M+E Daily

By Guy Finley, Executive Director, MESA

Saturday morning I woke to terrible news.  I lost a mentor and friend who helped me achieve my childhood dreams — a man I first admired as an aspiring artist, who made incredible music with the most talented people in the industry, and who was always on the cutting edge of digital innovation. Phil Ramone had passed away.

As the shock wore off it occurred to me that not only was Phil a musical genius, he was also an innovator who dedicated himself to embracing new technologies and new business models while guiding artists to be their very best through the latest tools available during the evolving digital transition.

I worked closely with Phil in 1997 and 1998.  He, Larry Rosen and Dave Grusin had formed a record label, N2K Encoded Music, that would pioneer digital delivery and embrace the Internet as media well before the other major labels.  I was a kid playing drums in one of the hottest bands in New York City, looking for a deal and being courted by legendary record label executives.  It was just before the invention of Napster so the music business was still basking in the financial glory of the disc.  Phil was always a gentleman while courting us and gave myself and the band his personal assurance that he would work with us personally over the next 18 months to produce a record that we were all proud of on many levels (artistically, sonically, creatively, etc.)  When we eventually signed, he didn’t disappoint.  He listened.  He cared.  He innovated.

When we were doing some of our best work in the dingy studio apartment the singer and guitar played shared, he took the risk and had us pre-produce our album at home on the latest digital gear and instruments; nowadays this is commonplace for young artists and only costs a few hundred dollars in software but back then it was a considerable investment risk. Later, we spent more than a month in Sony Studios recording an album that included everything the band dreamed of – vintage guitars, fat drums, strings, horns, B3 and a cadre of incredible guest musicians.  We also embraced the latest digital technologies in the production process and worked with other “kids” who would later become Grammy Award winning engineers and producers themselves.  He mentored us all, made us feel very important and gave us our shot at the big time.

You will see in his obituary that he was a music prodigy and an engineer before producing albums by Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand and many others, some of which ultimately defined the artist to their global fan base and the era’s popular music to its place and time.   He was the “Pope of Pop” and had that special knack for picking songs or writing arrangements that would go on to sell hundreds of millions of records.  But beyond the pure talent and musicality as an artist himself, there was a technical genius as well.

This was a man who was a constant innovator using the first digital tape decks in a professional studio environment, heard the first digital instruments/samples while consulting with the instrument manufacturers, brought artists “together” by laying down the first recordings over the Internet with musicians in remote studio environments, pioneered optical surround sound and championed the Compact Disc and Music DVD.  His innovations were endless, all the while becoming a music industry legend who worked constantly through five decades on albums that he felt passionately about, with artists who were friends as well as business partners.

In the end, N2K turned their business model from traditional record label into online retailer by purchasing CD Now (Phil was prescient even when it came to the demise of the record label model).  The company that invested so much in us let us simply walk away holding our master recordings. Fifteen years later I look back fondly on those heady days and Phil’s passing reminds me about the fun we had together making music and memories.

We were but a blip on his huge career but it meant so much to briefly travel in his orbit and embrace a legend.  So, in case you are curious:

Band: Mini-King

Album: Mini-King (self titled)

Producer: Phil Ramone

Mixed by: Elliot Scheiner

Engineer: Samuel Vaughan Merrick

Asst. Engineer: Ryan Hewitt

facebook.com/MiniKingNYC