You stared listening to some of the classic sides released by RCA, Atlantic, and Sun at a young age. Who were some of your favorites? Do you remember what first drew you to their music?

I was very young at that time, about 5 or 6, and my older sister loved Elvis Presley. I also loved him and his music.

I also loved the Everly Brothers. They could sing and harmonize so well. It always seems that brothers that sing together just have a natural ability to harmonize. Ray Charles is also one of my all-time favorites.

When I started playing, The Beatles and Rolling Stones were some of my favorites. I learned a lot from listening and playing along with their records. I also learned a lot about how songs were put together from them.

The Beatles wrote such great songs and recorded them so well. They, along with George Martin, came up with some very innovative recording techniques that are still being used today.

Very early in your career you met the Duane and Gregg Allman. How did that influence you and your music?

We were from the same home town - the Daytona Beach area. Gregg and Duane were a little older than I was.

I was just getting started playing in clubs when I was about 15 years old, and I had heard so much about them that I was anxious to meet them.

The first time I met them they had just gotten back from playing in New York. We became good friends and later on I played in a band with them.

Gregg’s voice floored me. He could mimic about anyone back then so well. They did a lot of R&B and blues and they were great at it. Duane’s guitar playing to me was just great.

I really wished I could become a combination of both of them. To play like Duane and sing like Gregg all in one package. That would have been awesome to me at the time or even now.

You were part of two legendary scenes in Southern music: Muscle Shoals in Alabama and Capricorn Studios in Macon. What was it like being in those places at such a fertile time?

I’ve always considered any success I have had to being in the right places and around the right people at the right time.

I went to Macon, Georgia before the Allman Brothers was actually formed. We had put together a rhythm section in the same vein as the Memphis section.

We were together for a while, but when Capricorn started having such huge success with southern rock, the studio rhythm section wasn’t needed any more. That’s when I moved to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to join the section they had there.

We had great success recording artists such as Rod Stewart, Paul Simon, Bob Seger and on and on. I just happened to be in the right places when things were hot.

I don’t pretend to be the greatest guitar player in the world. I was just able to come up with the right parts for the right songs. The studio and arranging guitar parts was my forte.

My background in producing and engineering helped me a lot. You can be a great guitar player and just not be able to come up with parts that enhance a song to make it a hit recording. It’s not how much you can play, but knowing what to play where in a song that makes a good studio musician.

The roster of artists you’ve worked with is incredibly diverse from Wilson Pickett to Paul Simon to Hank Williams, Jr. to Barbara Streisand. How do you change your approach from artist to artist?

I just morphed into whatever fit the artist and songs. Of course I played my own style. That’s why I liked working in studios so much. One week you could play and contribute your skills to one kind of music and the next a totally different type of music - much less boring than playing the same old songs.

I quit playing in bands when I was a teenager because I loved working in the studio and I also loved the technical side of what was in the studios.

I also liked coming up with parts that helped make the song. We never had the music written. Just basic chord charts.

Like the part I did on Bob Seger's "Main Street.” I just pulled that out of my own head. That’s the way I worked. I would listen to the raw song and try and imagine what part would sound good on it and make it up as I went.

What current projects are you excited about?

I have a fairly new CD that I sell on my website (www.playthatguitar.com) called Play That Guitar. It is a guitar instrumental CD.

I also have two other CD’s on the site called Multiple Flash and Not A Word On It. I have just started another guitar CD but it will be a while before I’m finished with it.

How did you make the leap from playing to the producing and engineering side of things?

Being in the studio all the time and loving the whole aspect of recording made it a natural progression. I actually was producing and engineering early on. I like producing and engineering as well or better than playing guitar.

Even though people see me as mainly a guitar player, I look as the guitar as just one tool I have to make recordings. I have produced and engineered a few hit recordings.

In addition to your work as a musician, you’re also a computer aficionado – tell us a little bit about that!

I bought a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I in the late ‘70s. At first I wasn’t into it much until I got a word processor called Electric Pencil. The word processor changed everything for me.

I was soon writing articles for the current computer magazines and traveling around interviewing some of the best operating system programmers at that time.

It was a very rewarding experience for me and I learned a lot. I also got into database programming and networks. I put in networks for business for a while and loved doing it. Then later on database programs like dBase and Microsoft Access along with SQL.

I loved programming for years. I know a few languages like BASIC, C, and COBOL. C is my programming language of choice.

I always thought how great it would be if you could manipulate music in the same way a word processor allows you to edit, cut and paste, and move paragraphs like we can do today in programs such as SONAR 5.

Things have come a very, very long way since I got my first computer. A long way. I love it all.

As a producer and engineer, has your interest in computers helped you as digital recording increasingly becomes the norm?

Yes. But digital recording was a whole new field to me. Like a good full-fledged word processor, today’s recording programs such as SONAR 5 offer so many features that it’s very time consuming to learn them all.

As a matter of fact, I probably use only 30% of what a word processor or digital recording program has to offer.

When I find I need to do something I haven’t done before, I look to see how it can be done. Usually the program has a feature to do it.

It’s all still very amazing to me just how powerful and features-laden computer programs have become in all areas and uses.

We couldn’t help but notice that you mention on your website that iZotope’s Ozone is a "must-have for any professional or home recording studio.” What do you like about it so much and how have you put iZotope’s plug-ins to use?

I have found Ozone to have everything you need in one place to put final mastering touches on mixes. I usually have it in my master bus and turn it on when I have my mix the way I want it. Or sometimes I use it by importing the mix into Sound Forge and master there.

With Ozone I can do about anything I need such as loudness maximizing, etc. I really like the multiband dynamics compressor and multiband stereo imager, and it has a great flexible E.Q. It has everything I need, and it’s all in one plug-in which makes it easy to use.

It is a complete mastering package at your fingertips. The sound is great, and I haven’t found anything it is lacking. I haven’t found anything else that compares with it for having all the possible features and quality all in one package.

The user interface is also one of the best I have seen. Ozone just looks, feels, and sounds very professional to me and is easy to use. I have tried quite a few products but I keep going back to Ozone.

To learn more Pete Carr and his new albums, visit www.playthatguitar.com.

Check out Pete's latest album at www.playthatguitar.com

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