After recording “Fire“, I had a couple of misfires. I tried covering “Ticket to Ride”, the backing tracks for which came out OK (not great), but I couldn’t sing it. I started working on “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone”, but wasn’t thrilled with how that was progressing, so I shelved that, too.
“Secret Agent Man” came to mind for a few reasons: I once sang it at a Karaoke bar and thought I did an acceptable job with it, and then a short time later a colleague of mine invited me to one of his band’s practice sessions where I took the mic and sang it again, this time with a live backing band.
Flash forward to the spring of 2020. I downloaded the GarageBand app to my iPad and started playing around with it, and using only the native GarageBand instruments, I recorded a crude version of an original tune that I had been working on. I shared it with my good friends and neighbors Peter and Chris, and without going so far as to say I stole it (they were being kind), both of them independently suggested it reminded them of “Secret Agent Man.” My original, which I plan to record in a more fully realized version and will definitely post here, has very little in common with “Secret Agent Man.” For example, my original is titled “Secret Pageant Man” (kidding!). Anyway, that is another reason this song was on my mind.
Having limited skills as a lead guitarist, the “Secret Agent Man” guitar parts (the lead and all the little riffs) were definitely a challenge for me. In the end, I was able splice together bits from multiple takes into something that kind of sounds like the original recording. Having had both a 4-track and an 8-track analog home studio, I can really appreciate living in the digital world of 32 tracks that I can record and rerecord over and over and over without the sound quality deteriorating as it eventually would with magnetic tape.
Once again, the drum parts were tapped out by me in GarageBand, and all the rest of the tracks were recorded live. In addition to multiple drum tracks, you will hear tambourine, hand claps, bass, a couple of guitars, and the lead vocals.
The hand claps were fun. The original recording by Johnny Rivers was captured live at the Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in 1966, so the hand claps you hear in that recording are from the audience. In my version, the claps are mine, which I overdubbed 4 times, then used a little studio trick to make it sound like 8 people. Mr. Rivers got a round of applause at the end of his performance, so I gave myself one, too.
As was the case with “Fire”, the version of this song I initially shared with friends and family suffered from poor production. The version I posted was remastered after I learned a bit more about that process.