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Richard Perry arrives at the Gibson Through The Lens Exhibition on July 30, 2008 in West Hollywood, Calif.
FYI
Obituaries: Hitmaking Producer Richard Perry, Jazz Bassist Barre Phillips
We also acknowledge the recent passing of U.K. producer Lennie De Ice, Replacements guitarist Slim Dunlap, singer-songwriter David Mallett, tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain and R&B star Sugar Pie DeSanto.
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Richard (Van) Perry, an American record producer behind the Carly Simon hit "You’re So Vain" and albums by artists including Rod Stewart, Ringo Starr and Canadian rock star Burton Cummings, died on Dec. 24, at age 82, after a cardiac arrest.
A Billboard obituary notes that "Perry’s greatest hits include Nilsson’s 'Without You' and Carly Simon’s 'You’re So Vain,' both of which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also received Grammy nods for record of the year. These two classic hits typify Perry’s production style – immaculate, powerful and precise. Other hits that have that unmistakable Perry stamp include Leo Sayer’s 'When I Need You' (also a No. 1 on the Hot 100) and Burton Cummings’ stately 'Stand Tall' (a top 10 hit on the Hot 100 in 1977. His last album project to make the top 10 was Rod Stewart’s Fly Me to The Moon…The Great American Songbook, Vol. 5 in November 2010."
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After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1964 with a degree in music and theatre, Perry returned to New York and formed his own independent record production company, Cloud Nine Productions, in June 1965. In March 1967, he moved to Los Angeles. His first album production job was Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s debut, Safe as Milk, which he co-produced with Bob Krasnow. That November, Perry was hired by Warner Bros. Records as a staff producer.
His first assignment was recording Tiny Tim, whose debut album, God Bless Tiny Tim, rose to No. 7 on the Billboard 200, boosted by a remake of the 1920s novelty tune “Tip-Toe Thru’ the Tulips With Me,” which became a top 20 hit on the Hot 100. Perry also recorded albums with legendary stars Fats Domino (Fats Is Back) and Ella Fitzgerald (Ella), both of which cracked the Billboard 200.
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Perry left Warner Bros. in 1970 and his first big score as an indie producer was Barbra Streisand’s Stoney End, released in late 1970. The album cracked the top 10 on the Billboard 200 in March 1971, becoming Streisand’s first top 10 album in more than four years. Perry also produced her next two albums, Barbra Joan Streisand and Live Concert at the Forum. “Richard had a knack for matching the right song to the right artist,” Streisand wrote in her 2023 memoir, My Name is Barbra.
Perry produced more than 30 top 20 hits on the Hot 100, including a long string of such hits by The Pointer Sisters as “I’m So Excited” and “Jump (for My Love).”
An Associated Press obituary terms Perry "a hitmaking record producer with a flair for both standards and contemporary sounds. The onetime drummer, oboist and doo-wop singer proved at home with a wide variety of musical styles, the rare producer to have No. 1 hits on the pop, R&B, dance and country charts. Perry was widely known as a 'musician’s producer,' treating artists like peers rather than vehicles for his own tastes. Singers turned to him whether trying to update their sound (Barbra Streisand), set back the clock (Stewart), revive their career (Fats Domino) or fulfill early promise (Leo Sayer)."
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Other hits he produced included the Willie Nelson-Julio Iglesias lounge standard “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.”
Perry was a recipient of a Grammys Trustee Award in 2015.
Check out a list of Richard Perry's 10 biggest hits here.
Lennie De Ice (born Lenworth Green), the British music producer whose track "We Are IE" helped to shape the jungle genre in the 1990s, has died, at age 54.
News of his passing was shared on social media on Dec. 10. No cause of death has been given.
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A Guardian obituary notes that Green was "immersed in music as a boy": “I was into the new wave of hip-hop and electro like Mantronix, Jonzun Crew and Afrika Bambaataa, plus I’d grown up in the era of Gary Numan, the new romantics and ska,” he said. He began creating his own music in 1986, using synths and drum machines, and became immersed in London’s nascent acid house scene."
"His breakthrough came with 'We Are IE,' a cut the Guardian described as a cornucopia of sound that blended Algerian raï vocals, cartoonish gunshots, cut-up commands ('let me hear you scream') and a dub reggae bassline that was as naggingly catchy as its central electronic melody. 'We Are IE' has endured as a classic of British dance culture, going on to influence dubstep in the mid-2000s."
It was originally released in 1991 but Green was jailed for two years. 'We Are IE' was then reissued in 1999 and reached No. 61 in the U.K. charts. It came back around in 2008 with a dubstep remix by Caspa & Rusko, and was remastered with further remixes in 2022.
Green also ran the label Do or Die and continued to produce music, including a 2013 remix of Letthemusicplay’s track Our Town, featuring Kae Tempest.
Sugar Pie DeSanto (born DeSanto Peylia Marsema Balinton), an American R&B singer-songwriter and dancer who found fame in the '50s and '60s, died on Dec. 20, at age 89.
DeSanto was born in New York City, to an African-American mother, who was a concert pianist, and a Filipino father. Johnny Otis discovered DeSanto in 1955, and Otis gave her the stage name Sugar Pie. She toured with the Johnny Otis Revue, and in 1959 and 1960, she toured with the James Brown Revue.
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In 1960, DeSanto rose to national prominence when her single "I Want to Know" reached No. 4 on Billboard's Hot R&B chart. She recorded the song with her husband, Pee Wee Kingsley. DeSanto then moved to Chicago and signed with Chess Records in 1962 as a recording artist and writer.
Among her recordings for Chess were "Slip-in Mules" (an "answer song" to "Hi-Heel Sneakers"), "Use What You Got," "Soulful Dress" (her biggest hit for Chess), and "I Don't Wanna Fuss." DeSanto participated in the American Folk Blues Festival tour of Europe in 1964, and her lively performances, including wild dancing and standing back flips, were widely appreciated.
In 1965, DeSanto and Shena DeMell produced the song "Do I Make Myself Clear," which DeSanto sang as a duet with Etta James. It reached the top 10. It was followed by another DeSanto–James duet, "In the Basement," in 1966. DeSanto's next record, "Go Go Power," did not make the charts, and she and Chess parted ways
Slim (Bob) Dunlap, the final guitarist for Minneapolis rock band The Replacements, died on Dec. 18, at the age of 73. The cause of death was cited as complications from a 2012 stroke that left him bedridden and unable to play music.
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A Billboard obituary notes that Dunlap, "the 'replacement Replacement,' joined the Minneapolis band in 1987, taking over from founding guitarist Bob Stinson and playing on their last two albums.
"Dunlap began playing guitar at a young age and rose to local attention in the late ’70s while performing with Curtiss A (aka Curt Almsted). Almsted later formed the punk-influenced Spooks, which featured Dunlap on guitar and caught the attention of The Replacements’ Paul Westerberg."
He performed with The Replacements from 1987 until their dissolution in 1991, appearing on 1989’s Don’t Tell a Soul and 1990’s All Shook Down albums. When that band split, Dunlap pursued a solo career, releasing The Old New Me in 1993 and Times Like This in 1996, and remained active in the local scene until his musical career came to an end in 2012 following a stroke.
Dunlap’s final release, Thank You, Dancers!, was released in 2020 and featured recordings from a 2002 live performance at St. Paul’s Turf Club.
Zakir Hussain, a virtuoso Indian tabla player whose work with a variety of musicians included composing for films, died on Dec. 15, at age 73, from complications arising from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
AGuardian obituary calls Hussain "one of India’s best loved and most adventurous musicians. A virtuoso tabla player with a global following, he transformed the range and appeal of the hand drums that are the main percussion instrument in Hindustani classical music.
"His playing was technically brilliant, sensitive, emotional and varied, with the jugalbandi, a call-and-response duet between two different instruments, often a remarkable part of his performance. He constantly surprised his audience, switching between ragas, jazz and fusion styles in a career lasting more than five decades. Hussain started out as a teenage sensation in India, and ended in equally triumphant style – in February 2024 he won three Grammys in one night, a first for an Indian musician."
The diverse list of artists Hussain collaborated with included Ravi Shankar, George Harrison, Van Morrison, John McLaughlin, Pharoah Sanders and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead.
Hussain's father, Alla Rakha, was a celebrated tabla player who worked with Shankar. When his father was unwell and unable to join Shankar for a concert in New York in 1969, the 18-year-old Zakir took his place, launching his career in the West.
Through Shankar, Zakir got to meet Harrison – who reportedly told him to stick to the tabla rather than move to a western drum kit – and he was invited play on Harrison’s 1973 album, Living in the Material World.
Innovative guitarist John McLaughlin recruited Hussain and Indian violinist Lakshminarayana Shankar for his new band, Shakti, in the mid-'70s. The band recorded, toured extensively (including appearances at the Montreux jazz festival) and became leaders of what was known as the “global fusion” scene.
Hussain and Hart worked together in the percussion-based Diga Rhythm Band in 1976, and reunited in 1991 for the more successful Planet Drum album, which featured percussionists from around the world and won them a Grammy.
In 2007 he was back with Hart and other percussionists for Global Drum Project, a follow-up to Planet Drum that won them another Grammy. In 2015, Hussain played in yet another fusion project, Celtic Connections: Pulse of the World, which compared the structure of Scottish folk songs and Indian ragas.
In 2020 he rejoined McLaughlin as Shakti re-formed to mark their 50th anniversary. Their comeback set This Moment was awarded a Grammy for best global music album, one of the three Grammys that Hussain won in 2024. The others were for the song "Pashto" (best global music performance) which appeared on the album As We Speak (best contemporary instrumental album), which he recorded with Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer.
David Mallett, an American singer-songwriter best known for the "folk standard" composition "Garden Song," died on Dec. 17, at age 73.
A resident of Maine, in the 1980s Mallett relocated to Nashville, and released two albums with the folk and blues label Vanguard. He later moved back to Maine and established his own label, North Road Records.
Mallett's songs have been recorded by more than 150 artists, including Pete Seeger, Alison Krauss, John Denver, Arlo Guthrie, Emmylou Harris, Peter, Paul & Mary, and Makem and Clancy.
Mallett wrote his signature tune, "Garden Song," when he was in his early twenties, and it was recorded by The Muppets as well as folk greats John Denver, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary; and other acts. He recorded 17 albums, and performed in town halls and folk clubs across America and Europe in addition to major venues such as Barns of Wolf Trap, the Newport Folk Festival, and Prairie Home Companion. His sons, Will and Luke, perform as The Mallett Brothers Band.
Barre Phillips, a groundbreaking American jazz bassist, died on Dec. 28, at age 90. A professional musician since 1960, he moved to New York City in 1962, then to Europe in 1967. In 2014, he founded the European Improvisation Center in Southern France.
During the 1960s, he recorded with (among others) Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Giuffre, Archie Shepp, Peter Nero, Attila Zoller, Lee Konitz and Marion Brown.
Phillips' 1968 recording of solo bass improvisations, issued as Journal Violone in the U.S., Unaccompanied Barre in England, and Basse Barre in France on Futura Records, is generally credited as the first solo bass record. A 1971 record with Dave Holland, Music from Two Basses, was probably the first record of improvised double bass duets.
In the 1970s, he was a member of the well-regarded and influential group "The Trio" with saxophonist John Surman and drummer Stu Martin. In the 1980s and 1990s, he played regularly with the London Jazz Composers Orchestra, led by fellow bassist Barry Guy. He worked on soundtracks of the motion pictures Merry-Go-Round (1981) and Naked Lunch (1991, together with Ornette Coleman).
As a bandleader, he released many albums on the acclaimed ECM label, most recently 2022's Face à Face. His credits as a sideman include work with Archie Shepp, Chris McGregor, Gong, Terje Rypal, Barry Guy and the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra, Canadian Paul Bley, Evan Parker and Lol Coxhill.
In a Facebook post, leading Canadian jazz critic and author Mark Miller recalled that "I described Phillips' solo performance at The Music Gallery in Toronto in1984 as 'modestly theatrical but musically visionary'… [Superficially, the performance was an exercise in everything you can do with a bass but were afraid to try, but more radically it redefined the instrument as an orchestra in and of itself.'"
Miller wrote that "Phillips also had a few other Canadian connections, notably solo concerts in 1989 at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Quebec and the Western Front in Vancouver — the latter performance was issued on CD as Camouflage — and recordings with pianist Paul Bley and singer Jeannette Lambert."
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