Hello Dave!
Good to hear from you. Everyone here says hello.
Your question is certainly a loaded one. I have discussed Shakira very briefly in a thread or two, mostly concerning the drums by Abe L., Jr.
Every session has it's challenges, and some much more so than others.
I will say that Shakira is a very talented young lady; she has a lot of ideas, and likes to try every one of them her way. As she is the artist, and in effect is paying the bills, that is her choice to make. Of course, that doesn't always make it easy for those of us trying to carry out her wishes, though.
I will also say that those tracking session were among the hardest and longest that I've ever been associated with. Every morning when I woke up I literally felt like I had been hit head on by a Mack truck the day before. The vocal sessions later were almost as hard. There were many predictions by some involved that the album would never be finished. However it finally was, and has sold over 12 million copies already, so I guess somebody did something right, whatever it may have taken to get there.
I would love to write a few nice stories about some of the many incidents while making this album. Perhaps I will in the next week or so.
But for now, we're all still here; none of our sessions has killed us yet! (And I worked with Shaki recently on some tracks en espa