed producer Val Garay’s desk. That recording, a rollicking, Leon Russell-flavoured number with what Garay described as a beer-barrel polka piano part, was written in the mid-’70s by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon, who had been inspired by a scene in the 1942 film Now Voyager. DeShannon had cut it herself in a country setting for her 1975 album New Arrangement, and it had largely sat dormant since. Garay loved the melody and the lyrics, but knew the arrangement needed to be torn down to the studs.
The person who rebuilt it was keyboardist Bill Cuomo, who devised the now-iconic synthesiser riff that gives the track its unmistakable identity. Cuomo also served as musical director, leading a band assembled from both Carnes’ preferred players and Garay’s regulars: drummer Craig Krampf, bassist Bryan Garofalo, guitarist Craig Hull, guitarists Steve Goldstein and Josh Leo (replaced at the last minute by Waddy Wachtel after Leo fell ill), and percussionist M.L. Benoit. After three weeks of rehearsal at Leeds rehearsal studio in North Hollywood, the group convened at Garay’s own facility, Record One in Sherman Oaks.
Garay had built Record One in 1979 at a cost of $2.5 million. The control room was modelled to the eighth of an inch on the Sound Factory in Hollywood, same dimensions, same console placement, anchored by an API console. The main tracking room was an L-shaped space, slightly larger than its Sound Factory inspiration. For tape, Garay ran 24-track 3M Model 79 machines, which he considers the finest-sounding analogue recorders ever made for their low-end weight and character.
The entire track was cut live, no overdubs of any kind. Carnes sang in a vocal booth adjoining the control room into a Neumann U67 tube microphone running into the API, the same signal chain Garay had used on every vocalist throughout his career. He thought so highly of the U67 that when building Record One he contacted Neumann directly and ordered ten new units. The drum kit was tracked with a Sennheiser MD 421 on the bass drum, a Shure SM56 on the top of the snare, a Sennheiser MD 441 on the bottom, Telefunken ELA M 251s on the toms and as overheads, and an AKG C 452 on the hi-hat, close-miked for a tight, hot, bright sound.
Guitars were recorded with Shure SM53s, a mic Garay favoured for its warmth and bottom end. Synths were taken both direct and via a mic on an amplifier, since Garay found a fully direct signal produced a harsh, homogenised quality he wanted to avoid. The wildcard was the Synare electronic drum pad that Craig Krampf had been hauling into every rehearsal. Garay had been dismissing it all through pre-production, “I was like, ‘Craig, get rid of that thing!'”, but Krampf was relentless.
When it landed in the chorus, it was undeniable. That electronic crack became one of the track’s defining sonic signatures. They cut three takes. Take one was the record. Garay ran a rough mix that same night and spent four days trying to top it when formal mixing began weeks later. He never did. Fortunately, he’d had the sense to print that first pass to quarter-inch tape.
Bette Davis Eyes spent nine weeks at Number One and topped the charts in 31 countries. It won Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the 1982 Grammys. By any measure, it was a masterclass in knowing when to leave a track alone.