Guy Charbonneau
French-Canadian Guy Charbonneau was born and bred in Montréal, where one of his hobbies was customizing vehicles. “I used to build… I like cars, and I like music. I used to build hi-fi’s when I was 12 years old.” His first professional foray into music was to set up a Hi-Fi equipment shop, in 1969. “My old hi-fi store still exists, on La Jeunesse street.” In 1973, one of his customers – a local radio station called CFGL – was getting into live broadcasting. “I was thinking I could have a live tape to play at the store.” So he went along and helped out in the live sessions, the first being classical guitar player André Benichou. The recording turned out better than what the station had recorded before: Guy became an active participant in the live recordings and two years later he sold his retail business and designed and built his first mobile recording truck. “There were so many competitive studios already, I thought a quality mobile facility would be the way for me to get into the business.” Of course, this had to be built into the truck, from scratch.
Guy first worked with Terry Brown on a jazz recording of Moe Koffman, ‘Live At George’s’, in 1975. It was the first of many projects with Terry, including Klaatu (with John Woloschuk), Rush and BB Gabor. “Working with Terry is like working with a friend,” says Guy. “We almost did a project together 10 years ago, but the budget was not there. I offered for Terry to stay at my house! Anything to try to do the project with him. He is the nicest guy.”
By 1977, Guy had established himself an enviable reputation, as well as a recording truck to die for. He impressed producer Phil Ramone enough to land a job recording Paul Simon’s album ‘One Trick Pony’. In 1980 he moved to New York and two years later, he set himself up in California with a rehearsal studio, which could be plugged into his truck to provide a complete recording facility. In 1986, Guy was asked to record the Canadian leg of what would become ‘Exit Stage Left’, together with Terry Brown. In 1988, Guy was brought back to engineer for ‘A Show of Hands’. Since then, Guy’s mobile recording business has continued to go from strength to strength. As well as recording some of the biggest names in the industry (not least Gwen Stefani and No Doubt, The Pretenders, Aerosmith, the Bee Gees, Cher, Deep Purple, Eric Clapton, The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac), he has been involved in projects as diverse as the ‘The Doors’ movie, ‘Spy Kids II’ and ‘About Schmidt’.
Today, Guy is still at it – recording artists and customising his truck, just like he has always done. Like his truck, the clients get a little bigger than they used to be, that’s all. “With each project that I do, no matter what it is, I want my clients happy with the best sound possible,” says Guy. “The blend of today’s new technology with the knowledge acquired over the years would enable me to go further than ever before. I always want to do better every time, that’s all it is. Going back to work with Rush would be like seeing old friends, I would love to record them again.”