Music Man
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(Photo by Marshall Franklin Long)
As I pull up to Paul Peterson’s studio just off of France Avenue in Edina the gears in my head start turning. “Is this [the former] Flyte Tyme Studios?,” I think. As Peterson, an Edina resident, greets me at the front entrance the portrait of Jimmy “Jam” Harris and Terry Lewis hanging on the wall confirm my suspicions. Peterson is a teacher at Masters Recording Institute—formerly Flyte Tyme Studios—as well as The Institute of Production and Recording in downtown Minneapolis, guiding people through what he does: produce albums and engineer songs.
Today, he is working in Studio A on tracks for his new album with the band that includes members of The Family, which boasts three members who were members of The Time, including Peterson. He is answering a battery of questions from three different people at once, while nipping and tucking a track that only a few people thus far have heard—a track that is funky and beautiful. It is the intro, so I only hear about 40 seconds at most.
The questions keep going and the answers either come from Peterson’s mouth in a gentle yet commanding nature, or they are occasionally answered more precisely and adequately with his fingers by punching buttons on and off or fiddling with a knob or two on the largest mixing board I have ever seen. It makes me nervous just to stand next to it, lest I brush against something important and ruin everything.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” Peterson says, and down the hall we go.
Years ago, Peterson was nicknamed Saint Paul and manned the keyboards for The Time. He met Prince when he was just 17, joined The Time that same year and at 18 he could be seen on the big screen in Purple Rain.
Later, Peterson worked on Paula Abdul’s (The Time’s former choreographer) debut album in a production capacity and has since worked on countless other albums as both a musician and a producer, including another album for Abdul.
The walls inside Masters Recording Institute are covered in gold and platinum records. These walls are responsible for birthing The Minneapolis Sound and putting the barren wasteland that is Minnesota—in the winter at least—on the map.
Peterson, however, while comfortable and truly happy talking about his past certainly does not live in it. When the subject of his new album with The Family 2.0 comes up, an album on which he hammered huge chunks of material together on a laptop in band member Susannah Melvoin’s garage, it is clear he has embraced and adapted to new technology.
“Whether you’re sitting in a big studio or sitting in a garage, the trick is to try to capture the performances—the concept is the same.” Peterson says, “Each place is equally valid.”
Today, he is working in Studio A on tracks for his new album with the band that includes members of The Family, which boasts three members who were members of The Time, including Peterson. He is answering a battery of questions from three different people at once, while nipping and tucking a track that only a few people thus far have heard—a track that is funky and beautiful. It is the intro, so I only hear about 40 seconds at most.
The questions keep going and the answers either come from Peterson’s mouth in a gentle yet commanding nature, or they are occasionally answered more precisely and adequately with his fingers by punching buttons on and off or fiddling with a knob or two on the largest mixing board I have ever seen. It makes me nervous just to stand next to it, lest I brush against something important and ruin everything.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” Peterson says, and down the hall we go.
Years ago, Peterson was nicknamed Saint Paul and manned the keyboards for The Time. He met Prince when he was just 17, joined The Time that same year and at 18 he could be seen on the big screen in Purple Rain.
Later, Peterson worked on Paula Abdul’s (The Time’s former choreographer) debut album in a production capacity and has since worked on countless other albums as both a musician and a producer, including another album for Abdul.
The walls inside Masters Recording Institute are covered in gold and platinum records. These walls are responsible for birthing The Minneapolis Sound and putting the barren wasteland that is Minnesota—in the winter at least—on the map.
Peterson, however, while comfortable and truly happy talking about his past certainly does not live in it. When the subject of his new album with The Family 2.0 comes up, an album on which he hammered huge chunks of material together on a laptop in band member Susannah Melvoin’s garage, it is clear he has embraced and adapted to new technology.
“Whether you’re sitting in a big studio or sitting in a garage, the trick is to try to capture the performances—the concept is the same.” Peterson says, “Each place is equally valid.”
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