R.I.P.: Al Schmitt, Recording Engineer, Producer

Twenty-time Grammy winner Al Schmitt, whose extraordinary career as a recording engineer and producer included albums by Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and many other of the top performers of the past 60 years, has died at age 91.

Schmitt’s family announced on Facebook that he died Monday, without identifying a specific cause. Schmitt lived in the Los Angeles area. A relative, who did not want to be identified, confirmed Schmitt’s death to The Associated Press.

Engineer Al Schmitt, winner of the Best Surround Sound Album award for "Live Kisses" poses in the press room during the 56th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on January 26, 2014 in Los Angeles.

He won his first Grammy in 1963, then collected 19 more competitive awards and the honorary Recording Academy Trustees Award, in 2006. Schmitt worked on more than 150 gold records, in a wide range of styles. He engineered Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” and Sam Cooke’s “Another Saturday Night,” Steely Dan’s “Aja” and Madonna’s “This Used to be My Playground.” He engineered Natalie Cole’s blockbuster “Unforgettable” album and Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were.” He produced “Volunteers” and several other Jefferson Airplane albums, helped produce Neil Young’s “On the Beach” and more recently Dylan’s “Shadows in the Night” and Paul McCartney’s “Kisses on the Bottom.”

Born in Brooklyn, he was the nephew of recording engineer Harry Smith and as a boy would take the subway into Manhattan and head for his uncle’s studio, where anyone from Sinatra to Art Tatum might be in session. After serving in the Navy, he found work through his uncle at Apex Studios, where one of his first assignments was recording Duke Ellington. He would also soon befriend Tom Dowd, who as an engineer for Atlantic Records later worked on classic songs by Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton and many others.

He moved to Los Angeles in the late 1950s and became a staff engineer for RCA Records. Schmitt received his first Grammy for engineering Mancini’s “Hatari” and was still winning them in his 80s, including one for McCartney’s “Kisses On the Bottom” and another for a concert version of McCartney’s record, “Live Kisses.”