Mark Bennett: Don Arney brought out best in Wabash Valley musicians

May 7—Creativity soared in Terre Haute in 2013. An array of arts, history and cultural events filled the calendar as the city celebrated the "Year of the River."

As the town prepared for that year-long toast to the Wabash River, it turned to Don Arney to help capture that spirit in music.

A craftsman of sound, Arney served as studio producer and engineer of the two-volume album set, "The Wabash." It featured 25 Wabash Valley music acts performing vintage and original songs about the river. The genres ranged from folk to rock, country, classical, bluegrass, American jazz, blues, punk-country and Western swing. The first "Wabash" album was released in December 2012, followed by "Volume II" in October 2013.

Proceeds from the albums' sales helped fund the Wabash Valley Art Spaces sculpture at Fairbanks Park honoring composer Paul Dresser, who wrote the Indiana state song, "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away." The albums sold well.

"The two CDs together are a pretty darn good combination of so many musical styles," Arney said in 2013. "It's a good listen all the way through."

Arney expertly recorded, mixed, mastered and engineered those diverse sounds. That's no surprise. He was a mix of quiet brilliance and down-to-earth ease. Arney could capture the delicate notes of a piano and cello duet in his basement studio in the countryside with the same calm and skill that he'd use to reel in a bass on an outing with his fishing buddies.

He believed in the musicians, singers and songwriters who call the Wabash Valley home. He coaxed their best performances in his studio (typically at no cost), supported events to showcase their music and dropped in on their gigs and arts activities around the community.

Arney served as the Terre Haute music scene's unassuming center of gravity.

His death from cancer on April 23 at age 67 leaves a gaping void.

"He's irreplaceable," said Brent McPike, guitarist and Indiana State University music faculty member who recorded dozens of sessions in Arney's studio with mandolinist Solly Burton and others. "You don't run into somebody out there so altruistic. He did it for the good of the community."

Arney put both feet into his passion for producing music after retiring in 2011 from a long career at Ivy Tech Community College, where he taught technology and led that department on campus. Still, Arney's immersion in audio engineering began long before that.

That fascination grew from his years in the U.S. Navy, flying reconnaissance missions in the early 1970s, his daughter Alyssa and son Alan explained. Arney operated sono-buoys and hydrophones to hunt Soviet Union submarines in the Pacific Ocean.

After his service, he returned to Terre Haute and utilized those sound skills to begin recording local artists such as bluegrass veteran Louis Popejoy. Decades later, Arney was still at it, capturing the sounds of Terre Haute bands such as Even to the Stars, Native Mind, D-railed, Cuba and others. Alyssa, a high schooler then, sat watching and listening in the studio.

Don and those artists developed lasting friendships.

"With our father, they built connections, culture and a community that are so vital to the art scene in Terre Haute," his children said in an email Wednesday. Their father "helped facilitate and expand" that scene.

"This was his passion that he loved to share with everyone," they wrote, "and we hope that it continues in his memory."

A prime example came in 2005. Arney heard McPike's jazz combo in a Terre Haute club. Soon after, McPike started recording sessions in Arney's studio that resulted in the album, "Smooth Landing." A few years later, Arney recorded McPike, Burton and fiddler Carolyn Dutton — one of Brent's many sessions in Arney's Quantum Productions studio. McPike's guitar featured nylon strings, making the combination with two other acoustic instruments and percussion a bit tricky — for an average engineer, that is.

"I was blown away by how well he was able to capture it," McPike said. "Few people understood the physics of sound like Don did."

In 2019, Arney took a collection of tracks recorded over nearly a 40-year timespan by guitarist and Clinton native Dave Kyle, mixed and mastered them, and spiced them with fresh overdubs by Terre Haute aces like blues harp player Steve Rusin. The end result, album "Looking Back," formed a retrospective of Kyle's career, which included a long run as a Nashville session guitarist.

"[Don] was so easy to work with and his ideas were so professional and thought-out," Kyle said. "He had a Zen feel about him — no drama, no nerves. Just good, solid musical direction. He was a quiet force of nature and a classic example of what people look for in a producer."

Kyle compared Arney to The Beatles' genius producer George Martin.

"I count myself fortunate to have known [Don] and, even more so, to have been one of the palettes he used to paint with," Kyle said.

An artist of sound, indeed.

Visual artists got Arney's support, too. He patronized community arts ventures and even paired those two creative outlets — music and visual arts — at a unique occasion in 2017. "The Red Barn Presents Art and Song" gave nearly a dozen Wabash Valley songwriters the rare chance to perform their original songs to an audience in that east-side venue, surrounded by art pieces crafted by local artists.

Arney organized the show along with singer-songwriter Jared May and Red Barn chef Kris Kraut. Its purpose epitomized Arney's musical mission. "There's so much talent out there, and nobody knows it," Arney said then.

That December night, the Red Barn's seats were full of folks ready to hear homegrown music.

"I was blown away by how willing and eager [Don] was to partner with me, someone he barely knew," May recalled, "but I was very grateful for it. Afterward, I realized that's just who he was — a passionate advocate for local musicians and a true believer in the virtues of community involvement."

After the final performance, people mingled on the floor. Arney spotted May, shook his hand, smiled wide and said, "We did it!"

One of Arney's last projects was producing the "Highland" album by popular Terre Haute singer-guitarist Don Morris. The album, released last June, featured Morris' catchy original songs backed by a "showcase" of Wabash Valley instrumentalists and singers. The mix of R&B, rock and country marked the first collaboration by Arney and Morris.

"We nailed it," Arney declared upon the vibrant, danceable album's completion.

Arney's generosity, interest and expertise for artists of all stripes was "huge," Morris said. "He loved music, but he also loved musicians, their personalities and their passions. For this region, everyone wanted to work with Don Arney to better yourself as a musician."

Close friend and longtime Terre Haute musician Mark Wright spent time with Arney in the studio as well as a fishing boat. Wright noted Arney's "good ear" for music and vast library of recordings of "almost every musician in the Wabash Valley."

"It's a huge loss," Wright said. "I'm really sad about it."

Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.