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Roger Deller is a master technician with 30 years experience supporting many Grammy winning engineers at world class studios. He has been Chief Tech at Electric Lady Studios for the past 4 years. He was Chief Tech at Clinton Recording for over 20 years and a technician at Hit Factory NY and Media Sound, where he started this “crazy” career.
In addition to repair and maintenance of an extremely wide range of gear for the above, he does freelance work for many studios including design, installation, wiring, and the “sometimes sad” decommissioning. “I love being able to keep the music flowing and stuff out of landfills, not to mention keeping the clients happy.”
Lately, I have been doing some work for a high profile client in Minneapolis that involved getting an SSL 8000, a two inch 24 track tape deck, and whatever else up to par. It has been a wonderful opportunity where I met some wonderful people working in a high stress situation. During my last 3 “tours of duty” I had the privilege to work with a truly great person and engineer, who made us all laugh and kept the perspective for us all that were working with him.
Sadly, Booker T. Jones III passed just before the holidays. I had never met him before, but felt as though we “knew” each other for a very long time. He shared many stories about the LA and Chicago music scenes which was a great education for me. I, in turn, shared stories about the NYC music recording scene, and enjoyed returning the favor with some laugh-out-loud situations. Most important was his love of life, music, and the people he worked with. He kept a perspective that encouraged us and made me feel more at ease.
It is very important in this industry to keep your head when you are working with no, little, or wrong information on very complex equipment for a very demanding client. If any of his family, kids, and past friends read this please know that he was a truly great human being that I will sorely miss. My condolences.
I will be writing more for this site soon and hope to bring some laughs and perspective to all of you, whether still in, or just starting in this crazy industry. Good luck to all, and cheers to Booker!
roger@electricladystudios.com
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One reply on “A Tribute to Booker T…”
What a lovely tribute.