Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music

by Phil Ramone

Overview

Sinatra. Streisand. Dylan. Pavarotti. McCartney. Sting. Madonna. What do these musicians have in common besides their super-stardom? They have all worked with legendary music producer Phil Ramone.

For almost five decades, Phil Ramone has been a force in the music industry. He has produced records and collaborated with almost every major talent in the business. There is a craft to making records, and Phil has spent his life mastering it. For the first time ever, he shares the secrets of his trade.

Making Records is a fascinating look "behind the glass" of a recording studio. From Phil's exhilarating early days recording jazz and commercial jingles at A&R, to his first studio, and eventual legendary producer status, Phil allows you to sit in on the sessions that created some of the most memorable music of the 20th century -- including Frank Sinatra's Duets album, Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Ray Charles's Genius Loves Company and Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years.

In addition to being a ringside seat for contemporary popular music history, Making Records is an unprecedented tutorial on the magic behind what music producers and engineers do. In these pages, Phil offers a rare peek inside the way music is made . . . illuminating the creative thought processes behind some of the most influential sessions in music history.

This is a book about the art that is making records -- the way it began, the way it is now, and everything in between.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781401388294
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	04/08/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	348
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Phil Ramone was born in 1931. A violin prodigy, he studied at Juilliard before establishing his first music studio in 1961. In addition to his producing activities, Ramone is also extremely active in music and service related organizations. He is the Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) and the Producers and Engineers Wing, and is a Trustee of the MusiCares Foundation. He lives in Westchester County, NY.

Editorial Reviews

Ramone, with 14 Grammys to his name, is the consummate Establishment producer. His clean professionalism has brought a touch of class to a wealth of baby boomer landmarks, from Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Yearsto Billy Joel's The Strangerand Ray Charles's Genius Loves Company. Over the course of his memoir, Ramone constantly drops these names and more, often veering into a string of anecdotes to illustrate a point. One page about artists' working methods, for example, includes mention of Frank Sinatra; Bob Dylan; Peter, Paul, and Mary; and Barbara Streisand, with little distinction made as to quality or genre. This makes for a readable but repetitive book. The conversational style means that certain artists are brought up again and again, and sometimes the book relies upon long block quotes from musicians that would have benefited from being pared down to their relevant lines (such as one in which Liberty DeVitto of Billy Joel's band talks about changing the rhythm of "Always a Woman to Me"). Amid all of this, there are genuinely interesting stories, and fans of Sinatra, Simon and Dylan should find pleasure in the long in-studio narratives. (Oct.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

Portrait of the artist as a nice man. Grammy-winning record producer/engineer Ramone has twiddled the knobs for some of modern music's biggest-selling, most influential performers: Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Paul Simon and Carly Simon, among others. Considering his ability to connect with both his artists and the listening public, it's not unfair to call him a recording-studio genius. But unlike many studio greats-yes, we're talking to you, Phil Spector-Ramone is a sweet, compassionate gentleman who puts his artists' happiness and comfort first. "I'll do almost anything to please a client," he writes. "Bring in comfortable furniture, put up special lighting, make sure that we have yellow jelly beans, or brown M&Ms." Little wonder, then, that his memoir is warm and welcoming, the literary equivalent of sitting in the living room with your coolest uncle-who just so happens to have some awesome stories about how he cajoled Frank Sinatra into waxing his finest late-career recording. One of Ramone's vital themes is the importance of the composer. "My career as an engineer and producer coincided with one of the most profound periods in pop music history: that of the contemporary singer-songwriter." That being the case, it's unsurprising that Ramone writes about his troubadour hyphenates with reverence and humility. For example, even though he played a vital part in writing and arranging some of Billy Joel's most enduring albums (52nd Street, Glass Houses), Ramone humbly deflects credit, another one of the qualities that makes this book so affably readable. He also provides plenty of technical information about mixing and engineering, but it's delivered in such anapproachable manner that it will appeal to casual listeners and studio nerds alike. What it takes to make a hit record-and to handle success with grace, class and humor.

Kirkus Reviews