Famed Jewish record producer Richard Perry died on Tuesday at age 82 of cardiac arrest.
With a lush, clear production style that separated itself from the more rock, guitar-oriented music of the 70s, Perry produced more than 30 Top-20 hits on the Hot 100, including Barbra Streisand’s version of Laura Nyro’s “Stoney End” and a long string of hits by The Pointer Sisters, including “I’m So Excited” and “Jump (for My Love).”
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 Grammy nods for record of the year.
Perry subsequently became in heavy demand in the pop music world, producing records for artists ranging from Art Garfunkel, Andy Williams, and Diana Ross to Leo Sayer, whose “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” rose to No. 1 in early 1977.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Perry became one of the main movers of the Los Angeles music and film celebrity world in the 1970s.
Memorials on Perry
The New York Times wrote that 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.
Perry’s first productions, in the late 1960s, included oddities like 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.
“Perry is a commercial genius,” music writer Stephen Holden wrote in Rolling Stone in 1973. “The quality of sound Perry can produce is frightening. It is cold and glamorous in its corporate calculation, flexible enough to embrace the entire pop mainstream.”