The soft-rock craftsman

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, May 21st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Remembering the late singer-songwriter Dave Mason.

He made a name for himself in the late 1960s and early 70s as an on-again, off-again member of the band Traffic. But he became best known as a solo performer. Mason died in April at the age of 79.

Ron Nevison was Mason’s co-producer throughout his commercial peak. WORLD’s music critic Arsenio Orteza talked with Nevison about Mason’s time at the top.

ARSENIO ORTEZA: Dave Mason’s solo career began in 1970, and it got off to a pretty good start. His debut album Alone Together went gold, and two years later, Joe Cocker scored a hit with this Mason composition:

MUSIC: [“Feeling Alright” by Joe Cocker]

But, with the exception of a self-titled gold album in 1974, Mason failed to make an impression for the next several years. 

Enter the audio engineer Ron Nevison. His work included the Who’s Quadrophenia and Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. Nevison first worked with Mason on his 1976 album, Certified Live.

Columbia assumed that Nevison would need Mason and his band to do the retouching that was common for most “live” albums at the time. So an owner of the studio where Mason often recorded booked a boat to help the team mix business with pleasure. 

It turns out the business took care of itself.

NEVISON: The album was recorded you know, at the Universal Amphitheater in L.A. And they wanted me to mix it. So I spent two weeks with Dave and his band. We thought we were going to fix some stuff. In the end, we didn't fix anything. “Why do—this is so well recorded!” And, you know, the band was great.

But it was the next album that embedded Mason in ’70s radio. Let It Flow went platinum. Only one of its three singles made the top 40, but the one that did remains a radio favorite to this day.

MUSIC: [“We Just Disagree” by Dave Mason]

“We Just Disagree” was written by Mason’s band mate, Jim Krueger. In an era characterized by lushly produced disco and R&B, the song was a breath of fresh air.

NEVISON: Well, when those harmonies hit you, it reminds me of the Beatles. It reminds me of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. It reminds me of these great vocal—vocal things that transcend even the song, sometimes, you know? That—just it's a sonic thing that hits you. 

Nevison was promoted from mixer to co-producer on Let It Flow, a role he reprised in 1978 for Mason’s follow-up, Mariposa de Oro. 

It only went gold instead of platinum. But, in every other way, it’s a better album.

MUSIC: [“So Good to Be Home” by Dave Mason]

“So Good to Be Home” was one of several deep cuts that could’ve been an FM-radio favorite. At first, Nevison wasn’t sure whether Mariposa de Oro would turn out as well as it did.

NEVISON: I was worried when I got back together with him to do Mariposa de Oro, that he had spent too much time buying houses and not enough time writing songs, tell you the truth.

Nevison worried in vain. Mason only wrote or co-wrote six of the 11 songs, but his were good, and the songs by other writers were just as solid.

MUSIC: [“The Words” by Dave Mason]

But Nevison was right about one thing: Mason was buying houses, including a spacious, Spanish-style dwelling that turned out to be an ideal place to record.

NEVISON: We actually pulled the Record Plant mobile truck to that house and did Mariposa De Oro remotely. The whole record.

After the recording was done, Nevison and Mason mixed the album in North Miami. And from its California beginnings to its Florida consummation, Mariposa de Oro has a distinctly breezy, sun-kissed sound. 

Its best-known cut is a cover of a song by the Shirelles.

MUSIC: [“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” by Dave Mason]

Unlike the original “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” which comes in at under three minutes, Mason’s stretches past five. Edited for radio, the song spent two weeks on the Top 40, thus sparing Mason the dreaded one-hit-wonder tag. It also features the album’s most expansive use of strings.

NEVISON: We were looking for something that would be fitting radio formats. And so I like to have as much softer stuff, just to kind of please the easy-listening audience that Dave had formed with “We Just Disagree.”

Nevison went on to produce successful albums for Jefferson Starship, Ozzy Osbourne, and Heart, but he never worked with Mason again.

NEVISON: But think about it. On a boat doing one album, doing one album in a beautiful house in Malibu, staying on Palm Island, mixing an album in Criteria Studios, it was quite an adventure with Dave.

And in the music that Nevison made with Mason, that sense of adventure comes through.

MUSIC: [“All Gotta Go Sometime” by Dave Mason]

I’m Arsenio Orteza.

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