LOS ANGELES (AP) â Richard Perry, a hitmaking record producer with a flair for both standards and contemporary sounds whose many successes included Carly Simonâs âYouâre So Vain,â Rod Stewartâs âThe Great American Songbookâ series and a Ringo Starr album featuring all four Beatles, died Tuesday. He was 82.
Perry, a recipient of a Grammys Trustee Award in 2015, died at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering cardiac arrest, friend Daphna Kastner said.
âHe maximized his time here,â said Kastner, who called him a âfather friendâ and said he was godfather to her son. âHe was generous, fun, sweet and made the world a better place. The world is a little less sweeter without him here. But itâs a little bit sweeter in heaven.â
Perry was a onetime drummer, oboist and doo-wop singer who 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. He was on hand for Harry Nilssonâs âWithout Youâ and The Pointer Sistersâ âIâm So Excited,â Tiny Timâs novelty smash âTiptoe Through the Tulipsâ and the Willie Nelson-Julio Iglesias lounge standard âTo All the Girls Iâve Loved Before.â Perry was widely known as a âmusicianâs producer,â 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).
âRichard had a knack for matching the right song to the right artist,â Streisand wrote in her 2023 memoir, âMy Name is Barbra.â
Perryâs life was a story, in part, of famous friends and the right places. He was backstage for 1950s performances by Little Richard and Chuck Berry, sat in the third row at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival during Otis Reddingâs memorable set and attended a recording session for the Rolling Stonesâ classic âLet It Bleedâ album. A given week might find him dining one night with Paul and Linda McCartney, and Mick and Bianca Jagger the next. He dated Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda among others and was briefly married to the actor Rebecca Broussard.
In Stewartâs autobiography, âRod,â he would remember Perryâs home in West Hollywood as âthe scene of much late-night skulduggery through the 1970s and beyond, and a place you knew you could always fall into at the end of an evening for a full-blown knees-up with drink and music and dancing.â
In the â70s, Perry helped facilitate a near-Beatles reunion.
He had produced a track on Starrâs first solo album, âSentimental Journey,â and grown closer to him through Nilsson and other mutual friends. âRingo,â released in 1973, would prove the drummer was a commercial force in his own right â with some well-placed names stopping by. The album, featuring contributions from Nilsson, Billy Preston, Steve Cropper, Martha Reeves and all five members of The Band, reached No. 2 on Billboard and sold more than 1 million copies. Hit singles included the chart toppers âPhotograph,â co-written by Starr and George Harrison, and a remake of the 1950s favorite âYouâre Sixteen.â
But for Perry and others, the most memorable track was a non-hit, custom made. John Lennonâs âIâm the Greatestâ was a mock-anthem for the self-effacing drummer that brought three Beatles into the studio just three years after the bandâs breakup. Starr was on drums and sang lead, Lennon was on keyboards and backing vocals and longtime Beatles friend Klaus Voormann played bass. They were still working on the song when Harrisonâs assistant phoned, asking if the guitarist could join them. Harrison arrived soon after.
âAs I looked around the room, I realized that I was at the very epicenter of the spiritual and musical quest I had dreamed of for so many years,â Perry wrote in his 2021 memoir, âCloud Nine.â âBy the end of each session, a small group of friends had gathered, standing silently along the back wall, just thrilled to be there.â
McCartney was not in town for âIâm the Greatest,â but he did help write and arrange the ballad âSix OâClock,â featuring the ex-Beatle and Linda McCartney on backing vocals.
Perry had helped make pop history the year before as producer of âYouâre So Vain,â which he would call the nearest he came to a perfect record. Simonâs scathing ballad about an unnamed lover, with Voormannâs bass runs kicking off the song and Jagger joining on the chorus, hit No. 1 in 1972 and began a long-term debate over Simonâs intended target. Perryâs answer would echo Simonâs own belated response.
âIâll take this opportunity to give my insiderâs scoop,â he wrote in his memoir. âThe person that the song is based on is really a composite of several men that Carly dated in the â60s and early â70s, but primarily, itâs about my good friend, Warren Beatty.â
Perryâs post-1970s work included such hit singles as The Pointer Sistersâ âNeutron Danceâ and DeBargeâs âRhythm of the Night,â along with albums by Simon, Ray Charles and Art Garfunkel. He had his greatest success with Stewartâs million-selling âThe Great American Songbookâ albums, a project made possible by the rock starâs writerâs block and troubled private life. In the early 2000s, Stewartâs marriage to Rachel Hunter had ended and Perry was among those consoling him. With Stewart struggling to come up with original songs, he and Perry agreed that an album of standards might work, including âThe Very Thought of You,â âAngel Eyesâ and âWhere or When.â
âWe were at a back table in our favorite restaurant as we exchanged ideas and wrote them down on a napkin,â Perry wrote in his memoir. Stewart softly sang the options. âAs I sat there and listened to him sing, it was clear that we both sensed we were on to something,â Perry added.
Perry was a New York City native born into a musical family; his parents, Mark and Sylvia Perry, co-founded Peripole Music, a pioneering manufacturer of instruments for young people. With his familyâs help and encouragement, he learned to play drums and oboe and helped form a doo-wop group, the Escorts, that released a handful of singles. A music and theater major at the University of Michigan, he initially dreamed of acting on Broadway. Instead, he made the âlife-changingâ decision in the mid-1960s to form a production company with a recent acquaintance, Gary Katz, who would go on to work with Steely Dan among others.
By the end of the decade, Perry was an industry star, working on Captain Beefheartâs acclaimed cult album, âSafe As Milkâ and the debut recording of Tiny Tim and Ella Fitzgeraldâs âElla,â featuring the jazz greatâs interpretations of songs by the Beatles, Smokey Robinson and Randy Newman. In the early 1970s, he would oversee Streisandâs million-selling âStoney Endâ album, on which the singer turned from the show tunes that made her famous and covered a range of pop and rock music, from the title track, a Laura Nyro composition, to Gordon Lightfootâs âIf You Could Read My Mind.â
âI liked Richard from the moment we met. He was tall and lanky, with a mop of dark, curly hair and a big smile, which his big heart,â Streisand wrote in her memoir. âAt our first meeting, he arrived laden with songs, and we listened to them together. Whatever hesitation I may have felt about our collaboration soon vanished and I thought, âThis could be fun, and musically liberating.ââ
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