Michael Graves is honored to be speaking at the AES Conference on Audio Archiving, Preservation & Restoration on June 1-3 at the Library of Congress National Audiovisual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA. Cheryl Pawelski and Graves will be giving a presentation on how, Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos, came into existence as well as share some audio restoration examples by Graves.
Stax in The New Yorker Magazine
Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos is featured in this month’s New Yorker Magazine. Burkhard Bilger tells the story of the Stax songwriters as well as how this project came to be.
“So here’s the thing,” Pawelski says. “Everyone knows Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes. But do they know Homer Banks and Bettye Crutcher? Do they know Deanie Parker? To be able to honor some of these songwriters—it’s more than just getting a cool record out for me. This is the last Stax story. A story that hasn’t been told.”
Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos announcement
This is a big one! And so much fun! 7 CDs of mostly unheard Stax recordings (146 total tracks, 140 previously unissued!). Planet Earth can thank Cheryl Pawelski for saving this material from oblivion. She's been patiently sifting through mountains of audio (for the past 16 years), with very little info or documentation to go by, piecing together this story of the songwriters at Stax Records. The music is of course fantastic, but much of it had been through the wringer sonically and was in need of a pretty major overhaul. That's where Michael Graves came in. More details in the coming weeks.
Michael Graves Participates in Recording Academy Advocacy on AI & Copyright
As artificial intelligence continues to impact music creation, the Recording Academy is working closely with the U.S. Copyright Office to ensure that copyright law continues to protect human creators. Michael Graves was invited to participate in these discussions, contributing perspective from his work in mastering, audio restoration, and archival preservation.
The meeting, hosted by Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. and Acting Chief Advocacy & Public Policy Officer, Todd Dupler, brought together Recording Academy leadership and senior officials from the U.S. Copyright Office, including Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, for a firsthand look at how AI is intersecting with modern music workflows. A key takeaway reaffirmed an essential principle: copyright protection requires meaningful human authorship, and works generated entirely by AI are not eligible for copyright under U.S. law.
(L-R) Todd Dupler, Josh Godwin, Maureen Droney, Michael Graves, Emerson Mancini, Alana Da Fonseca, Shira Perlmutter, Harvey Mason Jr., Qiana Conley, Suzanne "Suzy" Wilson at Evergreen Studios in Burbank, CA, March, 22 2023
Also in attendance were members of the Recording Academy’s Producers & Engineers Wing, including singer-songwriter-producer Alana Da Fonseca, multi-GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY-winning engineer Josh Gudwin, and GRAMMY-winning mastering engineers Michael Graves and Emerson Mancini, along with Maureen Droney, Vice President of the P&E Wing, and Qiana Conley, Los Angeles Chapter Executive Director.
For Osiris Studio, where preserving human performance and artistic intent is central to every project, this distinction is critical. Michael Graves appreciated the opportunity to participate in this important dialogue and to help represent the perspective of engineers and archivists working at the intersection of technology, creativity, and preservation.
Cheryl Pawelski Wins GRAMMY
Cheryl Pawelski at the 65th GRAMMY Awards, Los Angeles, CA February 5, 2023
By Michael Graves
This year's GRAMMY Awards are but a memory now. I'm sad to report that Blondie: Against The Odds: 1974-1982 did not take home the award. But not too sad because that honor went to my good friend, historical producer par-excellence and frequent collaborator Cheryl Pawelski. Cheryl shares this award with her co-producer, Jeff Tweedy for their work on Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition). The project is an outstanding achievement and couldn't be more deserving.
The other nominees in this category have all gone above and beyond as well. Congratulations to Robert Russ and Martin Kistner for Glenn Gould’s The Goldberg Variations - The Complete Unreleased 1981 Studio Sessions, Scott Billington, Ted Olson, Mason Williams and Paul Blakemore for Doc Watson’s Life's Work - A Retrospective, Jonathan Sklute, Kevin Marques Moo and Lucas MacFadden for Freestyle Fellowship’s To Whom It May Concern and finally my fellow nominees, Tommy Manzi, Steve Rosenthal, Ken Shipley, and Tom Camuso for Blondie.
Behind the Making of Blondie: Against The Odds 1974–1982
In this in-depth Tape Op interview with Larry Crane, Steve Rosenthal and Michael Graves discuss the extensive process behind Blondie: Against The Odds 1974–1982, a definitive box set documenting the band’s formative years. Spanning 124 tracks, including 36 previously unreleased recordings, the collection features newly remastered versions of Blondie’s first six studio albums alongside demos, alternate takes, and rarities sourced from both label vaults and Chris Stein’s personal archive.
The interview details the technical and archival challenges involved, including recovering and transferring water-damaged tapes, evaluating multiple tape generations, and referencing original LP pressings to guide restoration and mastering decisions. Rosenthal and Graves also discuss the curatorial balance required when presenting unreleased material — preserving historical accuracy while maintaining musical coherence. The result is a comprehensive archival release that sheds new light on Blondie’s evolution from their early CBGB days to international prominence.
👉 Read the full interview on Tape Op:
https://tapeop.com/interviews/153/making-box-set-blondie-against-odds-1974-1982
GRAMMY Nomination for Blondie: Against The Odds
Blondie: Against The Odds: 1974-1982 has been nominated for a GRAMMY Award! Michael Graves is thrilled to be sharing the nomination with Tommy Manzi, Steve Rosenthal, Ken Shipley, and Tom Camuso. Congratulations to all the other nominees who woke up to some very fun news this morning! This will be Graves' 13th GRAMMY nomination. The 65th Annual GRAMMY Awards ceremony will be held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 5, 2023 and broadcast live on CBS.
Bound For Hell: On The Sunset Strip
If the Sunset Strip has a mythology, it’s usually told through the handful of bands that “made it.” Bound For Hell: On The Sunset Strip flips the perspective—focusing on the independent, local, and often unsigned artists who built the scene in real time, night after night, long before the major-label feeding frenzy arrived.
Curated as a 21-track snapshot of early ’80s L.A. hard rock / glam metal in its most volatile form, the collection also makes a point of documenting artists who were too often written out of the narrative—especially the women who fought for space in an aggressively testosterone-heavy ecosystem.
The set arrives as a deluxe 2LP box with an ephemera-stuffed gatefold and a 144-page hardbound book, alongside a CD edition and digital release.
Mastering & Restoration at Osiris Studio
Because this music lived in the margins—private pressings, demos, out-of-print releases, one-off appearances—the audio existed across a wide range of source formats and conditions. For this project, Michael Graves meticulously restored and mastered the compilation from an unusually diverse set of materials, including home-made cassettes, vinyl, CD, and digital files, then shaped those disparate origins into one cohesive, continuous listening experience—a record that hits with consistent impact while still preserving the character (and chaos) of the Strip.
Credits
Label: Numero Group
Compilation Producers: Adam Luksetich, Kevin Estrada
Book / Scene Essay: Katherine Turman
Audio Restoration & Mastering: Michael Graves — Osiris Studio
Bound For Hell: On The Sunset Strip is a reminder that scenes aren’t built by headlines—they’re built by bands, flyers, van-loads of gear, and songs that survive however they can. Osiris Studio is honored to help bring this chapter of L.A. hard rock history into sharper focus—loud, aggressive, and finally presented as a unified album experience.
Blondie – Against The Odds 1974–1982
Mastering by Michael Graves at Osiris Studio
Numero Group | Released August 26, 2022
Numero Group has released Blondie: Against The Odds 1974–1982, the first fully authorized, career-spanning archival box set documenting the band’s original run—from their earliest recordings through the final studio album of the era.
Spanning 124 tracks, the collection brings together Blondie’s six studio albums alongside 36 previously unreleased recordings, including demos, outtakes, alternate versions, and newly uncovered material. More than a retrospective, Against The Odds functions as a deep archival map of one of the most influential bodies of work in American popular music.
Blondie’s Enduring Cultural Power
Blondie’s Against The Odds 1974–1982 documents a body of work that has become inseparable from the fabric of American popular music. Across punk, new wave, pop, disco, and early hip-hop crossover, Blondie didn’t simply reflect the musical moment of the late 1970s and early 1980s — they helped define it.
The songs remain omnipresent decades later. Tracks like “Heart of Glass,” “Rapture,” and “Call Me” continue to circulate across radio formats, film soundtracks, documentaries, and public spaces worldwide. The visual language of Parallel Lines remains instantly recognizable, while the music itself bridges underground credibility and mass-culture reach in a way few bands have ever achieved.
What makes Against The Odds essential is how clearly it traces that evolution. By pairing Blondie’s six core studio albums with demos, outtakes, alternate versions, and newly discovered recordings, the set presents a comprehensive view of how the band’s sound developed from early New York punk roots into a global pop force. It captures not only the hits, but the process — the experimentation, risk-taking, and stylistic range that allowed Blondie to move fluidly between genres without losing identity.
Taken as a whole, Against The Odds 1974–1982 functions as a musical genome map, showing how Blondie’s recordings became a lasting strand of American music’s core DNA — influential, adaptable, and still deeply embedded in everyday listening culture.
Mastering at Osiris Studio
All material in Against The Odds 1974–1982 was restored where needed and mastered by Michael Graves at Osiris Studio, working from new high-resolution transfers of the original analog tapes. As part of the transfer process, select tapes were processed using the Plangent Processes system, allowing for precise correction of time-base instability embedded in the original recordings. Addressing low-level speed fluctuations at the transfer stage helped restore pitch accuracy, transient clarity, and stereo stability before mastering, creating a consistent, preservation-grade foundation across recordings that span nearly a decade, multiple studios, and evolving production styles.
For Graves, the project carried particular significance. Working with recordings that have shaped multiple generations of listeners was both a technical and cultural responsibility and a personal honor—approached with the same care given to any historically important archive, but with a deep awareness of how embedded this music is in everyday life.
Newly uncovered tapes were integrated alongside long-circulating rarities, presenting the expanded program with clarity and balance while remaining faithful to the character and intent of the original recordings.
Vinyl cutting
The vinyl editions of Against The Odds 1974–1982 were cut by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road Studios, translating the newly mastered sources to lacquer across the collection’s multi-LP configurations.
Albums included (with original release dates)
Original studio albums
Blondie — 1976
Plastic Letters — 1977
Parallel Lines — 1978
Eat To The Beat — 1979
Autoamerican — 1980
The Hunter — 1982
Archival bonus discs compiled for Against The Odds
(Recorded during 1974–1982; assembled specifically for this collection)
Plaza Sound — early recordings and sessions
Parallel Beats — alternates, extended mixes, and experiments
Coca Cola — session outtakes and unreleased material
Home Tapes — demos and personal recordings
Out In The Streets — 10" rarities collection
“Moonlight Drive” b/w “Mr. Sightseer” — previously unreleased single
Credits (selected)
Artist: Blondie
Label: Numero Group
Compilation Producers: Tommy Manzi, Steve Rosenthal, Ken Shipley
Mastering: Michael Graves – Osiris Studio
Vinyl Cutting: Geoff Pesche – Abbey Road Studios
Evan Toth talks with Michael Graves
By Michael Graves
I mastered Evan Toth’s excellent album, The Show, last year. After exchanging a few emails we realized that we have a lot in common and a lot to talk about. As luck would have it, Evan hosts a radio show on Fairleigh Dickinson University’s WFDU, 89.1 FM called The Sharp Notes, writes for The Vinyl District and hosts his own podcast. With the upcoming release of Blondie: Against The Odds 1974-1982 we decided it was finally time set up the microphones, fire up the Zoom and do a proper interview. You can see the YouTube interview below and the Vinyl District audio only interview here. The radio show (here) is the same interview but he’s added some music that I’ve mastered into the conversation.