Meet The Producers

[runningshoes]

A music producer wears many hats during the recording process. He gathers ideas for the projects, selects the songs and session musicians, coaches the artists and musicians in the studio and controls the recording sessions, while supervising the entire process through mixing and mastering. A producer is often compared to a film director, creatively guiding or directing the recording process, where an engineer can be more compared to a cameraman. Producers often take on a wider entrepreneurial role as well, with responsibilities that include budgeting, scheduling, and negotiating.

Fred Gaisburg was the world’s first producer. He essentially invented the role. Gaisburg traveled the world recording music in the late part of the 19th Century.

Fred Gaisburg

Gaisburg ran the first recording studio and provided the closest approximation of production by guiding an opera singer closer or further away from a gramophone's horn to match the dynamics in the score. - Wikipedia

During the first part of the 20th century the producer's role was in effect the same as that of a film producer in that he organized and supervised recording sessions, paid technicians, musicians and arrangers, and sometimes chose material for the artist. In the mid-1950s the independent record producer emerged on the music scene. Among the most famous early independent producers were the songwriting-production team Leiber & Stoller, Phil Spector and British studio pioneer Joe Meek.

This thread will feature many of music’s well known producers and some of the lesser known. Feel free to add what you know about them or the the production process. Constructive comments will eventually be condensed into into single posts along with the profiles.

 

[runningshoes]

Robert John 'Mutt' Lange



Mutt Lange is a legendary producer and songwriter, perhaps best know for his work with AC/DC, Def Leppard , Foreigner and his former wife Shania Twain.

Although Lange had been producing since the early 1970's his career essentially began in 1976 when he produced Graham Parker's album Heat Treatment and City Boy’s self titled debut. Three years later Lange had his breakthrough with AC/DC’s Highway To Hell. He continued his work with the Australian band on their next two albums Back In Black and For Those About To Rock. Back In Black went on to become one of the top selling albums in rock history.

Lange was born in Mufilira, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in November 1948. His father was a mining engineer and his mother was from an affluent German family. His friends called him John, but his parents called him "Mutt," a nickname that would stick for the rest of his life. Lange’s first love was country music, and his favourite artist was Slim Whitman.

Lange began playing guitar when his parents sent him to a boarding school in South Africa. After high school he took a job in a recording studio producing commercials. Along with some friends he formed the bands Sound Reason and Hocus in Johannesburg. Hocus included Lange on bass, Stevie Van Kerken, soon to become his wife, on vocals, Steve MacNamara on guitar, Allan Goldswain on keyboards and Geoff Williams on drums. The band released a few singles but nothing came of them. The band broke up and Lange concentrated on production. He had some success producing South African artists and within a couple of years moved to London, England and immediately found himself with a number of production jobs, including Graham Parker and City Boy. He was known around London and was enlisted to produce the Boomtown Rats debut album in 1977. By 1978 Lange was well know around London and AC/DC soon came knocking at his door.

Lange produced AC/DC’s landmark album Highway to Hell and soon after the band’s lead singer Bon Scott died, he helped the band it’s replacement, Brian Johnson. After producing the band’s next two albums, including the monster hit Back In Black, Lange moved on to work with Foreigner and Def Leppard. Lange branched out more on the band’s 1983 smash Pyromania, with song writing credits on every track, some of them listing him as the principal writer.

Lange went on from there to produce for Billy Ocean, Huey Lewis and the News and Bryan Adams. Lange’s biggest career leap came when he teamed up with his wife Shania Twain, who he had married after a whirlwind romance. The resulting collaboration saw Twain skyrocket to the top of the country music charts before the couple ended their marriage in 2008.

 

[LG]

I'd always thought Mutt Lange was born in England, not Zimbabwe. His list of accomplishments is quite extensive, and nice to see he worked with City Boy at one point, I have 6 of their albums.

Fred Gaisburg, didn't really know that much about him until reading your post RS. Sounds to me like he was a very innovative guy who knew how to get the best results with the limited equipment of the day.

Producers/engineers are such a huge part of what makes a recording a success, they are rarely given many accolades by the public at large, but most musicians sure know hooking up with the right one is critical to get the best results possible.

I might have a producer/engineer to add along the way if that's okay with you.

 

[runningshoes]

I would definitely like to see that kind of participation here, LG.

 

[JerseyGirl]

Nice thread RS!

 

[Sox]

One of my favourite producers is Mike Vernon a Brit who worked with some of our Blues Boom legends such as John Mayall, Savoy Brown, Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, Chicken Shack and Ten Years After. He was the founder of the Blue Horizon record label and although he is best known for his work in the British Blues sphere he has also produced albums for the likes of Focus and David Bowie. Mike was at Decca in the early sixties and has worked on projects with American greats like Eddie Boyd, Bukka White, Champion Jack Dupree and Otis Spann.

 

[gcczep]

Eddie Kramer...

He was involved with such a diverse pool of artists from Petula Clark to Led-Zeppelin. His most notable client was Hendrix. Kramer also engineered the recording of the mammoth three day festival that was Woodstock.

 

[Magic]

Jack Douglas​

Jack is one of my favorite producers. He got his start in the Record Plant studio as a janitor and quickly moved up to engineer then producer. He has worked with not only my favorite band, Aerosmith, but quite a few heavy hitters in the music business: Miles Davis, The James Gang, Mountain, The Who, John Lennon, Alice Cooper, Blue By Nature, Rick Derringer,The Knack, Moxy, Slash, SuperTramp, Lou Reed, New York Dolls, Cheap Trick, Blue Oyster Cult and Patti Smith.

Aerosmith albums to his credit:

Get Your Wings
Toys in the Attic
Rocks
Draw The Line
Live Bootleg
Rock in a Hard Place
Honkin' On Bobo​

 

[LG]

^^Which Supertramp and BOC albums was he involved with?

 

[Phil B.]

Eddie Kramer...

He was involved with such a diverse pool of artists from Petula Clark to Led-Zeppelin. His most notable client was Hendrix. Kramer also engineered the recording of the mammoth three day festival that was Woodstock.

A great guy. He really knew Hendrix and despite Hendrix's inability to read and write music, Kramer always seemed to know what Hendrix was looking for.
Passionate and a great advocate for the artist.