Richard Perry, Top Record Producer, Dies at 82

Richard Perry, one of the most stylish and successful record producers of the 1970s and ’80s, died on Tuesday (Dec. 24) in a Los Angeles hospital. He was 82. The cause of his death was cardiac arrest, said Daphna Kastner Keitel, a friend.

Perry’s greatest hits include Nilsson’s “Without You” and Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” both of which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also received Grammy nods for record of the year. These two classic hits typify Perry’s production style – immaculate, powerful and precise. Other hits that have that unmistakable Perry stamp include Leo Sayer’s “When I Need You” (also a No. 1 on the Hot 100) and Burton Cummings’ stately “Stand Tall” (a top 10 hit on the Hot 100 in 1977).

Perry produced more than 30 top 20 hits on the Hot 100, including Barbra Streisand’s dynamic version of Laura Nyro’s “Stoney End,” in which one the legendary star dove into contemporary pop music for the first time; and a long string of hits by The Pointer Sisters, including the exhilarating “I’m So Excited” and “Jump (for My Love).”

Perry was Billboard’s Top Singles producer on the magazine’s end-of-year recaps twice, in 1977 and 1984. He received back-to-back Grammy nods for producer of the year, non-classical in 1977 and 1978.

He had a 42-year span of top 10 albums on the Billboard 200. He first made the top 10 in July 1968 with a very unlikely project, an album by pop-culture phenomenon Tiny Tim. His last album project to make the top 10 was Rod Stewart’s Fly Me to The Moon…The Great American Songbook, Vol. 5 in November 2010.

Perry produced back-to-back No. 1 hits on the Hot 100 by two different artists – Ringo Starr (“Photograph” and “You’re Sixteen” in 1973-74) and Sayer (“You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” and “When I Need You, both in 1977).” The Starr smashes were historic – the first and only time that a former Beatle had back-to-back singles that reached No. 1 on the Hot 100.

Perry never won a Grammy in competition, but finally received a Trustees Award from the Recording Academy in 2015. His other nominations, not already mentioned, were album of the year for Nilsson Schmilsson (the album that housed “Without You” and its quirky follow-up hit, “Coconut”), best pop instrumental performance for an instrumental version of “Jump (For My Love)” (The Pointer Sisters won best pop performance by a duo or group with vocal for the vocal version) and best music video, short form, for The Pointer Sisters’ So Excited compilation, on which he was the video director.

Perry’s long string of hits with The Pointer Sisters really showed what he could do. The group was considered a B-act, at best, when Perry announced in 1978 that he was signing them to his new Planet Records. The group had had a couple of moderate hits, but few expected them to become one of the most consistent acts in pop music. Under Perry’s guidance, they did just that, with five top five hits on the Hot 100 – a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire,” “He’s So Shy” (a Tom Snow/Cynthia Weil song with a style that harkened back to the girl-group hits of the early ’60s), “Slow Hand,” “Automatic” and “Jump (For My Love),” which went on to soundtrack one of cleverest scenes in Love Actually, when the prime minister played by Hugh Grant simply can’t resist that beat. (Who could?)

Perry was very much a pop producer, but his music touched other genres, too. He produced Julio Iglesias & Willie Nelson’s “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” which reached No. 1 on Hot Country Songs in 1984 and won single of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards and was nominated in that category at the Country Music Association Awards. Perry also had No. 1 hits on the R&B and dance charts.

Richard Van Perry was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 18, 1942, to Mack and Sylvia Perry, who manufactured and sold musical instruments and also served as music teachers. After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1964 with a degree in music and theater, Perry returned to New York. He formed his own independent record production company, Cloud Nine Productions, in June 1965. In March 1967, he moved to Los Angeles. His first album production job was Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s debut, Safe as Milk, which he co-produced with Bob Krasnow. The album was released in June 1967. That November, Perry was hired by Warner Bros. Records as a staff producer.

His first assignment was recording Tiny Tim, who had become a novelty sensation on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, the runaway No. 1 show on TV. The ukelele-playing falsetto singer’s debut album, God Bless Tiny Tim, rose to No. 7 on the Billboard 200, boosted by a remake of the 1920s novelty tune “Tip-Toe Thru’ the Tulips With Me,” which became a top 20 hit on the Hot 100.

Perry also recorded albums with legendary stars Fats Domino (Fats Is Back) and Ella Fitzgerald (Ella), both of which cracked the Billboard 200. Perry left Warner Bros. in 1970 and almost immediately became one of the most in-demand producers in pop.

His first big score as an indie producer was Streisand’s Stoney End, released in late 1970, on which the then-28-year-old superstar was, for the first time, singing songs written by and intended for an audience of people roughly her own age. The album cracked the top 10 on the Billboard 200 in March 1971, becoming Streisand’s first top 10 album in more than four years. Perry also produced her next two albums, Barbra Joan Streisand and Live Concert at the Forum. These projects pointed the more contemporary direction for many of Streisand’s biggest successes in the 1970s, including A Star Is Born in 1976.  

In 1978, Perry played a record producer in American Hot Wax, a film about DJ Alan Freed. (In 1955, at age 12, Perry had been a regular at Freed’s live shows at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater.)

Perry produced DeBarge’s “Rhythm of the Night,” a top five hit in 1985 and the first top five hit written by hit machine Diane Warren. While most of Perry’s hits were new songs, he also produced his share of hit remakes, including Johnny Burnette’s “You’re Sixteen” (for Ringo Starr, then 33, an age-inappropriate song selection that barely caused a rippled back then but would be much more problematic today), Inez Foxx (with Charlie Foxx)’s “Mockingbird” (for pop music’s “It Couple” of 1974, Carly Simon and James Taylor), The Platters’ “Only You” (also for Ringo Starr) and the Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes for You” (for Art Garfunkel).

In 1988, Perry produced a passion project, Rock, Rhythm and Blues, which consisted of classic oldies from the ’50s, each performed by a different contemporary artist. Elton John, Christine McVie, Chaka Khan and Michael McDonald, among others, were featured on the album. One of the tracks, Randy Travis’ version of Brook Benton’s “It’s Just a Matter of Time,” topped Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart and received a Grammy nod for best country vocal performance, male.

In 1993, Perry produced Ray Charles’ My World, which made the Billboard 200. A track from the album, Leon Russell’s classic “A Song for You,” made Billboard’s Hot R&B Singles chart and won a Grammy for best R&B vocal performance, male.

Perry and Carly Simon reunited in 2004 for the standards collection Moonlight Serenade, which reached No. 7 on the Billboard 200 and received a Grammy nod for best traditional pop vocal album. Perry did some of his finest work with Simon. “You’re So Vain” is simply one of the greatest singles of the 1970s. The No Secrets album, which headed the Billboard 200 for five weeks in early 1973, is a classic, from its revealing album cover (very provocative for 1972) to its no-skips lineup of songs. “Nobody Does It Better,” released in 1977, is one of the best and sexiest James Bond themes ever written (hat tip: songwriters Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager).

Perry’s last big hurrah on the Billboard charts was on Rod Stewart’s The Great American Songbook series. All five volumes, which rolled out between 2002 and 2010, made the top five on the Billboard 200. All five received Grammy nods for best traditional pop vocal album. Perry was credited as a producer on four of the five volumes.

In April 2020, Perry published his memoir, Cloud Nine: Memoirs of a Record Producer.

Perry is survived by his younger brothers Roger, Fred and Andrew. His marriages to Linda Goldner and Rebecca Broussard ended in divorce. Perry was in a relationship with actress and activist Jane Fonda from 2009 to 2017.