John Davidson records a vocal track for his new single during a session at Squam Sound in Ashland. (Tom Caldwell Photo)

By Thomas P. Caldwell

Squam Lake became famous as the setting for the film “On Golden Pond” featuring Katherine Hepburn and father-daughter actors Henry and Jane Fonda, but it is not just actors who are attracted to the area. Musicians ranging from Rebecca Turmel, Jim Yeager, Jenna Rice, Audrey Drake, Peter Lawler, and Bob McCarthy to Carly Simon also have found it to be the perfect place to record their music.

That is because Grammy Award-winning guitarist and sound engineer Randy Roos converted an 80-year-old house in Ashland into a recording studio known as Squam Sound, where he is able to record, produce, mix, and master their songs.

Among those turning to Squam Sound for their recording sessions is veteran actor, game show host, and musician John Davidson, who has just recorded what he sees as becoming his “signature tune” — “They’ll play this when I walk on stage,” he said as he wrapped up a recording session in early September.

John describes Randy as four people in one: “He’s an artist at all the knobs and all the sliders, but he is an incredible, award-winning guitarist and record-producer and arranger.”

Describing their four-year musical collaboration, John said, “He’s gotten to know my way of singing and I count on him to tell me, ‘Was that good?’ And he says, ‘Don’t you want to do another?’ And that means that I could do better. But it’s just, it’s a great relationship.”

It was through Ernest Thompson, the author of “On Golden Pond”, that they became acquainted. John mentioned to Ernest that he had heard there was a sound studio on Squam Lake, and Ernest said, “Oh, I know.” Ernest had used the studio to record the audiobook version of his novel, “The Book of Maps,” about a down-on-his-luck filmmaker who takes his ten-year-old son on a road trip across America, using a 1930s travel guide.

John, who will be 83 in December and has played in major showrooms of Las Vegas, recorded several singles with Randy at Squam Sound, and said, “Eventually, we’re going to do an album. I just don’t want to work anywhere else.”

Joining them for the recording session was pianist Steve Hunt, who has worked with Randy for four decades.

“I’ve had Randy play in my studio, and I’ve played here at his studio,” Steve said, “and so, when he was working with John, he said they need some piano, and … they wanted to do it here.”

Steve said he knew who John was “from TV and all that, but I didn’t know he was a singer.” He found out that John came with a good idea of what he wanted for his piano accompaniment.

Before Steve’s arrival, they sent him a preliminary recording with the vocals, guitar, and drums, so Steve had an idea of how to approach the song.

“I wasn’t quite sure what he wanted, until I show up, and then I start playing, and they both give suggestions, and I just try stuff,” Steve said of the recording process. “And then John said, ‘Make it like Rachmaninov,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, I can do that,’ because I play a little classical. So I started doing it. He’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ and they’re happy with the track.”

John Davidson watches as Randy Roos adjusts the sound on a new song they are collaborating to produce. (Tom Caldwell Photo)

In engineering songs, Randy is able to rely on a strong musical background that began with playing piano at age nine.

“That didn’t work,” he recalls. “My brain is not wired for keyboard at all; I cannot handle it. And I picked up guitar when I was 10, and that made sense to me.”

Inspired by the Beatles and John Mayall’s “Bluesbreakers” album featuring Eric Clapton, Randy began by playing rock and blues.

“We were playing Boston clubs when I was in tenth grade, and then there was always jazz in the house,” he said. “Then, toward the end of high school, like the summer after junior year, I went to Berklee [College of Music] for a seven-week course, like for kids, and met Mick Goodrich, who was a very influential, not well known except among guitarists, but a very influential innovator of the guitar in the jazz idiom. … It was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me, because he just opened up the whole world of music, and I got really into jazz.”

Randy was one of the original members of Orchestra Luna, a theatrical rock group that got a major recording deal with Epic Records.

“Rupert Holmes was our producer,” Randy said. “He’s the one that did the Pina Colada song — actually, the correct title of that, I believe, is ‘Escape’. It was amazing working with him. He’s a very legit musician. He did the orchestral arrangements, wrote them all out, conducted them and everything. He really has a lot together, and he and I just hit it off, because we could speak in very similar musical terms, and it was great.”

The problem was that, just as the record came out, “Everyone at Epic Records that loved us left the company, and everyone that replaced them didn’t love us. A month later, we were basically released from the label. And there’s a lot of stories like that,” Randy said.

After playing in his own band for a while, Randy enrolled at Berklee, studying there for a year before getting a record contract of his own.

“And then I got married and decided that doing bands and being on the road and all that was not conducive to my married life,” he said.

Through a friend, he got involved with industrial video production, and that led to television and an association with PBS, where he worked with Alan Alda for 12 seasons of Scientific American Frontiers and several episodes in the NOVA series.

During that time, he also worked in the New England Conservatory Jazz Department, then accepted a position at Berklee as associate professor of Guitar and Music Synthesis — a two-day-a-week job that he continues today.

“I’m in my 21st year now,” he said. “I totally love it, and every year I’m at Berklee, I kind of I love it more, and it led to my Grammy.”

He had been “trading guitar lessons” with another guitar faculty member, Berta Rojas, a world-class classical guitarist from Paraguay. Randy recorded, mixed, and mastered her album, “Legado”, which won the Latin Grammy for Best Classical Album. Because he had engineered it, Randy also won the Grammy.

Randy said he prefers old Gibson guitars, and he has one from 1961 and another from 1967.

He also found a Taylor acoustic made with Koa wood that he loves for its softer sound.

“And then I got into a funny retuning of it that required a big fat string. I tuned the fifth string, the A string, down an octave. So I bought another one of the same guitar and had that outfitted to handle that string.”

The other guitar he especially likes is a Fernandez guitar based on the Fender Stratocaster, “but nicer”.

“I prefer the Gibson thing over the Fender Strat thing,” he said. “I know most electric guitar players nowadays play Strats, but I prefer the Gibson thing. But if I need the vibe of a Strat, I do love that one.”

Prior to opening Squam Sound, Randy built “a small, well-equipped recording studio” in the attic of his Roslindale home. The studio then took over the master bedroom of that house. When he and his wife moved to New Hampshire, they added a 1,900-square-foot addition to their new home, in order to have a recording studio with two isolation rooms. That is Squam Sound.

“I just kind of fell into it,” Randy said of the recording studio. “I ended up really loving that work.”

Between his time teaching and recording, Randy still makes time to play. He will be performing with the KR Collective at Hermit Woods Winery in Meredith on the first Friday of each month. Randy and his guitars will be joined by Steve Hunt on piano; Dave Kobrenski on Fula flute, djembe, and ngoni; Mike Rossi on bass; and Tim Gilmore on drums.

Making Music On The Golden Pond