FILE – Producer Richard Perry poses for a photo in Los Angeles, Jan. 18, 1982. (AP Photo/Lennox McLendon, File) Richard Perry, a hitmaking record producer with a flair for both standards and contemporary sounds whose many successes included Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” Rod Stewart’s “The Great American Songbook” series and a Ringo Starr album featuring all four Beatles, died Tuesday.
He was 82. Perry, a recipient of a Grammys Trustee Award in 2015, died at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering cardiac arrest, friend Daphna Kastner said. “He maximized his time here,” said Kastner, who called him a “father friend” and said he was godfather to her son.
“He was generous, fun, sweet and made the world a better place. The world is a little less sweeter without him here. But it’s a little bit sweeter in heaven.
” Perry was a onetime drummer, oboist and doo-wop singer who proved at home with a wide variety of musical styles, the rare producer to have No. 1 hits on the pop, R&B, dance and country charts. He was on hand for Harry Nilsson’s “Without You” and The Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited,” Tiny Tim’s novelty smash “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” and the Willie Nelson-Julio Iglesias lounge standard “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.
” READ : Gary Valenciano bares ‘vision’ during ‘One More Time’ concert Perry was widely known as a “musician’s producer,” treating artists like peers rather than vehicles for his own.
