“Another Grammy Award Winner Makes Berks Their Home, Not Taylor Swift” – Berks Regional News
It was a moment audio engineer Kyle Mann said was nothing short of surreal: winning a Grammy Award for his work on singer-songwriter Victoria Monet’s “Jaguar II.”
“It didn’t fully compute. I’m not sure if it still has fully computed,” said Mann.
“It was a little like a waking dream of sorts,” he added.
Mann lived in Fleetwood between 1995 and 2004. He said he recorded with bands at some local studios in Berks County.
“I went to Brandywine Heights, and I left and moved to Nashville and was there for a while,” Mann explained.
He said when he was 12 years old, a four-track reel-to-reel recorder his cousin got sparked his interest.
“It blew my mind that he could record his band and then record himself again by singing over it,” said Mann.
Now Mann’s work can be heard on releases from artists like Andy Grammer and Ariana Grande.
“There’s nothing that I love more than getting to record an incredible singer,” said Mann.
“He is just a beaming light. He is everything a friend could ask for. He is just top notch,” friend Chris Barlet said of Mann.
Barlet said he has known Mann since middle school.
They were in the music program in the Brandywine Heights Area School District.
“He was a phenomenal bass player, just all-around musician, Barlet said. “He just blew everybody away with his knowledge and his ability to play pretty much any instrument you put in front of him.”
And now, Mann is a Grammy Award winner.
“I woke up in the middle of the night and just went on Instagram and saw that he won, and I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night,” Barlet said. “I was just so over-the-top excited for this guy.”