12/04/2012

Tom Dowd - Master Of the Scene




THE RECORD PRODUCERS - TOM DOWD

Tom Dowd (October 20, 1925 – October 27, 2002) was an American recording engineer and producer for Atlantic Records. He was credited with innovating the multi-track recording method. Dowd worked on a virtual "who's who" of recordings that encompassed blues, jazz, pop, rock and soul records.

The latter part of the 70s saw Tom Dowd working with several artists of a softer musical persuasion, inlcuding Firefall, Kenny Loggins, and in a vicarious way, ABBA.

    'The credit I was given on the ABBA record is similar to one that appeared on the first album by Yes.  ABBA were impressed with the nature of a pile of records that had come out of Atlantic Records, or the Warner Brothers complex, and they were interested in trying to put together an American rhythm section to try and make demos of several songs of a particular type.  I was in California and they were on holiday in the Bahamas and they called up Atlantic and said they'd like to go to Criteria Studio in Miami to see those rhythm sections that you talk about, and make a record with them.  Atlantic was looking for me, but I wasn't there, so they used Ronnie and Howie (Albert), who put a rhythm section together, and they went in.  I got back to Miami, and my wife said, "ABBA are looking for you, they're up at Criteria right now", so I got back into the car and drove up to the studio. 

They were running through one or two songs and trying to experiment with the rhythm section, and I got on the floor and changed the parts, and changed the sequence and everything, and we made a good demo that day, and they wanted to come back the next day to rework that song and some other things, and we made two tracks for them the next day.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Dowd

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