A quick note to all our wonderful clients… ProComm Voices will be open for business through the holidays this year. If you need to book a voice over session, we’ll be available during our regular business hours each weekday, 9 AM – 6 PM Eastern.

When directing Bill in sessions, I always felt that he and I were on the same wavelength. After a take, I could start to make a suggestion, and Bill would frequently complete my sentence, somehow knowing exactly what I was looking for. We would hear things the same way. Subtle things like points of emphasis that could change the meaning of a sentence. I could ask Bill to “shave a half second,” and he could literally shave a half second. Or I could say, “Go faster but don’t sound like it.” While clients would chuckle at that direction, Bill could really do it. Directing him was like steering an expensive sports car. He responded so well to whatever was asked of him.

Clients almost always raved about Bill’s talent. But I loved one of Bill’s comebacks when a client would give him a less than stellar comment following a read. The client might say, “That’s pretty good, Bill. At least we’re getting there.” To which Bill would reply, “Damned again by faint praise.”

We discovered Bill in 1989. In those pre-Internet, pre-ISDN days, we often added new voices to the roster by phoning studios in the region and swapping names of recently discovered talent. Our office manager at the time was Barbara Gray. She had been talking to Grace Cantrell who worked for Sundown Sound in Greenville, SC, about an hour from ProComm. Barbara gave Grace a couple of names, and Grace did likewise. Then, as an afterthought, Grace added, “Oh, there is another guy you MIGHT be able to use. His name is Bill Thomas. But he doesn’t have a demo. Here’s his number.”

Barbara called and told Bill we’d like to hear what he could do. So he agreed to drive up to ProComm and do a live audition for us. He arrived the next day, a bit scruffy looking, in an old Crown Vic. We handed him three or four scripts to read on mic. Our jaws dropped as Barbara and I turned to each other in disbelief. Grace had said that we MIGHT want to use this guy. Really? He was incredible!

I used those reads to create Bill’s first ProComm demo which got him a tremendous amount of work. We started booking him that very day. Bill drove up from Greenville daily for the next five days. Then he called me aside and asked, “Is this volume of work normal? Can I expect this to continue?” Bill Thomas rapidly became one of our most popular voices, a distinction he maintained for 22 years.

Bill loved cars. Especially Ford Crown Victoria’s and VWs. Unfortunately, he didn’t always have one in good working order in the early days. He repeatedly explained that he was “building a car” in his front yard. I occasionally suggested he might want to just buy a good used car instead so he could have reliable transportation. Somehow that would set him off, and he’d respond, “John, don’t be ridiculous!!”

Once, when Bill’s car was on the blink, he called a cab to drive him from Greenville to Asheville. When I arrived at the studio that morning, I spotted a yellow taxi sitting in the grass of the park across the street. The driver was squatting by the cab having a smoke while Bill was inside voicing commercials. Turns out that Bill had asked the driver to wait there for four hours as he completed his sessions. Hey, you had to appreciate Bill’s determination to come through for us. No matter how quirky he was, I believe he was on time for almost every session.

In those days, we had a studio cat. One that had wandered up to the back door and never left. For a couple years, we just called him, “Kitty”. One day, I got the idea to name Kitty, and gave him the rather formal name, “Mike Burke” (inspired by one of our corporate clients). We wrote the name Mike Burke on Kitty’s food dish. Bill had become quite close to the cat by then and was furious that we had changed its name. And he let me know it. Seeing the new name on the dish only made Bill madder. One of the engineers said, “Bill, you can take the letters off the dish, but you can’t take the name off the cat.” Bill slowly accepted Kitty’s new name, and his relationship with Mike Burke became legendary at ProComm.

When I first met Bill, ProComm had several pieces of studio gear that had been modified by Lee Furr, a renowned engineer in Tucson. But as Bill learned our ambitions for growing the company, he told me something that was crucial to accomplishing our vision. “John, if you want to have  several studios and crank out lots of jobs, you need to standardize your equipment. Everything must be ‘off the shelf’ with redundancy from room to room.” I think he had learned this when working at TM Productions in Dallas, the revered jingle and music company known for their assembly line productions for hundreds of radio station clients. Bill introduced us to David Rochester and Alan Brooks, two outstanding technical guys, who totally transformed the wiring and acoustics of our early operation. (Alan is now our full time technical director, and David continues to keep in touch with ProComm from his base in Nashville.) I’ll always be grateful to Bill for connecting us with those guys.

If you ever worked with Bill in a session, you’ll remember how, in between takes, he’d switch into his spot-on impersonation of Harry Morgan as Colonel Potter on MASH. Not sure why, but it was a Bill Thomas trademark. Sometimes I thought I heard a faint trace of Colonel Potter on subsequent reads, and I’d ask him to quit impersonating Harry for the rest of the session. Strangely, I don’t think he was ever asked by a client to do that particular voice on a spot. But it would have been perfect if he had.

A first-time female client once told Bill after her session, “You just sound so ‘huggable’.” And he did. Although a bit of a curmudgeon outside of sessions, he was also gracious and kind. He ended every job with honest, sincere appreciation to all involved. Bill was a freelance voice talent, but he came across as a member of the ProComm family telling clients things like, “That’s how we do it here at ProComm.” And I like to think that “how we do it here” is to aspire to the professionalism and grace of Bill Thomas for every client. Actually, Bill once said to me that “our clients know that ProComm’s worst job will at least be acceptable.” Uh, ok. I know what he meant.

Bill, we’ll miss you and think of you often. Thanks for being a part of our lives.

We lost a great one this past weekend with the passing of voice talent Bill Thomas.

Bill was a throwback, a character, a curmudgeon, as well as a true professional, and if you ever had the chance to get to know him you probably have a story or two to tell. To honor Bill, I’d like to share some of those stories, along with some of the incredible work that Bill did behind the mic.

Bill will always be remembered for his big voice. As fellow voice talent Joe Van Riper said the other day, ‘God must have needed a better voice’. And that’s saying something, coming from a guy like Joe.

He was such a staple at the ProComm studios that it’s hard to imagine him not being around. Before the days when everyone had a home studio you could usually find Bill in the ProComm talent lounge talking politics (As Bill would say, he was ‘somewhere right of Atilla the Hun’ in his political views), sharing stories and arcane trivia, or just dozing on the couch between sessions, with Mike Burke, the studio cat napping on top of him.

I remember one session years ago working with Bill and Lindsay Ayliffe on a spot for Chili’s. Given a short piece of country music and a few lyrics Bill and Lindsay brought to life this classic scenario of overbearing boss and quirky employee, sitting around the campfire… in the office. It was Bill’s idea to have the boss join in the sing along.

Bill Thomas and Lindsay Ayliffe for Chilis

btw, that’s Bob Morgan, another great talent from the old days as the announcer. I imagine Bob and Bill are up there in heaven right now riffing on Bugs Bunny characters.

Another favorite of mine comes from the ‘Welcome to Procomm’ skits that we sent to clients as promotional material. George Olsen was the writer on this piece. It still makes me laugh today. James K Flynn is our spokesperson, Harry Resonance, and Bill is the memorable Herb Glottle.

Welcome to ProComm – Herb Glottle

Here’s how ProComm producer and voice talent Dan Friedman remembers Bill…

From a whisper to a scream Bill Thomas could do it all. There are few voices that are as big and booming and yet still as versatile as was the voice of Bill Thomas. There are even fewer people left in this industry who have the knowledge, perspective and technical skill that Bill possessed.

While Bill was often cantankerous and opinionated outside of the booth, he was also supportive and caring of those around him. He could drive people crazy and even make a person angry when he expressed his personal views and thoughts about the world. However, he never said a bad word about anyone personally. In fact, whether you agreed with him or not, he would still treat you with genuine respect, care and concern.

He was always at his best when he was in front of the microphone. I will remember him most fondly for being incredibly diverse, remarkably charming and exceptionally talented. His comedic timing, microphone technique and copy interpretation were all pure perfection. He was generous with compliments to the talent around him, including the writers, directors and engineers. He had a great ear and never complained about doing more takes if needed. He generously offered to work “until the point of diminishing returns” as we would frequently say. It was as though he never wanted to leave the mic.

I will miss working with you Bill. I will end with the same words with which you often ended your recording sessions, “It was an honor and a pleasure.”

Dan Friedman

Dan put together some of Bill’s best material in this audio collage. It reminds me just how versatile he was.

Bill Thomas – voice collection

A lot will be said about Bill the voice talent. Here’s a note from fellow voice talent Anne Lalley about Bill the man.

I always told Bill that I loved him in every session. Bill was not only a great talent with an amazing voice, but more importantly, a true blue friend. I loved working with him. He was always so supportive in and out of the studio. Once when my car had broken down and I was worried about the expense, Bill stepped outside on the old ProComm front porch, opened his wallet and said, “Take what you need.” And he meant it, no strings attached. I’ll never forget his kindness.

Anne Lalley

That was Bill Thomas. A great talent, and a great guy.

So what do you remember most about Bill?

***updated***

Fellow producer and voice talent Zak Miller passed along this note:

I was going through my archives and found a Disney Tower of Terror tool kit from ’03 (hence the ‘wxyz’ ref) and thought I would let you guys hear some magic from Bill that you may have never heard.

He had such a range and a gift for this craft.   I always told him that when I grow up I want to be your voice!

Bill Thomas – Tower of Terror

Sad news with the passing of Tom Keith, sound effects master on public radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” Here’s hoping his career inspired others to keep the magic of live radio going.

With the passing of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs this week, there have been many things written about the legacy he left for our generation: The many computer products that change our lives, the transformation of how we buy and listen to music, even the advertising industry gained from Apple’s innovative marketing.

You may recall the ‘Here’s to the Crazy Ones’ TV commercial that aired in 1997 to launch Apple’s Think Different campaign. Richard Dreyfuss provided the voice over. But did you know Steve Jobs provided the voice over for an early version that never aired? I stumbled across this on youtube the other day and thought it appropriate to share. Steve Jobs may have had a future as a voice talent, if not for all that creative-genius-visionary stuff.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rwsuXHA7RA

For comparison, here’s the Richard Dreyfuss version.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX9GTUMh490

I love to see good deeds arise from disastrous situations.

The folks in Minot, North Dakota have seen some of the worst flooding in their history. I’ve seen stories of neighbors helping neighbors and volunteers from across the country headed up there to lend a hand. What is unexpected is when the level of help increases from individuals to corporations.

ProComm Voices recently recorded a spot for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota. They actually put some thought into what they could do to help the people who were flooded out of their homes. What do you need most if you can’t go back home for weeks or months? You need your daily medications and monetary assistance. By offering to fill prescriptions early and extending premium payments, a large corporation is making a real difference.

BCBSND radio

It does a heart good and should be an inspiration to us all. If you would like to help with donations visit www.rallyminot.com.

Thanks to Flint Communications and Rodney Schumacher for their contributions.

ProComm Voices will be closed on Monday July 4th for the holiday, but we’d like to share this song written and performed by ProComm voice talent Mare Carmody.   Mare says the song came to her from a dream she had about her former neighborhood in Suffolk, Virginia;  the neighborhood where she and her husband bought their first house together and began to raise their two children.     The photos were taken by family and friends in that neighborhood.   Happy Fourth!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_x4pOfJ4XE

Congratulations to Rodney Saulsberry for his recent nomination in the “Outstanding Actor in a Daytime Drama Series” category of The 42nd NAACP Image Awards for his role as a “Homeless Golden Voice” singer on the Bold and the Beautiful.  The awards program will air live March 4th, 2011 on Fox.

Rodney has been a successful voice over talent with ProComm Voices for several years, with campaigns including Zatarain’s, Instant Tax Services, and many more.

Check out this Zatarain’s commercial featuring Rodney as the announcer:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovcJSWsdr3g

Straight from the UK, we’ve added some great new voices to the ProComm Voices talent roster. You’ll find them in our new British/ UK male voice talent and British/ UK female voice talent category pages on www.procommvoices.com. If you’re in need of a British or Scottish read for your next project, try out these voices:

Mike Cooper – Mike has an appealing range of deliveries and interpretations, each as skilled as the next.

Julie-Ann Dean – Great interpretations and characters, Julie-Ann brings loads of fun to her reads!

Philip Banks – A resonant and distinct British voice that exudes class.

Rennie Griffiths – A sophisticated Scottish voice who ranges from dramatic to fun.

Sarah Parnell – Smooth, sexy, smart, or sassy – Sarah does it all.

Jon Lovell – Young and upbeat with contagious enthusiasm; Jon has a great range of character voices.

Graeme Mackenzie – A versatile Scottish voice talent.

Jenny Dunbar – A distinct and sophisticated Scottish voice with plenty of personality.

Andy Turvey – An accessible and friendly British chap with smarts to boot.

Ricky Salmon – Clear, concise, and conversational.

Tanya Rich – Conversational, quirky, sexy, hard sell – a great range of voices and styles.

ProComm Voices producer Dan Friedman has penned his first book on the subject of voice overs. It’s called ‘Sound Advice: Voiceover from an Audio Engineer’s Perspective.’

As both a producer and a voice talent (most recently doing some nice work for Moe’s), Dan brings a different point of view to the subject of voice overs. He’s contributed some great articles to the ProComm Voices blog, including pieces on selecting a microphone and mic technique. You’ll find more great advice in Dan’s book, including everything from studio set-up to session etiquette.

Whether you’re experienced in the business of voice overs or just getting started, there’s lots of useful information.

You can find the book online at authorhouse.com.