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You're listening to Sound Opinions and this week we're paying tribute to our

late friend and colleague, audio engineer Mary Gaffney. I'm Jim D. Reganis and I'm Greg

Cutt. We'll share some snippets from sessions she engineered for us ranging from Jenny Lewis

to Bob Mold, but first our thoughts. Greg, Mary is one of the most fascinating people I've had

the pleasure to meet in radio and I know you feel the same way. Born in Milwaukee, I went to high

school in Maryland and later attended the Peabody Institute at it was at the time. In Baltimore,

studying music and voice, Mary loved music and she became a recording engineer first working at

WFMT, the classical station in Chicago and Tori Melatia, our mentor and friend, brought her to

BEZ. She was an institution at BEZ and the recording studio there on Navy Pier was her domain.

Do not put your coffee on the mixing desk or anywhere near it. Mary helmed many sessions for us

when we recorded live on Navy Pier and she just rolled with every punch whether it was a stone cold

punk band like off coming in or you know great singer-songwriter like Jenny Lewis. Mary I think

preferred the singer-songwriters but any challenge we ever threw at her recording mission of Burma

getting guff from other colleagues on the pier about the noise. Mary was like well put up with it.

We're doing this session and she would save if you remember this Greg. She would save the water cups

and mark them with a piece of masking tape of artists that she admired. I mean you had one from

Yoko on. Mary could have made music herself. I mean she once sang the National Anthem at a Cubs

game with Harry Carey and and sang with Steve Goodman. You know that story. Yeah well you know she

was one of those people who would always jump in. Whenever it took I was always impressed with how

cool Mary was no matter what we threw at her and we threw some you know yeah there's some bands

...