Richard Perry, the producer behind a group of hits together with Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” and the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited,” has died at age 82. As confirmed by his buddy Daphna Kastner Keitel, Perry died in a Los Angeles hospital after struggling cardiac arrest.
Earlier than he was a producer, the Brooklyn-native was classically educated on piano, guitar, oboe, and bass. Perry’s profession within the music business started when he was signed to Coral Information as a singer along with his doo-wop group, The Escorts, however by the late Nineteen Sixties he shifted his focus to manufacturing.
His early data included Tiny Tim’s debut album, God Bless Tiny Tim (which earned Perry his first high 20 hit, “Tip-Toe Thru’ the Tulips With Me”) and Fat Domino’s comeback document Fat Is Again.
By the early Seventies, Perry was already a serious hitmaker. That decade he would work with quite a few artists together with Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, and Barbra Streisand. In her 2023 memoir, “My Name is Barbra,” Streisand wrote, “Richard had a knack for matching the right song to the right artist.”
For Carly Simon, Perry produced 1972’s No Secrets and techniques that includes “You’re So Vain,” which turned her signature track. He went by means of three drummers earlier than discovering the proper sound, and, in line with Simon, recorded 100 takes of the track earlier than he was happy.
In 1978, Perry based his personal label, Planet Information, and signed the Pointer Sisters. He would go on to supply their hits “I’m So Excited,” “Jump (For My Love),” and “Neutron Dance.”
Perry was given a Trustees Award for lifetime achievement as a part of the 2015 Grammys. In 2020 he wrote a memoir, “Cloud Nine: Memoirs of a Record Producer.”
“I try to make the artist the biggest and best they can possibly be,” Perry advised Musician journal in 1985. “I always conceived of producing as bringing the artist to life in someone’s living room in the most glorious, complimentary performance one could imagine.”
