As we’ve witnessed with such visionaries as Phil Spector and Sam Phillips, pop record producers can have hugely impactful moments that define an era — but then, as styles and technology evolve around them, never quite regain their footing. Richard Perry, who died Dec. 24 at 82, wasn’t the household name that Spector or George Martin were, but the longevity of his career, especially from the Sixties into the Eighties, was its own type of legacy: Perry left behind a body of work that can now be seen as a roadmap and history of pop over those decades. And he did it with work that never felt opportunistic or brazen, an accomplishment in and of itself.
As a proud boomer, Perry grew up with the original rock & roll and was in a vocal group, the Escorts, that was rooted in the doo-wop harmonies of his native New York. Early in the behind-the-scenes part of his career, he famously — or, at least, semi-famously — produced records by Tiny Tim and Captain Beefheart. But Perry’s pivotal moment was his work with Barbra Streisand on 1971’s Stoney End. Singers rooted in standards often had a rough tine transitioning to counterculture composers (Sinatra’s “Mrs. Robinson,” anyone?), but covering Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, and others of that ilk, Streisand and Perry pulled it off. Streisand’s performance of Nyro’s title song is one of the least inhibited and joyful pieces of music she ever made, and the album itself never sounded forced. (What a shame she never cut an entire LP of Nyro covers with Perry.)
The way Perry helped guide Streisand into the singer-songwriter era was also of a piece with his role in that genre’s dominance. But Perry didn’t just work with Carly Simon and Harry Nilsson. He had an unerring ability to envelope troubadours in production that normally wouldn’t have suited them and retain their intimacy: think of the symphonic swell in Nilsson’s definitive version of “Without You” or his velvety arrangements of Simon’s “The Right Thing to Do” and “Haven’t Got Time for the Pain,” or his masterpiece with Simon, “You’re So Vain.” Perry knew that wordsmith songwriters needed hooks as well. (Shout-out, too, to his work on Ringo Starr’s best album, Ringo, especially “Photograph,” which is Spectorian in its multi-layered grandness.)
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By the late Seventies, Perry’s generation was approaching or entering its thirties, dealing with adult pressures, divorces, and myriad rattling issues. In tandem, the singer-songwriter movement grew more adult (and sonically sicker) with those fans, and Perry was there for that moment too. He took an idiosyncratic British troubadour named Leo Sayer and turned him into a middle-of-the-road balladeer on “When I Need You” and a dance-floor-ecstatic warbler on “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.” He remade the ever-chaste sounding Art Garfunkel into a bedroom balladeer on Breakaway. Perry’s 1977 James Bond song with Simon, “Nobody Does It Better,” and his Burton Cummings post-Guess Who hit “Stand Tall” achieved the same effect: The boomers weren’t kids anymore, and neither was their music.
Perry continued to read the pop tea leaves. For many acts of the Seventies, making the transition to Eighties sonics could be difficult; anyone remember Peter Frampton’s or Graham Nash’s synth-pop albums? But again, Perry made that makeover appear effortless and organic, never more so than with his work with the Pointer Sisters. Perry had already rescued them once, reigniting their career with a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s then unheard “Fire” in 1978.
But starting with “He’s So Shy,” Perry swathed the sisters in blaring synths, drum machines, and undeniable hooks, and the result was a string of singles — “Slow Hand,” “I’m So Excited,” “Automatic,” “Jump (For My Love),” “Neutron Dance” — that was nothing less than the sound of pop in the MTV era. Tapping into that very Eighties blend of rhythm and melody, Perry’s production of DeBarge’s “Rhythm of the Night,” a Caribbean cruise of a song, had the litheness of a Michael Jackson-Quincy Jones collaboration, even topping much of that duo’s work on Bad. At the same time, Perry continued to guide his generation into varying degrees of musical maturity: Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias’ unlikely matchup “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” presaged the way country would become mainstream pop.
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Starting in the Nineties, Perry’s presence on the charts diminished as alt-rock, hip-hop, EDM, and other genres took hold. That made sense: Perry was also more wedded to melody than rhythm. Working with Clive Davis and the late Phil Ramone, Perry had one last moment thanks to his work on Rod Stewart’s albums of Great American Songbook covers.
Stewart wasn’t the first to go there; Carly Simon and Linda Ronstadt, to name just two, had cut standards albums before. Perry also famously passed on working with Nilsson on his A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, one of the very first such projects. But the timing of the Stewart albums, which began rolling out early in the 2000s, was the key. Feeling alienated from much of 21st-century pop, Perry’s generation needed a lifeline to the past — and the Stewart albums did the trick, even if the formula was hardly fresh.
But in a way, Perry’s last great stand on the pop charts with those records was an aberration. The hallmark of his career was never nostalgia. If anything, he said to his generation, over and over: Music will change as much as you will, and don’t be afraid to roll with any of it.