“My hands were bleeding on my strings”: George Benson session player Corrado Rustici on what it took to record Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance with Somebody

Corrado Rustici’s hefty résumé includes session work for the likes of Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Starship, and George Michael, to name just a few.

However, one of the most formative moments of his career came when he cut his teeth with powerhouse producer Narada Michael Walden, who discovered the Italian guitarist during a chance recording session with Corrado’s own prog band at the time, Nova.

As he himself puts it in an interview with Vertex Effects, “Narada gave me a crash course in the funk”.

“It was a big shock for me culturally, also playing live with Narada, because I was used to just playing fast and just going nuts, odd meter stuff, and then going back to very simple, elemental, and foundationally important,” he recalls.

“The role of the guitar in rhythm and blues is, which I didn't know, like a rhythm, a percussive instrument – like tuned cowbells or something.”

Narada played a pivotal role in Whitney Houston’s career, serving as one of the producers on her self-titled debut album and on the bulk of the songs from her sophomore release, Whitney – which spawned the enduring hit I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me).

As luck would have it, Rustici’s connection with Narada led to him being roped into the Whitney sessions – no mean feat, considering Houston’s fast-rising star status at the time.

Corrado Rustici Breaks Down His Iconic Whitney Houston Guitar Parts - YouTube

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“He [Narada] was like a lion tamer in the studio, with all of us playing live, all of us big personalities, but playing for sometimes eight hours straight on the same song,” Rustici recalls of those sessions, particularly the I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) ones.

“My hands were bleeding on my strings because I was picking and picking and picking for so long until the band sounded great. And there were very little overdubs and maybe some fixes, maybe here and there, because obviously you had to wait for the moment when everybody played it 90% good.”

As Narada himself stated in a previous interview with Vertex Effects, the producer would have Rustici, alongside keyboardist Walter Afanasieff and bassist Randy Jackson, all in the control room instead of the live room – and they'd all be DI'd and play the songs in there.

“[It was almost] like playing live – it was a great vibe,” comments Rustici on this approach.

“It wasn't like overdubbing or anything like that. That's why these songs are so strong. There was a lot of humanity in there – the mystical thing that happens every once in a while. Sometimes you get lucky and you get some good stuff going on, and we were ready to record it.”

Speaking of Whitney Houston, session man Paul Jackson Jr. recently spoke to Guitar World about his experience working on the then–relatively unknown singer's debut album.