Richard Perry, a hitmaking record producer who worked with Carly Simon, Rod Stewart, Ringo Starr and the Beatles, has died aged 82.
Perry, a recipient of a Grammys Trustee Award in 2015, died on Tuesday at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering cardiac arrest, friend Daphna Kastner said.
“He maximised his time here,” said Ms 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, who dated celebrities such as Jane Fonda and Elizabeth Taylor, was widely known as a “musician’s producer”.
Singers turned to him for a variety of reasons, including to try to update their sound, as in Barbra Streisand’s case, or to revive their career, like for Fats Domino.
“Richard had a knack for matching the right song to the right artist,” Streisand wrote in her 2023 memoir, My Name is Barbra.
Starr’s album Ringo, released in 1973, would prove the drummer was a commercial force in his own right.
The album featured work from the other three Beatles as well as contributions from Harry Nilsson, Billy Preston, Steve Cropper, Martha Reeves and all five members of The Band.
It reached No. 2 on Billboard and sold more than 1m copies.
Hit singles included the chart toppers Photograph, co-written by Starr and George Harrison, and a remake of the 1950s favourite You’re Sixteen.
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I’m the Greatest was another memorable track on the album as, thanks to Perry’s help, Starr, Lennon and Harrison came together for a near-total Beatles reunion just three years after the band’s break-up.
Perry was briefly married to the actor Rebecca Broussard.