producer
17th March 2010, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, Alex Chilton died in hospital of heart problems in New Orleans aged 59. As a teenager Chilton had been a member of The Box Tops who had the 1967 hit 'The Letter' and later in 1971 co-founded the power-pop group Big Star, with Chris Bell. In […]
3rd January 1967, Producer Joe Meek shot his landlady Violet Shenton and then shot himself at his flat in London, Meek produced The Tornadoes hit 'Telstar', the first No.1 in the US by a British group. Meek was interested in spirituality and often attended séances . At one such meeting in 1958 he was warned […]
31st January 1930, Born on this day American record producer and session musician Al De Lory. He played keyboards for various Phil Spector productions, and The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. As producer for Capitol Records he worked on a series of worldwide hits by Glen Campbell including John Hartford's ‘Gentle on My Mind’, Jimmy Webb's […]
4th December 1993, Multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer, Frank Zappa died of prostate cancer. Zappa recorded many albums with The Mothers Of Invention as well a solo recordings including the 1969 album 'Hot Rats' and 1974 album 'Apostrophe'. Zappa recorded one of the first concept albums, 'Freak Out' released in 1966, it was also one of […]
19th November 2004, Record producer Terry Melcher, who was behind hits by the Byrds, Ry Cooder and the Beach Boys, died aged 62 after a long battle with skin cancer. The son of actress Doris Day, he co-wrote ‘Kokomo’ for The Beach Boys, produced ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ for the Byrds, as well as hits for […]
29th June 1979, American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Lowell George died of a heart attack. The Little Feat front man was found dead at the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. George joined Zappa’s Mothers of Invention as rhythm guitarist in 1968, played guitar on John Cale’s 1973 album Paris 1919, Harry Nilsson’s Son […]
29th April 1993, Guitarist, producer, Mick Ronson died of liver cancer aged 46. Ronson recorded and toured with David Bowie from 1970 to 1973. Released the 1974 solo album ‘Slaughter On Tenth Avenue’. Ronson co-produced Lou Reed’s album Transformer, also part of Hunter Ronson Band with Ian Hunter. And worked with Morrissey, Slaughter & The […]
8th March 2016, English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer and musician, Sir George Martin died aged 90. He worked as EMI records in-house record producer and became known as the so-called fifth Beatle. Martin produced all but one of The Beatles albums giving him 30 No.1 hit singles in the UK and 23 […]
22nd February 1987, Andy Warhol, pop artist and producer died after a gall bladder operation. The founder of the Pop Art movement, produced and managed the Velvet Underground, designed the 1967 Velvet Underground And Nico ‘peeled banana’ album cover and The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers album cover. Read it here
Happy Birthday to English singer-songwriter, record producer Peter Gabriel, born on 13th February 1950. With Genesis he had the 1974 UK No.21 single ‘I Know What I Like In Your Wardrobe’. Gabriel left Genesis in 1975 to launch his solo career and had the 1986 US No.1 & UK No.4 single ‘Sledgehammer’ from the 1986 […]