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After responding to an ad in the Village Voice offering a program for recording engineers, Bronx-born producer
Jack Douglas began his music business career just as the famed Record Plant Studio was opening its doors. Although
Douglas started out as the studio's janitor, he quickly moved behind the control board as an assistant engineer on records by
Miles Davis,
The James Gang and
Mountain. After a chance encounter led
Douglas to act as the Who's engineer during the sessions for
Who's Next, he was given a chance to engineer John Lennon's
Imagine. The two formed a close bond and
Lennon career often enlisted
Douglas to be a part of his own recording ventures, as well as Yoko Ono's. Being a staffer at the Record Plant in the '70s allowed
Douglas to work as both producer and engineer on several landmark albums such as Lou Reed's
Berlin and
the New York Dolls' debut. It was this latter association that led to
Douglas' prolonged working relationship with
Aerosmith. Admirers of
The Dolls and their gritty sound and image,
Aerosmith enlisted
Douglas as producer of their breakthrough record
Get Your Wings. Over the next several years
Douglas worked closely with the group during
Toys in the Attic and
Rocks recordings.
Douglas produced, engineered, counseled and often helped to write material when the group was short a song or two. Additionally, he worked on outside projects such as albums by
Patti Smith,
Cheap Trick and
Blue Oyster Cult. With their creative run gone and the band spiraling out of control over drug use,
Douglas' five-year run with
Aerosmith ended in 1979 when they hired
Gary Lyons to produce the
Night in the Ruts album. In later years the producer occasionally re-teamed with the group, but never with the same creative or commercial success as their early work together. In 1980
Douglas was enlisted to produce Lennon's comeback albums,
Double Fantasy and Milk & Honey, but Lennon's assassination cut short the sessions of the latter. With Lennon's death
Douglas lost his only other lasting creative relationship and spent much of the '80s moving from project to project. ~ Steve Kurutz