Tom Dowd

A staff engineer at Atlantic Records for over 25 years, Dowd's exploits on behalf of R&B, soul and rock groups are well known, but he also engineered numerous jazz dates by Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, the Modern Jazz Quartet and Ray Charles, among others. Dowd did landmark work with multi-tracking, helping Atlantic become one of the nation's best facilities in the early days of eight-track and stereo recording. Both a knowledgeable musician and physics and electronics master, Dowd understood sound from the technical and performance aspects. He later went on to craft hit albums as a producer for Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Chicago, MeatLoaf and the James Gang. On October 27, 2002, Dowd passed away at a nursing home in Aventura, Fla. after battling a respiratory disease for nearly two years. He was 77. ~ Ron Wynn, Rovi