When one of the most successful producers and executives in the seminal years of the rock generation writes a memoir, you read it. Ted Templeman delivers the goods with A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music, a no-nonsense sprint through the labyrinth of a music business discovering itself. Finally, here is a book that covers the process of the artist. Templeman takes you into the studio, behind the scenes; working with seminal artists such as Van Morrison, Van Halen, Eric Clapton the Doobie Bros., Aerosmith, Nicolette Larson, Carly Simon and more. We’re privy to their methods, idiosyncrasies, unique talents, fears and aspirations. The producer’s many tasks – father confessor, ship’s captain, musical interpreter, sonic guidepost, and sometimes fellow partier – are unfurled in a very entertaining read.
Templeman was also a major executive during his decades working at Warner Bros. during the company’s, and especially the label’s halcyon days. The stories of working within the studio system in the wild and crazy 1970s through the eighties into the nineties is covered with a keen eye. There are so many great stories and so much to learn on how the business thrived and imploded, the hits and the misses, the parties, the awards shows, the inner fighting, et al. We get to the bottom of the battles within the Doobies and Van Halen from Templeman’s perspective. which I found here to always be fair and measured.
I was also jazzed to learn that the author was a member of the sixties pop group, Harper’s Bizarre, another angle on the music business that helps frame an extremely fascinating life in the business of music.