How many Minnesota musicians did it take to help make the Jonas Brothers' new "Lines, Vines and Trying Times" the nation's No. 1 album?
Sixteen current or former Twin Cities players contributed to the project, and that doesn't include producer/multi-instrumentalist John Fields, who is responsible for bringing everyone from drummer Michael Bland to guitarist Jonny Lang to saxophonist Kathy Jensen to the project.
"I just love Minneapolis," said Fields, 40, who moved from the Twin Cities to Los Angeles seven years ago and has produced the past three Jonas Brothers albums. "The musicians are just hungrier there."
Most of his Twin Cities connections were made when Fields played bass in the funk band Greazy Meal in the 1990s.
"When you're in a band in your 20s, in a town like Minneapolis, you just end up meeting lots of people," he said.
When "casting" his album, he knows who he wants to play drums and who can play killer guitar solos. "But it's not like I know lots of horn arrangers," Fields said, "but I do know Mike Nelson from Minneapolis. That's the guy I'm going to call. I have a core group of musicians that I draw from and, strangely, a lot of them are either Minneapolis expatriates or still live there."
Given the Jonas Brothers' hectic schedule (that included shooting a TV series) and the nature of recording technology, it turns out that only Bland actually spent any time in the studio with the trio. He was in Los Angeles with Prince for "The Tonight Show," staying about two minutes from Fields' studio. Fields invited the drummer to visit. "He hung with the Jonas Brothers and me," the producer said. "They got to know him pretty well and he played on 'Paranoid,' the single, and some other things."
The other musicians often worked in studios in Minneapolis or elsewhere. Lang recorded his part for "Hey Baby" in Nashville with the Jonases, who are big fans of his, watching via video chatboard.
