Tom Dowd
Encyclopedia
Tom Dowd was an American
recording engineer and producer
for Atlantic Records
. He was credited with innovating the multi-track recording method. Dowd worked on a virtual "who's who" of recordings that encompassed blues, jazz, pop, rock and soul records.
, Dowd grew up playing piano, tuba, violin, and string bass. His mother was an opera singer and his father was a concertmaster
.
Dowd graduated from Stuyvesant High School
in June, 1942 at the age of 16. He continued his musical education at City College of New York
. Dowd also played in a band at New York's Columbia University
, where he became a conductor
. He was also employed at the physics
laboratory of Columbia University.
into the military with the rank of sergeant
. He continued his work in physics at Columbia University. He worked on the Manhattan Project
contributing to the atomic bomb. The purpose of the work was unclear until 1945. Dowd planned to obtain a degree in nuclear physics
when he completed his work on the Manhattan Project. However because his work was top secret the university did not recognize it, and Dowd decided not to continue, since the university's curriculum would not have been able to further his physics education. His research for the military was more advanced than the academia of the times.
. His first hit was Eileen Barton's "If I Knew You Were Comin', I'd Baked a Cake." He soon became a top recording engineer
there and recorded popular artists such as Ray Charles
, The Drifters
, The Coasters
, Ruth Brown
and Bobby Darin
, including Darin's famous rendition of Kurt Weill
/Bertolt Brecht
's "Mack the Knife". He captured jazz masterpieces by John Coltrane
, Ornette Coleman
, Thelonious Monk
and Charlie Parker
. It was Dowd's idea to cut Ray Charles' recording of "What'd I Say
" into two parts and release them as the A-side and B-side of the same single record.
Dowd worked as an engineer and producer from the 1940s until the beginning of the 21st century. He recorded albums by many artists including Eric Clapton
, Lynyrd Skynyrd
, Derek and the Dominos
, Rod Stewart
, Wishbone Ash
, Cream
, Lulu
, Chicago
, The Allman Brothers Band
, Joe Bonamassa
, The J. Geils Band, Meat Loaf
, Sonny & Cher
, The Rascals
, Willie Nelson
, Diana Ross
, The Eagles, Kenny Loggins
, James Gang
, Dusty Springfield
, Eddie Harris
, Charles Mingus
, Herbie Mann
, Booker T. and the MGs, Otis Redding
, Aretha Franklin
and Joe Castro
. Dowd received a Grammy Trustees Award
for his lifetime achievements in February 2002.
He died of emphysema
on October 27, 2002 in Florida
, where he had been living and working at Criteria Studios
for many years.
of Atlantic Records
to install an Ampex
eight-track recorder, enabling Atlantic to be the first recording company to record using multiple tracks.
Dowd is credited as the engineer who popularized the eight-track recording system for commercial music and popularized the use of stereo sound. Although stereo had been invented in the 1930s, Dowd was the first to use it on a record. He also pioneered the use of linear channel faders as opposed to rotary controls on audio mixers. He devised various methods for altering sound after the initial recording.
In 2003 director Mark Moormann premiered an award-winning documentary about his life entitled Tom Dowd and the Language of Music
. In the 2004 biopic Ray
, Tom Dowd was portrayed by actor Rick Gomez
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
recording engineer and producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
for Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
. He was credited with innovating the multi-track recording method. Dowd worked on a virtual "who's who" of recordings that encompassed blues, jazz, pop, rock and soul records.
Early years
Born in ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, Dowd grew up playing piano, tuba, violin, and string bass. His mother was an opera singer and his father was a concertmaster
Concertmaster
The concertmaster/mistress is the spalla or leader, of the first violin section of an orchestra. In the UK, the term commonly used is leader...
.
Dowd graduated from Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...
in June, 1942 at the age of 16. He continued his musical education at City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
. Dowd also played in a band at New York's Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where he became a conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
. He was also employed at the physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
laboratory of Columbia University.
Military work
At age 18, Dowd was draftedConscription in the United States
Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...
into the military with the rank of sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
. He continued his work in physics at Columbia University. He worked on the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
contributing to the atomic bomb. The purpose of the work was unclear until 1945. Dowd planned to obtain a degree in nuclear physics
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...
when he completed his work on the Manhattan Project. However because his work was top secret the university did not recognize it, and Dowd decided not to continue, since the university's curriculum would not have been able to further his physics education. His research for the military was more advanced than the academia of the times.
Music
Dowd took a job at a classical music recording studio until he obtained employment at Atlantic RecordsAtlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
. His first hit was Eileen Barton's "If I Knew You Were Comin', I'd Baked a Cake." He soon became a top recording engineer
Audio engineering
An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
there and recorded popular artists such as Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, The Drifters
The Drifters
The Drifters are a long-lived American doo-wop and R&B/soul vocal group with a peak in popularity from 1953 to 1963, though several splinter Drifters continue to perform today. They were originally formed to serve as Clyde McPhatter's backing group in 1953...
, The Coasters
The Coasters
The Coasters are an American rhythm and blues/rock and roll vocal group that had a string of hits in the late 1950s. Beginning with "Searchin'" and "Young Blood", their most memorable songs were written by the songwriting and producing team of Leiber and Stoller...
, Ruth Brown
Ruth Brown
Ruth Brown was an American pop and R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, composer and actress, noted for bringing a pop music style to R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and " He Treats Your Daughter Mean".For these...
and Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...
, including Darin's famous rendition of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
/Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
's "Mack the Knife". He captured jazz masterpieces by John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
and Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
. It was Dowd's idea to cut Ray Charles' recording of "What'd I Say
What'd I Say
According to Charles' autobiography, "What'd I Say" was accidental when he improvised it to fill time at the end of a concert in December 1958. He asserts that he never tested songs on audiences before recording them, but "What'd I Say" is an exception...
" into two parts and release them as the A-side and B-side of the same single record.
Dowd worked as an engineer and producer from the 1940s until the beginning of the 21st century. He recorded albums by many artists including Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...
, Derek and the Dominos
Derek and the Dominos
Derek and the Dominos were a blues rock band formed in the spring of 1970 by guitarist and singer Eric Clapton with keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon, who had all played with Clapton in Delaney, Bonnie & Friends...
, Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
, Wishbone Ash
Wishbone Ash
Wishbone Ash are a British rock band who achieved success in the early and mid-1970s. Their popular records included Wishbone Ash , Argus , There's the Rub , and New England...
, Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
, Lulu
Lulu (singer)
Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE , best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through to the present day...
, Chicago
Chicago (band)
Chicago is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The self-described "rock and roll band with horns" began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had...
, The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band is an American rock/blues band once based in Macon, Georgia. The band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman and Gregg Allman , who were supported by Dickey Betts , Berry Oakley , Butch Trucks , and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe"...
, Joe Bonamassa
Joe Bonamassa
Joe Bonamassa is an American blues rock guitarist and singer.-Early life:Bonamassa was born and raised in New Hartford, United States. His parents owned and ran a guitar shop. He is a fourth-generation musician...
, The J. Geils Band, Meat Loaf
Meat Loaf
Michael Lee Aday , better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor...
, Sonny & Cher
Sonny & Cher
Sonny & Cher were an American pop music duo, actors, singers and entertainers made up of husband-and-wife team Sonny and Cher Bono in the 1960s and 1970s. The couple started their career in the mid-1960s as R&B backing singers for record producer Phil Spector....
, The Rascals
The Rascals
The Rascals were an American blue-eyed soul group initially active during the years 1965–72. The band released numerous top ten singles in North America during the mid- and late-1960s, including the U.S. #1 hits "Good Lovin'" , "Groovin'" , and "People Got to Be Free"...
, Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
, Diana Ross
Diana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
, The Eagles, Kenny Loggins
Kenny Loggins
During the next decade, Loggins recorded so many successful songs for film soundtracks that he was referred to as, King of the Movie Soundtrack.He began with "I'm Alright" , "Mr. Night", and "Lead the Way" from Caddyshack...
, James Gang
James Gang
The James Gang was a rock band formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1966. Though the band was not a huge commercial success, except in the Northeast Ohio area, the fame garnered by guitarist Joe Walsh has since made the group more notable.- History :...
, Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
, Eddie Harris
Eddie Harris
Eddie Harris was an American jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. He was also fluent on the electric piano and organ...
, Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
, Herbie Mann
Herbie Mann
Herbert Jay Solomon , better known as Herbie Mann, was a Jewish American jazz flutist and important early practitioner of world music...
, Booker T. and the MGs, Otis Redding
Otis Redding
Otis Ray Redding, Jr. was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger and talent scout. He is considered one of the major figures in soul and R&B...
, Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
and Joe Castro
Joe Castro (musician)
Joe Castro was an American bebop jazz pianist, based primarily on the West Coast of the United States.-Biography:...
. Dowd received a Grammy Trustees Award
Grammy Trustees Award
The Grammy Trustees Award is awarded by the Recording Academy to "individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording". Through 1983, performers could also receive this award...
for his lifetime achievements in February 2002.
He died of emphysema
Emphysema
Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...
on October 27, 2002 in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, where he had been living and working at Criteria Studios
Criteria Studios
Criteria Studios is a music-recording studio in Miami, Florida, started in 1958 by Mack Emerman.In 1999, The Hit Factory purchased Criteria Studios, revamping and reopening the studios under the new name The Hit Factory Criteria Miami.-Notable artists:...
for many years.
Legacy
Tom Dowd helped to shape the artists that he worked with, and because he worked with an array of great artists on some of the world's greatest recordings, Dowd was highly influential in creating the sound of the second half of the 20th Century. It was he who encouraged Jerry WexlerJerry Wexler
Gerald "Jerry" Wexler was a music journalist turned music producer, and was regarded as one of the major record industry players behind music from the 1950s through the 1980s...
of Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
to install an Ampex
Ampex
Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff. The name AMPEX is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence...
eight-track recorder, enabling Atlantic to be the first recording company to record using multiple tracks.
Dowd is credited as the engineer who popularized the eight-track recording system for commercial music and popularized the use of stereo sound. Although stereo had been invented in the 1930s, Dowd was the first to use it on a record. He also pioneered the use of linear channel faders as opposed to rotary controls on audio mixers. He devised various methods for altering sound after the initial recording.
In 2003 director Mark Moormann premiered an award-winning documentary about his life entitled Tom Dowd and the Language of Music
Tom Dowd and the Language of Music
Tom Dowd and the Language of Music is a documentary profiling the life and work of music producer/recording engineer Tom Dowd. Historical footage, vintage photographs and interviews with a "who's who" list of musical giants from the worlds of jazz, soul and classic rock provide insight into the...
. In the 2004 biopic Ray
Ray (film)
Ray is a 2004 biographical film focusing on 30 years of the life of rhythm and blues musician Ray Charles. The independently produced film was directed by Taylor Hackford and starred Jamie Foxx in the title role; Foxx received an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance.Charles was set to...
, Tom Dowd was portrayed by actor Rick Gomez
Rick Gomez
Richard Harper "Rick" Gomez is an American actor. He is known for portraying T-4. George Luz, in the HBO television miniseries Band of Brothers, and as "Endless Mike" Hellstrom in the cult hit Nickelodeon TV series The Adventures of Pete and Pete.-Movies:*Love Ranch - Tom Macy*Another Cinderella...
.