gary_james
04-13-2011, 09:52 AM
Roger Nichols worked with many other artists, but his association with Steely Dan produced six of his seven Grammy awards.
Roger Nichols, the recording engineer who gave the music of Steely Dan the lustrous sheen that became the popular group's sonic signature, died Saturday at his Burbank home after a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer, his family said. He was 66.
Nichols also worked extensively with the late country pop star John Denver. His long list of credits also includes work with Placido Domingo, Rickie Lee Jones, Rosanne Cash, Frank Sinatra and the Beach Boys.
But it was the Steely Dan records — albums such as "Aja" and "Pretzel Logic" and hits including "Do It Again" and "Hey Nineteen" — that brought Nichols six of his seven Grammy awards and his stature as engineer-as-artist, in the tradition of Phil Spector's engineer Larry Levine and Jerry Wexler's Tom Dowd at Atlantic Records in the 1960s.
"The records that we did could not have been done without Roger," Steely Dan's record producer Gary Katz said Tuesday. "He was just maniacal about making the sound of the records be what we liked.... He always thought there was a better way to do it, and he would find a way to do what we needed to in ways that other people hadn't done yet.
Roger Nichols, the recording engineer who gave the music of Steely Dan the lustrous sheen that became the popular group's sonic signature, died Saturday at his Burbank home after a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer, his family said. He was 66.
Nichols also worked extensively with the late country pop star John Denver. His long list of credits also includes work with Placido Domingo, Rickie Lee Jones, Rosanne Cash, Frank Sinatra and the Beach Boys.
But it was the Steely Dan records — albums such as "Aja" and "Pretzel Logic" and hits including "Do It Again" and "Hey Nineteen" — that brought Nichols six of his seven Grammy awards and his stature as engineer-as-artist, in the tradition of Phil Spector's engineer Larry Levine and Jerry Wexler's Tom Dowd at Atlantic Records in the 1960s.
"The records that we did could not have been done without Roger," Steely Dan's record producer Gary Katz said Tuesday. "He was just maniacal about making the sound of the records be what we liked.... He always thought there was a better way to do it, and he would find a way to do what we needed to in ways that other people hadn't done yet.