By Colin Burns

By the time we came to record the second album Villa Jukejoint the Cinelli Brothers trio had become a quartet with the addition of Tom Julian Jones on harmonica, guitar and vocals. The album title ‘Villa Jukejoint refers to Marco and Alessandro’s bungalow where the album was recorded with many guests and session musicians as well as the four members of the band and myself.

A juke joint was an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking,
primarily operated by African Americans in the southeastern United States. These places featured
‘Juke’ boxes and also live music, mainly the blues.

Villa Juke Joint was recorded mostly in three day sessions every two weeks from September to
Christmas 2019.
In homage to chess records and old school 1950’s recording techniques we had set ourselves the
goal of capturing the audio live through a single microphone having first got a good balance in
the room.

First we hired and then bought a Røde NTR microphone. A very sensitive ribbon microphone with a figure of eight polar response pattern (this means it is equally responsive front and back while picking up next to nothing at either side), this has the advantage of allowing a vocalist to sing into the front while the microphone is equally picking up instruments at the back.

The audio capture was simple enough... One microphone into a Focusrite interface into a MacBook into one track in Logic, Apple’s multi channel audio software.

Positioning of the microphone in the room and positioning amplifiers relative to the microphone was
not so simple and involved us in a good deal of discussion and some trial and error and test
recordings. Sometimes we would run the guitar signal into two or three amplifiers changing their
positions relative to the Microphone until we were happy with the sound. We would also use
blankets carpets and clothes rails to create screens to further direct and control the sound.

The instrumentation was not the same for each number. Some songs had horns, others had horns and backing vocals so the microphone and amplifier positions would change almost every song. On “Last Cigarette” we had horns and a vibraphone as well as the four band members.

On “Wanna Have A Good Time” we had the band members and a horn section.
On “Married Woman” Marco plays piano so the microphone placement and instrument and amp
positions were changed yet again.

On “Choo Ma Gum” and “Married Woman” Max Benoist came and filmed us and the resulting videos reflect the atmosphere and the intensity of the performances.

While the band were recording these songs young Italian artist Settecamicie was working on
extensive cartoon illustrations for the album artwork.

These illustrations tell a story about each song and the characters involved. The band are portrayed throughout as circus monkeys.. This reflects how the band members often see themselves relative to the current state of the music “business” and how it exploits the dreams and expectations of poor young musicians struggling to make it in an increasingly cynical industry.