John Philip Shenale (often mentioned as Phil Shenale) is a Canadian composer, arranger, musician and producer based in Los Angeles.
Background Shenale was born in Canada in 1951. His family relocated to the United States in the late-1950s. His earliest memories of music consisted of hearing his father, an avid lover of classical music, play the violin, cello and mandolin in their home during his childhood. After attending a Latin High Mass at the age of five, he recalls being drawn to the piano in an attempt to recreate the music he had heard during the ceremony. The experience awakened his passion for the art and he soon found himself improvising his own music. It wasn't until the age of twelve, however, that he began formal piano lessons.
Shenale began serious composition while in high school, drawing inspiration from classical composers such as Ravel, Granados, Britten and Stravinsky. He soon discovered modern-day musicians such as The Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles which ignited his passion for rock and roll, leading him to form his first band. During his undergraduate studies, he first majored in physics and then music before dropping out in favor of playing and traveling with a hard rock club band.
Career Shenale has a very deliberate production style, carefully creating a very natural-sounding theatrical background using both cutting-edge and very old tools. He has contributed his talents as a composer, arranger, musician and/or producer to over forty Gold and Platinum albums, both domestic and international and over thirty Top-40 singles. His work has been associated with 21 Grammy nominations.
Composer Shenale as a composer has worked with many artists on their studio albums such as Dream Street (Janet Jackson). He has composed songs and scores for films (Return of the Living Dead III, Losin' it, The Dirt Bike Kid, Steel Justice) and the musical score for the dramatized audiobook Son of a Wanted Man.
Producer A record producer ensures artists deliver their best performances and supervises the technical engineering of the recording while coordinates the production team and process. Shenale's most well known works as a producer are Backstreets of Desire, Loup Garou, Crow Jane Alley and Pistola with Willy DeVille and Everything with the Bangles band.
He believes the connection to the artist is key while he is working as a producer.
Arranger Shenale has worked as a keyboard arranger and as a string arranger. A music arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition and even though it originates from classical music it's often used in popular music where arrangers include parts for music instruments which were not composed by the original songwriters. The instruments may vary and occasionally use full orchestras or even replace the artist's original performance e.g. Sin Palabras album Tori Amos' vocal performance was left out and replaced by The Appollon Musagete Quartet and Andreas Ottensamer, a clarinet soloist. When it comes down to string arrangements Shenale uses first violins, second violins playing at a lower pitch range, violas and double basses. Shenale did the orchestra arrangements on Gold Dust (Tori Amos).
Orchestrator Orchestration is the practice of writing music for an orchestra or a musical ensemble or adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. In musical theatre, the composer writes a piano/vocal score and then the orchestrator creates the instrumental score for the pit orchestra to play. Shenale was the orchestrator of The Light Princess, a musical composed by Tori Amos and presented at Royal National Theatre.
Conductor Conducting has been defined as "the art of directing the simultaneous performance of several players or singers by the use of gesture". Shenale was the conductor on Midwinter Graces album, American Doll Posse and Abnormally Attracted To Sin (Tori Amos).
Prepared Pianos One of his distinctive sonic styles originates in his work on prepared pianos which flourished during his collaboration with Tori Amos and Willy DeVille altering the aesthetics of contemporary piano music following the path of John Cage whose experimentations with prepared pianos uncovered new kind of timbres and instrumental techniques. Shenale prepared an upright piano for Bells For Her which was purposely deconstructed to sound like bells instead of a piano and was used both for the recording and the Under The Pink tour (1994). Barry Walters on PitchFork noted that Tori Amos dug deeper on Bells for her which suggests a ghost pirouetting across John Cage's prepared piano. The pitch on certain keys is way off, like an old upright in your grandparents' basement but the effect is finessed the way Jimi Hendrix bent notes from music to cacophony and back again.
Keyboardist He has often played the Chamberlin, an electro-mechanical keyboard instrument that uses the modulation of a magnetic pickup to create sound on many studio albums such as Crow Jane Alley, Pistola (Willy DeVille) and Abnormally Attracted To Sin (Tori Amos).
He occasionally uses the Mellotron, an electro-mechanical musical instrument which was designed to reproduce the sound of the original instrument yet replaying a tape created minor flunctuations in pitch and amplitude, so a note sounds slightly different each time it is played. He used it on the song Me and A Gun (Tori Amos).
Shenale played the Freeman string symphonizer, a 5-octave synthesizer of the 1970s on Reindeer King (Tori Amos). Its sound was related to that of the ARP String Ensemble, a fully polyphonic multi-orchestral synthesizer which produces the sound of glassy-sounding strings. He has used the ARP String Ensemble on Willy DeVille's albums and on other albums as well.
The Hammond organ is an electric organ often played by Shenale on various collaborations. Even though the organ was originally marketed for churches it became popular with professional jazz musicians. He has used the Hammond S6 Chord Organ for The Wrong Band (Tori Amos) along with various other models on his albums with Willy DeVille and Tori Amos.
He had played the Clavinet, an electrically amplified clavichord which is an electro-mechanical instrument that is usually used in conjunction with a keyboard amplifier on the studio albums Crow Jane Alley and Pistola (Willy DeVille).
Shenale used the Fender Rhodes piano which generated sound with keys and hammers but instead of strings, the hammers strike thin metal tines which vibrate to an electromagnetic pick up and then the signal is sent through a cable to an external keyboard amplifier and speaker giving a characteristic "bell" sound. The Wurlitzer electronic piano sounds similarly but the sound is generated by striking a metal reed with a hammer which induces and electric current in a pickup. He has used the Fender Rhodes piano on Nouvelle Vague album (Sylvie Vartan) and the latter on his albums with Willy DeVille and Sylvie Vartan.
He has played both piano and electric piano on various albums along with various models of synthesizers as a keyboardist. His favorite synthesizers are OB SEM 8-voice (OB8), OBSx, Yamaha CS80, hybrids Wave PPG, OB Xpander OSCAR and Prophet VS, Synclav, all of the Nords digital and the first EIII for samplers.
Other musical instruments Apart from playing keyboards Shenale has played drums on One Step Ahead of the Blues and Cafe Days (Chris Spedding) and bass on the albums Charmed Life (Billy Idol), Bliss (Celestial Winds) and Purring Squirrels (Purring Squirrels).
The Forest Rangers John Philip Shenale has been a member of the roots band The Forest Rangers, the house band of FX television action, crime, drama television series Sons Of Anarchy mostly known for the covers they performed for the series.
Early work Shenale's early work began in film, a medium he would subsequently revisit throughout his career, with 1971's The Young Graduates. Continuing throughout the 1970s he recorded and performed live with artists such as Gregory Hines, Redbone, Jon Lucien, Bobby Womack and Severance. However, he considers his collaborations, specifically during the latter part of the decade, with artists such as Jim Keltner and The Beach Boys to be of particular value and significance, affording him a considerable amount of time in-studio where he was given the opportunity to work with state-of-the-art equipment and to learn the language and various philosophies behind recording professionally.
Shenale's instruments of choice during this time included the piano, Hammond, Fender Rhodes, Clavinet, Orchestron, Mellotron along with various other synthesizers.
In popular music Shenale's work has been featured on albums by artists such as Tori Amos, Willy DeVille, Jane's Addiction, Tracy Chapman, Billy Idol, Janet Jackson, Diana Ross, The Bangles, Dionne Warwick, Rick Springfield, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray and John Hiatt.
1970-1979 He worked with Gregory Hines and his rock band called Severance in his homonym album Severance (1976, Largo, keyboards) and with the American rock band, The Beach Boys, on their album L.A. (Light Album) (1979, Brother/Caribou/CBS, oberheim synthesizers). Good Timin is the second single of the album which reached at No. 40 during a stay of ten weeks on Billboard Hot 100 singles (1979, oberheim synthesizer).
1980–1989 In 1980 he worked with Italian the musician and filmmaker Franco Battiato for the opening song Up Patriots To Arms on his album Patriots (Keyboards). The song was also included on the album Echoes of Sufi Dancers (1985, keyboards).
Shenale worked with Australian-American musician and actor Rick Springfield on his platinum-certified Living in Oz rock album (1983, RCA, keyboards, string arrangements), on Hard to Hold certified platinum, rock, power pop album (1984, RCA, keyboards), on Tao certified gold, synth pop, new wave, rock album (1985, RCA, Keyboards, Synthesizer, DX-7) and on pop, rock Karma album (1999, RCA, violin, organ/Hammond, Synthesizer voices). "Affair Of The Heart" was the hit song from the Living in Oz album. It peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and it was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Rock Vocal Performance while Living in Oz peaked at No.12, Hard To Hold on No. 16, Tao on No. 21 on Billboard 200. Cash Box said that "Affair Of The Heart shows a greater use of synthesizers and a hardened guitar sound" than previous Springfield songs but retains his ability to create a powerful refrain.
He worked with the German singer, songwriter and actress Nina Hagen on her dance-pop, disco album Fearless (1983, CBS, keyboards).
In 1984 he teamed up with the American singer, songwriter, actress, and dancer Janet Jackson for her Dream Street pop, synth-pop, R&B album (1984, A&M, Composer, arranger, keyboards). The music video for the song "Dream Street", which was co-composed by Shenale, was shot during the shooting of the musical drama TV series Fame in which Janet Jackson played the role of Cleo Hewitt.
He worked with the Brazilian singer-songwriter Roberto Carlos, also known as King of Latin Music or simply The King, on his Latin, pop album Coração (1985, CBS, musician).
He worked with the American singer and songwriter Barry Manilow on his pop album Manilow (1985, RCA, synthesizer) and with the American singer, actress and television host Dionne Warwick on her funk, soul, pop album Finder of Lost Loves (1985, Arista, synthesizer programming).
Shenale worked with the American singer Belinda Carlisle on her pop, rock album Belinda (1986, IRS, Keyboards, synthesizer) which was certified Gold and it peaked at No.13 at Billboard 200 and on her greatest hits album,The Best of Belinda, Volume 1 (1992, Keyboards, synthesizer) which was certified as a multiplatinum album.