From left: Engineer Jason Latshaw, Daz Dillinger and Assistant Jason Gillespie.

West Coast gangster rap maven Daz Dillinger returned to Ardent this month to record vocals on and mix a new project. The new material, which features fellow former Death Row artists Snoop Dogg and Kurupt, is for a followup album to Daz's most recent release, So So Gangsta.

Daz has worked with a multitude of platinum selling recording artists from the West Coast, including Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, and many others, and continues to do so today. You can check him out on So So Gangsta, released on Jermaine Dupri's label So So Def.

From left: Keyboardist Rick Steff, Chan Marshall (Cat Power) and guitarist Teenie Hodges.

Cat Power returned to Ardent this month to work on a track for the soundtrack of the highly anticipated Bob Dylan biopic entitled "I'm Not There," set to premier in May 2007 at the Cannes Film Festival. She came with The Memphis Rhythm Band, who have been on tour with her since recording The Greatest here at Ardent last year.The Memphis Rhythm Band includes Doug Easley (guitar), Teenie Hodges (guitar), Rick Steff (keyboards), Dave Smith (bass) and Greg Lundy (drums), among others. The soundtrack will feature several artists covering Dylan songs, paralleling the director Todd Haynes' non-traditional approach of casting multiple actors to portray Dylan in several distinct stages of his life. Stuart Sikes engineered the session with George Drakoulias producing and Ardent's Curry Weber assisting

From left:Jack White, Patrick Keeler, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, engineer John Hampton

Broken Boy Soldiers, the debut album from The Raconteurs, was mixed with engineer John Hampton here at Ardent Studios. The band is up for 2 Grammys in the categories of "Best Rock Album" and "Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group" for the first single, "Steady, As She Goes." Adam Hill assisted on the record.

Hampton and Hill had previously worked on The White Stripes record Get Behind Me Satan, also mixed here at Ardent, which was the winner in the "Best Alternative Music Album" category at last years Grammy Awards ceremony. The 45th Annual Grammy Awards will be broadcast live on CBS at 8 pm on February 11, 2007.

Wax Fang and the Ardent Gang, Christmas 2006

Wax Fang was in the studio this month with Doug Easley engineering and Ardent's Jason Gillespie assisting. Scott Carney (bass), Jake Heustis (guitars) and Kevin Ratterman (drums) were tracking material for their first full length album, which is yet to be titled. Kevin had worked with Doug in a previous band and had such a positive experience that he decided to come back to Memphis with the new group. Says Kevin: "He is so patient and creative and a delight to work with."

The band recently came off of a two week tour with The Features and The Whigs which took them from Louisville, KY to SXSW. They have miscellaneous dates coming up in New York, Atlanta, and Nashville, but are now focused on finishing up the album at Kevin's studio in Louisville.