SUGARHILL'S STEVE CHRISTENSEN ENGINEERS

Steve Earle album Townes earns a GRAMMY at the 52nd annual awards

SugarHill Recording Studios senior staff engineer, Steve Christensen had much to celebrate after the award announcements of the 52nd Annual GRAMMY© celebrations. Steve Earle's widely acclaimed album Townes (New West)-engineered by Christensen--was the winner of the coveted award in the Best Contemporary Folk category.

While searching for an engineer, mutual friend Chris Masterson (ex- Son Volt) gave Earle examples of Christensen's work on the tracks "Best Thing Ever" and "The Other Side of Love" from Tody Castillo's unreleased album Windhorse. One listen gave him enough confidence to hire Christensen to engineer the project.

Besides spending an initial ten days tracking album in Earles' Manhattan home, Christensen also played percussion on the disc. He later traveled to Nashville to continue the record at Sound Emporium, alongside Earle's longtime engineer Ray Kennedy. In the May 26 issue of Rolling Stone magazine (RS 1079), featuring the story "Steve Earle Chases Ghosts", Earle quoted Christensen in describing the experience of the recording process "..like he was 'listening to something I shouldn't be listening to' because it seemed so personal." The album debuted at number 19 on the Billboard Top 200 charts, the highest Top 200 debut of Earle's career and at number 6 on the Billboard Country chart.

Christensen is no stranger to the nominations process; he recorded vocals on Ann-Margarets' 2001 album, God is Love: The Gospel Sessions, which was nominated in the Best Southern, Country, or Bluegrass Gospel Album category.

Townes faced tough competition for the award; the other nominees for that category included Neko Case's Middle Cyclone (ANTI), Tracy Chapman's Our Bright Future (Elektra), Shawn Colvin's Live (Nonesuch) and Elvis Costello's Secret, Profane & SugarCane (Hear Music). Houston Chronicle entertainment writer Andrew Dansby featured a piece on Christensen in the GRAMMY preview section of this week's Zest. Read the article here.

Special thanks to KIAH-TV Channel 39, KRIV-TV Fox Channel 26, Houston Press and Houston Chronicle for coverage of the event!

Steve Christensen. Photo by Everett Taasevigen.