Richard Perry, a record producer who became one of the most sought-after figures behind the scenes of pop music in the 1970s and ’80s through his work with Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, the Pointer Sisters and others, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 82, reports The NY Times.
The cause of his death, in a hospital, was cardiac arrest, said Daphna Kastner Keitel, a friend.
Perry began his producing career in the late 1960s with some of music’s most inspired oddities: He recorded Tiny Tim’s debut album, “God Bless Tiny Tim” (featuring “Tip-Toe Thru’ the Tulips With Me,” a Top 20 hit in 1968), and Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s “Safe as Milk.”
But by the early 1970s, he had become one of the most reliable hitmakers in the business, wrapping stars in a clear, powerful production style that sounded superb on the radio.
He recorded Ms. Streisand’s 1971 album “Stoney End,” on which she embraced the contemporary pop songwriting of Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell and Randy Newman. After that, he produced Harry Nilsson’s “Nilsson Schmilsson” (1971), featuring the hits “Without You,” “Jump Into the Fire” and “Coconut”; Ringo Starr’s solo LPs “Ringo” (1973) and “Goodnight Vienna” (1974); and Ms. Simon’s “No Secrets” (1972), which included her signature song “You’re So Vain.”
A trained oboist and drummer who had sung in a teenage doo-wop group, Mr. Perry had a deft ear for crafting the sharpest and most appealing performance of a song. That often involved huge studio budgets and exacting attention to detail.
For “You’re So Vain,” he went through three drummers in search of the ideal beat; Simon told the British music magazine Uncut in 2010 that he recorded 100 takes before he was satisfied. The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart and created a lasting mystery about its subject, a self-absorbed playboy who tossed women aside the way he changed his apricot-colored scarf. Over the years, Simon has been coy about who inspired the character, but Perry said she told him it was a composite largely based on the actor Warren Beatty.
Perry also lived the high life as a top-of-the-heap producer. His book “Cloud Nine: Memoirs of a Record Producer” is packed with tales of late-night cruising with Paul Simon, dancing with Tina Turner and star-filled parties at his home in the Hollywood Hills, which was once owned by Ronald Reagan. In recent years, he had been romantically involved with Jane Fonda.
Richard Van Perry was born in Brooklyn on June 18, 1942, to Mack and Sylvia Perry, who ran a business selling musical instruments to schools. In his memoir, he described teenage pilgrimages to the disc jockey Alan Freed’s concerts at the Brooklyn Paramount, where he saw early rock heroes like Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly.
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