News

Phil Ramone, One of the Record Producing and Engineering Greats, Dead at 79

Michael Fremer  |  Mar 30, 2013

Legendary record producer and engineer Phil Ramone passed away today at age 79. He was hospitalized last February after suffering an aortic aneurysm. Ramone worked with many greats from Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra to Billy Joel and Bob Dylan. His recording of Dylan's Blood on the Tracks was among Bob's finest sounding albums.

In the early '60s he recorded Dionne Warwick's album Make Way For Dionne Warwick, which contained the hit single and now classic "Walk on By." Though it was intended for AM radio airplay, the stereo recording, live to 2 or 4 track, featuring strings, back up vocals, horns and percussion is truly astonishing.

Go play a Phil album and enjoy his work.

COMMENTS
Smafdy Assmilk's picture
Submitted by Smafdy Assmilk on Sat, 2013-03-30 20:07

He was also the recoding eningeer on one of my favorites, Girl From Ipanema.

I think he was 79, not the widely reported 72.

Michael Fremer's picture
Submitted by Michael Fremer on Sun, 2013-03-31 07:30

Yes, his age had been mis-reported. I fixed that. And of course he engineered <i>Getz/Gilberto</i> among many other superb sounding records. He also was an early advocate of digital recording, for which we forgive him.

Brother John's picture
Submitted by Brother John on Sun, 2013-03-31 22:02

Was really bummed to hear the news of phil ramones passing yesterday as well.

Jody's picture
Submitted by Jody on Mon, 2013-04-01 10:53

He had great ears. I got to meet him a couple of times, nice guy.

my new username's picture
Submitted by my new username on Mon, 2013-04-01 18:45

One of the news sites, when mentioning productions he was associated with, included two things none of us here would probably have counted as triumphs and I thought that really odd. Or maybe we're odd? Either way, I guess that says more about the news site than it does about Ramone's many achievements.

They were, Sinatra's Duets/Duets II (thank you, Joe Piscopo) and the fact that Billy Joel's 52nd Street was the first (or one of the first?) titles relased on CD by Columbia. As if it were recorded digitally!

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