Richard Perry, the prolific music producer who was behind hits such as “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon has died.
Perry, 82, died Tuesday in a Los Angeles hospital after cardiac arrest, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Born in New York City, Perry was an avid musician and a member of a doo-wop band in high school. But after college, he dedicated himself to record production and became one of the most successful producers of all time.
He has worked with major artists, from Barbra Streisand and Rod Stewart to Fats Domino and Leo Sayer.
Perry also offered to record the first time the Beatles worked together after their breakup for a song on drummer Ringo Starr’s debut solo album, Sentimental Journey.
The producer worked with Stewart on her Great American Songbook series and won a Grammys Trustee Award in 2015.
Well-connected with high profile celebrities and musicians, Perry dated Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda and briefly married the actress Rebecca Broussard.
Perry’s Donna Kastner broke the news of his death to the media and described him as a “fatherArray. “
“He maximized his time here,” she told the AP. He is generous, funny, gentle and made the world a better place. The world is a little less sweet without him here. But he’s kind of sweet in heaven. “
Streisand worked extensively with Perry throughout her career and praised him in her memoir, My Name Is Barbra.
“I liked Richard from the moment we met. He is tall and thin, with a mop of curly black hair and a big smile,” she wrote. “When we met, he arrived loaded with songs and we listened to them together. Any doubts I might have felt about our collaboration temporarily disappeared and I thought, ‘It can also be just fun and musically liberating. ‘”
She wrote of her musical abilities, “Richard had a knack for matching the right song to the right artist. »
Perry used her memoir to verify a secret kept for decades by revealing exactly which ex-boyfriend Simon was singing a song about in “You’re So Vain. “
“I’m going to take this opportunity to give my insider opinion,” she wrote in her 2021 memoir, Cloud Nine. “The user the song is based on is a combination of several men Carly dated in the ’60s and early from the ’70s, but basically it’s about my smart friend, Warren Beatty.
Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, newspapers and broadcast, specializing in entertainment, politics, LGBTQ+ and health reporting. Shannon has covered high profile celebrity trials along with industry analysis of all the big trends in media, pop culture and the entertainment business generally. Shannon stories have featured on the cover of the Newsweek magazine and has been published in publications such as, The Guardian, Monocle, The Independent, SBS, ABC, Metro and The Sun. You can get in touch with Shannon by email at [email protected] and on X @shannonjpower. Languages: English, Greek, Spanish.