Who is Larry

Seyer?
arry Seyer was born in
Augusta, Georgia in a
make-shift Army Hospital
while his Father "Lefty" was serving in
the US Army during the Korean
Conflict. Only there for six months, his
Father was finished his tour of duty
from the military and his family of
three returned to their native
hometown of Oran, Missouri in June of
1952.

Lefty came from a family of thirteen

and wanted a large family of his own.
The small town of 1200 people was the
perfect place to raise his and Ida Mae's
planned family of eight.
They wasted no time in starting their
family and soon afterwards, Mary,
Marty, Jane, Kevin, Anita, Robert and

Bennett were born about one year apart

from each other.
Their life was heavily influenced by
the strong German Catholic
contingency of that area. Although
Oran had only 1200 people, it had the
largest Catholic Church between St.
Louis and Memphis. For a small town,
this was a large church...large enough
for it's own Catholic grade school.

The power the piano had was

control... it took precedence over
the TV and Radio!
Lefty and Ida Mae were good parents
to Larry and the rest of the kids. More
than anything, they wanted to give
each of their kids everything that could
want or need. And they did that.

There was not much to do in Oran,

however, except play baseball, tag,
hide and seek, cops and robbers, cards,
and an entire litany of normal things
for kids that age.
The only problem was Larry wasn't
like the other kids there. He didn't want
to play baseball and other sports...he
wanted to play music.
Thanks to his Mom and Dad (Lefty
and Ida), there was a piano in the
living room that anyone could play
anytime any of their kids wanted to.
And that piano had power!
The power it had was control. It had
precedence over the TV and Radio. If
one of the kids was watching TV or
listening to the Radio, and one of the
other kids wanted to play the piano, it
was "bye bye" to the TV or Radio. The
piano player (whomever that was) had
control over the entertainment the

family listened to.

The same was true of the guitar. If one
of the kids wanted to play the guitar,
they could play ANYTIME they
wanted (as long as it wasn't past bed
time).

Being the oldest of eight, this was the

kind of garden Larry's music seed
needed to grow. Available instruments,
a captive audience, and a willingness
to be in control of the learning process.
Larry would come home every day
after school and hop on the piano

bench and be king of the living room.

He could play whatever he wanted. He
could make up songs as he went along,
or play melodies that he heard before.
It didn't matter; it was fun; much more
fun than going to Catholic grade
school!
Many years of this scenario continued
until Larry was in High School where
he met other music friends and formed
a band that played school dances and
parties. Eventually they made their
way to the nearby city of Cape
Girardeau to make his very first
recording.
Jim Rhodes was a short, thin,
enterprising young school teacher who
owned the local recording studio in
Cape. He knew more than Larry
dreamed possible to know.
He knew which microphones to use on
each instrument; what levels to record

the drums; how the balance of

instruments determined how the lead
vocalist sounded. These were all things
that Jim knew and Larry was in awe.
Larry just HAD to learn how to do
those things. In his mind, knowing
how to do those things was as
necessary as learning how to tune a
guitar or play a piano.

So he asked questions, thousands of

them, and eventually spent almost all
of his spare time with Jim at the studio
learning what Jim knew.
The Vietnam war was raging during
that time. Larry's draft number was
fifty-three so he was sure to go since
they were already calling numbers past
one-fifty.
A friend told him that if he joined the
Army, he could have his pick of what
job he was to have in the Army. So, he
joined for three years and picked the
Army band as his job and served one
year in Fort Leonard Wood Missouri
and two years in Stuttgart Germany.

While in Fort "Lost In The Woods" (as

they used to call it), Larry was put in
charge of the recording equipment that
the Army band had there. This was
exactly what he needed; More toys to
play and learn with!
After the year at Leonard Wood, Larry
traveled to Stuttgart where he played in
the 82nd Army band whose primary
mission was to foster good will
towards German/American relations.
In other words, they drank a lot of
German beer and played a lot of great
music.
After his tour in the Army, Larry
moved back to Cape only to find that
Jim Rhodes no longer owned the
recording studio. He had moved onto
Springfield Missouri to manage a

studio there and work with "The Ozark

Mountain Daredevils".
This was a great opportunity for Larry,
as this meant that he could now take
over the recording studio there in
Cape.
Never mind that he didn't have any
experience, he just wanted to be
involved in any capacity with music.
He would learn whatever it took to do
it!

In June of 1978 Larry had a

chance to move to Austin Texas
When a friend of his called him to
record a stage band, he was ecstatic!
Finally a chance to record a band in his
studio! (in truth, the studio was owned
by Robert Jones, but Larry ran it)

In his mind, he went through every

connection, every mic, every track for
every one beforehand so that when
they got there, everything would be
ready to go with no waiting. It was a
complete vision of how the recording
session would happen BEFORE it
happened!

The stage band was so impressed, that

they told all of their friends about the
"new engineer" in town that they HAD
to use.
Word of mouth spread fast and soon
there was plenty of work for him in

Cape.
Around June of 1978, Larry had a
chance to move to Austin Texas and
continue the work he started in
Missouri.
He had been asked by his good friend
Larry Franklin (whom he had played
with in a Country Band while in
Stuttgart) to move to Austin to join a
band Franklin had started called
Cooder Browne. (Seyer was known as
'Sly' back then - a nickname given to
him by his friend John Hicks; a
drummer he played with in Ft. Leonard
Wood Missouri)
Although work with Cooder Brown
was not to be permanent, it served as
the perfect reason for moving from
Missouri to Texas where eventually he
met Wink Tyler, owner of Austin
Recording Studio.

There he began producing and

engineering several local Austin
groups.
Around 1986, Ray Benson from
Asleep At The Wheel contacted him to
work on an album he was producing. It
was called "Asleep At The Wheel 10".
On that album was a song called
"String Of Pars".

The next year that song was nominated

for a Grammy in the category of Best
Country Instrumental Performance.
The song won the award and Larry was
on his way to a successful relationship

with Ray and the Wheel.

Soon after, The Wheel was at it again
and recording the classic "Sugarfoot
Rag" on their album "Western Standard
Time". In addition to engineering that
album, Larry was asked to play
acoustic guitar on the cut.
Again, as in the previous year, one of
their songs was nominated for a
Grammy under the category of "Best
Country Instrumental Performance".
And again, as in the previous year, they
won. Because he both engineered and
played on the album, Larry was
blessed with an Engineering Grammy
AND a Musician Grammy.
Things were looking up, but there were
other irons in the fire for Larry. In
addition to being a full time recording
studio engineer/producer/musician,
Larry wrote software for computers.

Because of a prior commitment to a

software contract, Larry was unable to
participate in the recording of the
Wheel's next album "Keepin Me Up
Nights"

As fate would have it, The Wheel did

not win a Grammy that year. But
thankfully, by the time it came time for
the Wheel's next project to be
recorded, Larry was finished with the
software contract he had been working
on.
The project was a movie score for a
movie starring Dolly Pardon, Gary

Bussey, Willie Nelson, and Ray

Benson.
Working closely with Ray Benson
from Asleep At The Wheel and Dolly
Pardon, who produced the show, Larry
gained considerable experience in the
film scoring arena.
After that movie was completed,
several other people approached Larry
to do their movie scores for them.
Some of them wanted him to "mix"
their movie. In movie terms, this is
called "re-recording".
Al Reinert was one of the first working
on a small sixteen millimeter film
called "For All Mankind". At the time
that Larry worked on this film, it was
just a thirty minute documentary with
actual footage from NASA covering
our first trip to the moon.
Brian Eno had already done the score

for "For All Mankind", so there was no

opportunity for Larry to work on the
score. However, much to be learned
from Al in the way of mixing films
during that project.
Several months later, Sam Um
contracted Larry to do the entire score
for a picture he was working on called
"The Way". Basically, this picture was
to be a Korean version of "The Karate
Kid".
Having the opportunity to score an
entire picture by himself was a great
way to instill confidence in a budding
composer. And this confidence
eventually led to his next scoring
picture "El Puente".
No sooner had he completed "El
Puente", than Ray Benson from the
Wheel called and discussed an idea he
had for a new album. It was to be a
tribute album for the Father of Western

Swing, Bob Wills.

This album and the many that followed
were a turning point in his career.
Through Ray Benson, Larry was
introduced to some of the biggest
names in the industry. Many of them
are listed here on the clients page on
this website.

Adam told Larry it might be a

good idea to create a website and
list the services that Larry could
do in case people from around
the world were looking for
someone with his talents.
In 1997, the web was not well known.
A couple of years earlier, Larry had
been fortunate enough to be introduced
to it by his son, Adam.

Adam told him it might be a good idea

to create a website and list the services
that Larry could do in case people from
around the world were looking for
someone with his talents.
So that's exactly what he did. And it
was a fairly new thing to do back then;
He created a web page listing his
services.
In 1997, one of Larry's best friends,
Gary Powell received a call from one
of his contacts asking about who to
hire for an upcoming project featuring
Goldie Hawn singing the Beatles song
"A Hard Day's Night".
It was fortuitous that Adam had
convinced Larry to create that web
page. Because once Gary
recommended Larry for the project and
they did a new thing called an 'internet
search' they came up with the same
conclusion.

And
this is
how
Larry
was
able to
work
with
George
Martin on his Beatles tribute album
entitled 'In My Life'.
Although they mis-spelled his name on
the credits for that CD, he worked with
George and Goldie none-the-less and
has a picture to prove it thanks to
Frank Campbell who sneaked in during
the session and snapped a photo.
Given the large number of projects that
Larry has worked on, it should be no
surprise that there would be more than
one CD that is named with the same
title.

Larry Gatlin came to Larry's Electric

LarryLand studio to record his "In My
Life" CD - the same title as the one
George had chosen.
And it wasn't the only time it
happened! One of the CD's that Larry
engineered for Asleep At The Wheel
featured The Manhattan Transfer as
guests - that CD was entitled "Swing".
And just a couple of years later, Suzie
Boggus came to Electric LarryLand
and mixed her "Swing" CD with Larry.
In 1991 while working on a bluegrass
album with Andy Owens, Larry was
introduced to a singer named Robin
Lacy.
Robin had started a group called the
Dixie Chicks. She along with Laura
Lynch, Martie Maguire and her sister
Emily Robison were about to record

their second CD entitled "Lil' Ol

Cowgirl" and they wanted Larry to
produce it.
Larry and the girls had discussed
taking the group into more of a
mainstream country direction instead
of the traditional bluegrass styles they
had been up to then focusing on.
So Larry suggested that have Lloyd
Maines play steel guitar on the record.
They agreed and the rest is history.
THIS is where Natalie Maines was
introduced to the Dixie Chicks - via
Lloyd (her father) while he played steel
guitar with them.
There is more to this history story like how Larry was introduced to 'A
Course in Miralces' which eventually
led him to listen to and trust his inner
guidance which eventually led him to
cold call David Wilcock.

This partnership continues today and

together they have produced many
projects available on David's website
DivineCosmos.com.
David introduced Larry to John Searl's
SEG - and after researching this
technology and finding out it was NOT
a hoax led him to create his latest audio
effort: The Most Dangerous Device
radio show.

...and this has lead to books!

But enough of history. NOW is the
only time there is! So damn the
torpedoes, full speed ahead!