By Patrick Birk

The Wonder Years has returned to ABC, paying homage to the original 1988 coming-of-age narrative while also carving its own path. Set in 1968, the show follows 12-year-old Dean Williams (Elisha Williams) and his family’s experiences as a Black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama. An adult version of Dean, voiced by Don Cheadle, provides a narration of his friendships, love interests and growing pains alongside the struggles of growing up Black at that time.

L-R: Composers Jacob Yoffee and Roahn Hylton

Composers Roahn Hylton (Kevin Hart: Don’t F**k This Up, Free Meek) and Jacob Yoffee (Kevin Hart: Don’t F**k This Up, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) — who work side by side at their LA-based Th3rdstream Studios — bring the spirit of the time to life with a period-inspired soundtrack steeped in the R&B roots of the era. The pair kindly chatted with me to share insight into their creative process.

What artists, record labels and producers served as primary influences on this soundtrack?
Roahn Hylton: We did an amalgamation of a few. I know Bill Withers is a huge inspiration sonically because of the way that he used acoustic groove. The original series used a lot of acoustic guitar and other timeless instruments, and in some of our first calls with [EP, director] Fred Savage and [showrunner/writer] Saladin Patterson, there was this idea that we wanted to be close to that emotional feeling of the original while paying homage to the soul of what we wanted to create.

We did a lot of research. There’s Aretha Franklin and there’s Marvin Gaye, but I gravitated to the Bill Withers sound. And Jacob’s long experience in film music really helped smooth out the R&B tracks into a great film score.

Jacob Yoffee: For me, Otis Redding was a big inspiration, and Bill Withers for pocket and groove and just the way he used the acoustic guitar. This was a big, specific request from the creators since it was so successful in the original Wonder Years. Obviously, this is a different family, different story, different sort of experience, but still about the “wonder years” in a boy’s life.

We had to figure out a way to capture the sound of a band but make it work for a score, which is challenging because we have such a wealth of needle drops in every episode. Amani [K. Smith], the music supervisor, is a great resource for finding bands we’ve never heard of. We didn’t want the score just to sound like instrumental needle drops.

We had to try to find a way for the score not only to make us say, “Hey, this sounds like a band of that time,” but also to feel like it’s in the present — urgent and visceral — so that it feels like we’re in the moment with the characters. That was a lot of fun to explore. There was a lot of trial and error on our parts. Sometimes we made music that we both loved and thought was amazing. Then we’d put it up against picture and were like, “Eh, it doesn’t work.” So there’s “a lot of blood on the cutting room floor,” as they say. But it helped create a sound that we’re all really thrilled that we get to continue to explore for the rest of the season.

In terms of recording, to what extent were you period-accurate? Were you using all analog gear? At what point did digital enter the equation?
Hylton: When we first started the whole Wonder Years process, it was 2020, and Jacob and I were just looking at each other like, “What are we going to do?” It was a pretty rough time for all of us, so we were like, “Man, let’s just be creative. Let’s do some cool music that hopefully we can get licensed and that we’d want to listen to.” We asked ourselves what time period interested us, and the answer was the ‘50s and ‘60s.

At that time, we started some things in the box, but we recorded everything live. We had a great group of musicians in New York that do everything the way it’s supposed to be done — Wurli, organ, drums, great separation. We did everything as close to the traditional way of recording as possible for the authenticity, including recording live to tape.

And to be honest with you, that’s how we got the gig. They loved how it sounded and the work that we put in. Because as you know, it’s not just work creating the music; it’s work making it sound like it sounds. We wanted to stay true to that vintage sonic character with the score, while at the same time not exhausting the time that it’s going to take to make this happen on a weekly network show. So we’d go in and add some tape stuff because when it comes to the score, sometimes we don’t have time to stripe every single cue. So we’ve done a little bit of everything in terms of crafting and navigating that sound.

Yoffee: A big part of it, too, is the musicians that we use; they’re all lovers of this style of music, this era, this genre. So we’re working on writing the music, and then every time we do a session, we’re starting to write for the musician specifically. You’re not writing for Wurlitzer. You’re writing for Eric or Bob or Jim and the way that these musicians play their instruments. It brings a lot more of the vibe because that’s the way it would be in a band. For example, we were talking about Bill Withers earlier. The drummer in that band … you can’t just tell any drummer to play like that. They can try, but a lot of this comes down to the actual person; the human that’s playing that instrument brings a lot to this kind of music.

So the people that we chose to work were incredibly important … the different instrumentalists, different vocalists. You need to pick the right person. It’s not just the instrument; it’s not generic. When you only have a rhythm section — very few people that you’re working with — it’s just as important as the people you might pick to be in a string quartet. You want a group, you want that sort of vibe and that sound, and it’s made a world of difference when it comes to how we’re voicing the chords on each instrument — the guitar player, the type of pick, the type of guitar. You notice a difference between a Les Paul and a Strat. There’s a lot there, you know?

Jacob Yoffee and Roahn Hylton in their studio

In addition to instruments, what tools do you use when writing?
Yoffee: Our software includes Pro Tools and  Logic Pro, and Finale for part preparation. We also use Native Instruments’ Kontakt and various NI libraries extensively.

When you needed to rework a cue, did you have to schedule a new session with the musicians, or were you rearranging what you had already recorded?
Hylton: A little bit of both.

Yoffee: Over the last month, we’ve been doing three to four recording sessions a week. Especially with COVID protocols, we’ve had to find clever ways to get things done. We use Audiomovers, which is a service that allows us to record remotely. It’s set up so we hear the musicians as they’re recording. When we talk on our microphones, they hear us in their headphones. So when the drummer’s in the booth, I can talk directly to that person and be like, “Go up an octave.” It’s as if we’re there in person. So that helps.

Sometimes we do a cue and send it to the showrunners and editors, and they say, “Hey, it’s not working with the scene — it was 2 minutes, and now it’s 15 seconds. Can you make adjustments?”

And we say, “Okay, we’re just going to do another one on the next recording session to fit that scene.” It works out because we have so many sessions scheduled, and then we are very picky in making sure we can have the layers in the stems. Guitar separate from the bass, separate from the drums — there’s no bleed. If we have to cut and make cue changes to match the picture, we have that ability. And that happens often.

How period-accurate were you in terms of the musicians’ performances? Were you using things like click tracks? Pitch correction?
Yoffee: Yes and no. There are situations where we didn’t have a click track, but if you need to layer musicians, having the click track just really helps. I’ve done recordings where the click seems sacrilegious, but in this situation, especially with COVID, where we had the remote recording, it helped a lot.

Another thing that I want to bring up is the concept of nostalgia versus present tense in the moment. When we’re doing these period-accurate songs that need to sound like an old song, we are very aware of whether it sounds like it was recorded in the ‘60s. So we say, “Let’s record to tape, or let’s run it through a lot of analog tape emulation or filters.”

But when it comes to the score, it’s supposed to feel like real time, not looking back. We’re experiencing the scene with Dean and his family for the first time as they’re experiencing it, so it should feel present tense.

When we first started, we let go of some of that idea of wanting it to sound like bands that are tracking in mono to tape because it sounds delicious. Because when you put it in, it sounds like a needle drop, so we realized that not only is the music saying something, but the recording of the music is commenting on the scene —  there’s this additional layer that we realized is a very powerful tool, and you have to be picky and deliberate with how you use it.

What compositional techniques did you use from a theory and instrumentation perspective?
Yoffee: From the beginning we thought the idea of a soul or R&B Motown band would be the core of the show’s sound. On some of the songs, we’ve had strings, and I’m sure that we will probably use a chamber string ensemble as things move forward, but that core rhythm section is such an incredible ensemble. When you think about the orchestra, it’s everything. All of humanity can be kind of displayed with an orchestra. I went to a music conservatory, and the sense is like, “Oh, there’s nothing better than an orchestra, and everything else is sort of beneath it,” which is completely untrue.

The same technique that you develop for writing in an orchestral setting applies when writing for a jazz ensemble or an R&B rhythm section. All the colors that an orchestra can display are available in other genres, and we are finding a lot of joy in using an orchestrator’s mindset while using a ‘60s-era Motown ensemble.

What I find fascinating is that we’re working with a horn section and then a rhythm section, and when you have those two together, that is the orchestra. It’s everything you need. So we have trumpet, tenor, alto, bari and trombone in the horn section. Then we have B3, Wurlitzer, piano, acoustic and electric guitars, electric bass, upright bass and drums and percussion. Those are plenty of voices to work with. Then we approach it stylistically and harmonically with what you would hear in the realm of Motown: the chord progressions and voicings and how things are layered. It’s remarkable what colors, textures and variation you can get. That’s really one of the enticing things about orchestra, right? We haven’t found an end to the variation thus far.

Hylton: There is a specific scene in Episode 1 where we just use vocals. And because of the contrast with the blend of the ensemble that we had been using, it stands out in a very beautiful way. It reminds me of what Ramin Djawadi did in the Game of Thrones score; he didn’t use a lot of piano. There’s one cue in Season 6 when Tommen Baratheon jumps off the top of a building. There’s this beautiful piece that he plays with piano. He uses the theme, and it just stands out. I think that we found a way to use that kind of approach in what we’ve done, where we have the ensemble, but then different instruments are playing at different times to give it this sense of nostalgia and a sense of heart and soul.

The Wonder Years means something different to every person. Walking into it, both Jacob and I had our own thoughts and feelings about the original series, but in this reimagining, it’s its own world. Because of this, we wanted to use the ensemble in a different way than would have been done in the original, while at the same time paying attention — it’s a Black family in the South, right? There’s church and gospel music in there. There’s gotta be R&B in there. But at the same time, we’re making this timeless, and the choice of the ensemble is crucial in that.

What were you thinking about when selecting the musicians who would make up this ensemble?
Yoffee: I lived in New York for a few years and was a gigging jazz musician working with some incredible musicians. The band we track is in New York, and they’re all jazz musicians, but they play all types of music. Each player is a connoisseur of music in general, and they have a deep love for this. So they geek out over who was playing on this Otis Redding album and what instruments they played. We’ll have inspiration albums, tracks and artists, and they’ll be like, “James Jamerson played that change like this!” That’s a big reason why we picked them.

The core rhythm section played together all the time. So when they play together, they’re very comfortable, and they’re also monster sight readers. It’s really a special skill to be able to play really well and also read. It was also important that they could work with us and around the technical and logistical demands because film music does not move slowly. Anyone we work with has got to be quick and detail-oriented.

Patrick Birk is a musician, sound engineer and post pro at Silver Sound, a boutique sound house based in New York City. He releases original material under the moniker Carmine Vates. Check out his recently released single, Virginia.