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Producer and engineer
Henry Lewy remains inextricably linked to the singer/songwriter renaissance of the late '60s and early '70s, helming classic folk-rock LPs for artists including
Joni Mitchell,
Neil Young, and
Crosby, Stills & Nash. Born in Magdeburg, Germany, in 1926,
Lewy immigrated to the U.S. at age 16 to escape the horrors of the Nazi regime. After launching his career as a radio announcer in the San Diego, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas markets, he studied engineering and in 1959 returned to L.A. to accept a position with Electrovoxx Studios.
Lewy soon graduated to a staff engineering gig with Liberty Records, where he initially worked on
Ross Bagdasarian's
Alvin & the Chipmunks sessions. After a stint at the renowned Gold Star Studios, where he cut demos on legends-in-waiting like
Jackie DeShannon and
Leon Russell,
Lewy tenured under engineering guru
Bones Howe at United & Western Studios, working on sessions headlined by
the Mamas & the Papas as well as
Johnny Rivers. In 1967, he joined A&M Records, where he experienced his greatest commercial success to date, engineering hits by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 (the Top Ten smash "Fool on the Hill") and
Tommy Boyce and
Bobby Hart (the 1968 bubblegum classic "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonite"). While working on
Crosby, Stills & Nash's landmark self-titled debut,
Lewy met
Joni Mitchell, and with her 1969 sophomore effort,
Clouds, inaugurated a collaboration that extended across more than a dozen LPs. With
Mitchell's third album, 1970's
Ladies of the Canyon,
Lewy earned his first production credit, but it's his skills as an engineer that nevertheless command the most attention -- projects like
Mitchell's 1974 masterpiece
Court and Spark and
Neil Young's 1972 watershed
Harvest boast a sonic clarity and warmth that remain unsurpassed despite subsequent advances in recording technology. After working on subsequent projects for
Leonard Cohen (1979's Recent Songs),
Van Morrison (1980's
Common One) and
Jennifer Warnes (the 1986
Cohen covers disc
Famous Blue Raincoat),
Lewy quietly eased into retirement. He died April 8, 2006, in Prescott, AZ, at the age of 79. ~ Jason Ankeny