Inside the Track: Grammy Award Nominee Carmen Grillo on "Walkin’ The Tightrope"
- Editorial Board
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
A return carved from decades on real consoles, legends in the room, and five years of doing it the only way Carmen Grillo ever did. Playing, hitting record, and producing the magic showing up.
A Different World set the bar high for Grammy Award nominee Carmen Grillo.
Fans asked for a follow-up. Carmen listened. Between producing and engineering records for other artists at his Big Surprise Recording Studio, he began shaping the next chapter. Slowly. Patiently. Detail by detail. Song by song. Note by note.
The result became "Walkin’ The Tightrope", his new record pulled from unfinished ideas, late night sessions, and a lifetime of relationships with some of the best musicians on the planet.
Carmen has worked with giants leading him to a career full of awards including a Grammy nomination. Some of the acts he has worked with are Tower of Power. Sons of Champlin. Whitfield. Rita Coolidge. Chicago affiliates. West Coast royalty. Calling players for these sessions was easy. They were already friends. They were already family. They showed up ready to play.
Below, Carmen breaks down how Walkin’ The Tightrope came together inside the studio, how each piece fell into place, and the moments behind the photos he shared.
The Recording Process
Real music needs real players playing it. The sessions were built the old way: warm tubes buzzing, cables humming, and world-class players stepping into the booth (or the kitchen) like clockwork. Grillo stitched the album together in hours between producing for other artists, letting the songs breathe until they revealed what they needed.
Some of his closest friends, players who defined whole eras of American music, walked in and played their hearts out. What you hear isn’t performance, it’s presence.
The kind that can’t be simulated and can’t be taught because it must be lived.
"He couldn’t get his Hammond B3 into the studio, the Leslie switch wouldn’t fit through the doorway, so Mike set up in the kitchen and played from there." Carmen adds
In Memoriam: Goathead extends its deepest condolences for the loss of Mike Finnigan to family, friends and collaborators. A life lived entirely for music, and one of the greatest players ever to touch the B3 organ. His legacy runs through the catalogue of artists like Jimi Hendrix, Bonnie Raitt, Tracy Chapman, Taj Mahal, Dave Mason and Crosby, Stills & Nash: a circle of legends that speaks for itself.
(With Rob Mullins) I’m still not sure how we got anything done, the sessions were equal parts comedy and music. Carmen adds that moments like these matter even more today.
With fewer real collaborations and with VSTs, AI and automatic assistants taking over the creative music space, playing together becomes a way to stay connected, to share the room, and to keep the music alive with friends.
Bedroom producers, take notes. This is what the road sounds and looks like.
Tools of the Trade
"Everything here is tactile. Hands on knobs, air moving in the room, real bleed from real instruments. The kind of detail you feel before you hear". Carmen adds.
The vocals, guitars, and grooves weren’t designed, we captured them.
No fancy digital tricks. No sterile perfection. Just conviction of top-players and great tools.
The Legacy
Walkin’ The Tightrope isn’t a sequel. it’s a passage. A bridge between what Grillo built, what he’s survived, and what he refuses to compromise on.
It’s the sound of a musician who still believes in the room. In the players. In the tape. In the truth. And it’s a quiet reminder to every artist chasing quick validation: Great work isn’t rushed. Great work is lived.
