Tell us about your favourite music producers.

Tell us about your favourite music producers.

Growing up during the 70s and 80s, I found that most of my music taste happened between 1978 and 1991, and of this era three of the best producers of all time to me were,

1. Tarney and Spencer
2. Giorgio Moroder
3. Stock Aitken and Waterman.

Though not well known, Tarney and Spencer were associated with late 70s early 80s soft pop, for the most part on the EMI label, well at least in Australia. My introduction came with their interesting cover of the Everly Brother's "Cathy's clown" in 1979 - I guess it's something you either loved or hated. Loving that production sound, this song was right up there.

Cliff Richards "We don't talk any more" would then become their first well noted work, which charted here in Australia in September 1979. Tarney and Spencer then worked with Cliff on his next two albums, "I'm no hero" which featured the hits "Dreaming" (Sep 1980), "Anything I can do" (Dec 1980), and "A little in love" (Mar 1981), and "Wired for Sound" featuring the title cut which reached top ten in Australia in October 1981, "Say you don't mind" (Jan 1982), and "Daddy's home" (Mar 1982).

Tarney and spencer also worked with Leo Sayer, on his 1980 album "Living in a fantasy", where the soft acoustic pop sound of Tarney would become most prominent; particularly with "More then I can say" (Sep 1980) originally recorded by the Crickets, and then a hit for Bobby Vee in early 1961 on the Billboard charts. "Living in a fantasy" also featured a further number of strong tracks; "You win I loose", "Where did we go wrong", "Once in a while", and the albums title cut "Living in a fantasy". This particular Sayer / Tarney sound also kept its form with the non album single "bye bye my sweet love" (May 1981). With a new producer; Arif Mardin, 1982's world radio would see a move away from the acoustic pop sound toward a contemporary pop mood, where modest synths and added production were added to the mix.

Barbara Dickson would have a much stronger following in the United Kingdom then Australia, however a number of minor hits still gave her some presents on early 80s Australian radio. Her biggest hit "January February" (Jan 1980) again introduced us to another Tarney artist, whose resonance would propel her into a string of radio friendly tracks including "In the night", "It's really you", "My heart lies", and "Only seventeen". Most of these tracks centred around the time period of 1981 1982. It would not be until 1985's "I know him so well" that Barbara Dickson's beautiful voice would be discovered by the wider music buying public. At this stage, Tarney and Spencer were well off the scene, where now she was working with Benny and Bjorn from Abba.

Giorgio Moroder is someone who I can type an entire book about, I don't know where to begin with this guy - he has done so much awesome work. Long before disco, he was a member of the 1972 group Chicory Tip who had the hit "Son of my lover" reaching top 40 in March 1972 in Australia. He then produced most of Donna Summer's material during the 1970s, the first most notable hit being "love to love you baby" in 1976.

Interesting about this period is him and summer collaborating on a 1974 album which seems to be as rare as gold. Hearing it once on youtube, one can immediately pick that moroder form rapidly coming together, unfortunately this particular work is impossible to find, though I do believe it may have seen a limited run in 1990 on a budget CD call "Fun street", released (I think) under Eclipse. Unfortunately I wouldn't know if these were the original mixes.

Moroder would go on to bring Summer to the forefront of the disco movement with the hits "I feel love" (Mar 1977) (that 12 inch is absolutely smashing), "Macarthur park", "Walk away" (May 1978), "Hot stuff) (Jul 1979), "Bad girls" (Sep 1979), and "Sunset people" (Nov 1979). By 1980 she worked with another Italio disco producer Pete Bellotte (who on a side note worked on Elton John's "Victim of love" album). Pete Bellotte is another one of my favourite producers, but not quite in the top three, which leads me to another producer I strongly admire, Quincy Jones, who would then work on her next two albums; 1982's "Donna" which featured the hits "Love is in control (Jul 1982), "The woman in me" (Nov 1982), and "State of Independence" (Mar 1983". This particular album also featured the Springsteen penned "Protection". To me however, Summer's Strongest album was 1983's "She works hard for the money" featuring the title cut which reached top 40 in July 1983, "Unconditional love" featuring musical youth (Oct 1983), and the gospelly inspired "Stop look and listen". Other strong tracks of this album included "Love has a mind of its own", and "People people".

Other Moroder highlights included Blondie's "Call me" (May 1980), David Bowie's "Putting out fire (with gasoline)" (May 1982), and my #2 favorite song of all time Irene Cara's "Flashdance (what a feeling)" (Jun 1983).

And well, my third favorite producers were perhaps the most noted music production team of all time; Stock Aitken and Waterman. Their work with Rick Astley was phenominal, even considering they had to rush produce his second album "Hold me in your arms" after a studio fire destroyed material from the original recording sessions. Hazel Dean, Dead or Alive, and Bananarama were the main staple acts on their roster, however Kylie Minogue, Princess, and Sonia were other familiar artists that also charted well.

For me however, SAW's best work was Rick Astley's 1987 debut album "Whenever you need somebody"; the title cut reached top 5 in March 1988. "Never gonna give you up" became the albums biggest hit, which reached #1 in November 1987, where other great selections included "Together forever", "It would take a strong strong man" (I love Matt's Jazzy guitar mix from the 12 inch), and "No more looking for love". I truly worn down my Bali tape of this album, long before I bought a CD copy.

And this is where I'll finish off, with my all time favourite song, Berlin's "Take my breath away". Not only was it a fantastic Giorgio Moroder masterpiece, it showed the 80s supreme of Synths, The Yamaha DX7 at its absolute raw powering best, and man, didn't they reverb the hell out of that high hat. :)