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A legend has fallen. I don't mean some fairytale knight on a horse. I mean a real legend in the music industry - Jack Richardson.

Jack was the producer for The Essentials’ first two albums, Oh What A Night! and ...And Then Some.  Sadly, he passed away on Friday, May 13, 2011 at the age of 81 in our old stompin' grounds of London, Ontario.

We were introduced to him through our manager at the time, Terry McManus. Both were Professors in the Music Industry Arts program at Fanshawe College, along with the funnyman who engineered both of those albums, Don Geppert.

Jack was a bona fide producer. The real deal. He'd paid his dues 38 times over. What I mean by that is that he had 38 gold/platinum albums hanging from his walls. Oh, and add 27 Billboard singles to that list just for kicks.

Intimidating? You'd think so. Until you met Jack.

Jack was relatively humble. He had produced all of the Guess Who hits (These Eyes, American Woman), The Irish Rovers (Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, Wasn’t That A Party), Bob Seger (Night Moves), Alice Cooper, Kim Mitchell, and Max Webster, just to name a few. He even sat in for one of Elvis Presley's last recording sessions at Graceland. A colleague of mine told me that he sat in on a Beatles session too but I never heard about that directly from Jack so I can't quite report it.  And yet he never spewed this information out.  You had to dig.

He received the Walt Grealis Lifetime Achievement Juno and also the Order of Canada.  Yeah, that Order of Canada.  And the Junos renamed their producer award The Jack Richardson Producer of the Year Award - no biggie (kidding).

He was knowledgeable, not just about music theory or production but about life in general. And he was generous in sharing that knowledge but didn't force it on us young bucks. He'd just watch and listen to us try to sort through a situation, be it an album title debate or a note in the music and then just step in at the end with sage and perfectly-worded advice. He didn't give his advice in the "do it this way" kinda way, but more in the "I’ve seen it done this way and that way, but I’ve always liked this way for this reason" kinda way.  Take it or leave it.

He was always early for the studio. Always. I don't ever remember him walking in once after me or once leaving before me. After a while you came to expect it and respect it. If you walked into the studio 5 minutes before the session and he wasn't in the Control Room he was always somewhere nearby, the washroom, the iso booth, or adjusting a mic height for someone.

He worked long hours. We 20-something-year-olds would be passed out in the back of the Control Room after the 8^th hour or so while the 60-something-year-old legend worked 11 or 12 hours straight, and with intense focus. He saw every note as his responsibility and he'd listen over and over relentlessly until we got it just right.  He didn't care that your picture was on the front of the CD - his name was on the back.

I remember once Jack was listening to a 15 second section of a vocal take over and over again. Minutes into this, I turned to Don and said "what’s he listening for?" and Don just shrugged his shoulders and joked "I don’t know, but when he’s doing that I get to eat more pizza". Don was kidding of course, but that's almost the way it worked. It was best to leave Jack alone at times while he listened and decided on things. This was before the prevalence of Cher-esque autotuning software with wav files and computers. These were the days of 2" reels which meant that Jack had to decide on every note with his ears, not by sending it to a computer to correct.

I could go on and on about Jack but this blog would get really long but I'll share one story about his laser-like focus.

During the recording of our second album, his wife Shirley came for a visit. Shirley is an extremely pleasant woman. Sorta like the sweet lady next door who bakes two apple pies so you could have one to yourself and not just a piece of hers.

So Shirley came in for a visit and we all had some nice chats about how things were going, except for Jack.  With his nose to the grindstone he sat there in the front of the Control Room steering the ship, wading through young voices with young mistakes and fixing them somehow...someway.

After about an hour, Shirley said her goodbyes, and about an hour after that, when Jack came up for air, I said to him, "Well that was nice of your wife to come by" and he said in all seriousness, "Oh! Was she here?!"

That's focus. The love of your life is sitting 10 feet behind you chatting with everyone and your mind is in another place altogether. I think the building could have caught fire and burned down around him and Jack would have just about been done fixing bar 38 of If I Fell.

There's much more. Jack taught me how to prepare for the studio. He didn't sit me down and say "this is how you prepare for the studio" but you learned by observing. He used to have the lyrics written down a certain way so that he could decide how the composite track would be built. He had a paper grid system that has become obsolete with the computers we use these days but the message is clear: Prepare. Since that second CD I've always printed out my music, put my notes right on my copy and made an extra copy for the producer. Every minute you are in there fumbling around for a note is a minute that you're wasting everyone's time working on the project.

I'm a touch embarrassed to tell this story but I will anyway because it shows how Jack took responsibility for his projects.

It took me 4 hours to record one of the vocal tracks on our second album.  4 hours.  For those who aren't in the music business and are wondering if that's a long time, it is!  Too long.  Two hours is getting too long.  Three hours is really pushing it.  Four hours is way outside of the range of acceptability.

And Jack let me know this.  Not with everyone around but off to the side.  When he started the sentence with "Between you, me, and the fencepost..." I knew I was going to get an earful of honesty about my lack of professionalism in not knowing my part going into that song.

That was my most difficult track on the album.  Then I got a phone call one morning when I wasn't scheduled to be in the studio until the afternoon.  It was Don.  They had inadvertently erased my 4-hour "masterpiece".  "No way", I thought...this is a joke (one of many pranks we pulled on each other in the studio).  I begged him to come clean so I didn't have to come in early.  No dice.  It was indeed gone.

I don't know why I asked this because it really didn't matter.  I wasn't angry at all but I just curious as to how that sort of thing happens, so when I got to the studio I asked Jack and Don which of them had erased it.  Don started to speak and then Jack butted in with "anything that happens in my studio is my responsibility".  And we spoke of it no further.  The buck stopped there.

I did feel like I was in good company though, when I asked Jack if this had ever happened to him before on a track that took so long to get.  He said "yeah, we inadvertently erased a Stephen Stills guitar solo in Toronto that took about that long to get".  (Yes, the same Stephen Stills from CSNY.  Like I said above, you had to dig...but Jack just mentioned him like it's no big deal.)  So I asked him how he reacted then.  He said that he walked around the block.  I said "well that was a nice, calm idea".  Jack quipped "you wouldn't have thought it was very nice and calm if you could hear what I was mumbling as I walked around the block!"  Ha!

The good news is that it took me then 2 hours to cut that same track.  I was still embarrassed by this length and Jack came in with some encouraging yet joking words, "That's a 50% improvement!  Five more times and you could do this in one-take!"  (That "one-take" comment leads to another story that is obvious to those that were there, but I'll save it for another time.)

Anyway, like I said, I could go on and on but this blog would be way too long.

In short, Jack was an extremely generous and kind gentleman. He did his best to not hurt anyone's feelings about any of their performances, but the music always came first so sometimes the maestro was forced to take your ego down a notch or two.  It wasn't fun but it was always when just the two of you were around.  But because he was such a kind man, you knew that his heart was in the right place. He wasn't trying to hurt your feelings or get you to quit - he was trying to make you hear what he hears so that you could improve.

And I did get better after working with Jack.  I learned to take bigger breaths before hitting my lowest of low notes.  "Fill every orifice with air before you start that section, Joe!", he used to say.  Words that have helped me in my live shows too.  I do some other things that Jack recommended but most of all, I prepare going into the studio or for live shows.

And Jack knew just what to say to inspire you to do your best.

He wanted to make the best music humanly possible. Not because we were paying him a gazillion dollars or because we're the best musicians of all time, but just because he loved music. He loved doing what he did and clearly he was great at it.

So Jack, on behalf of The Essentials camp - former and current - may you rest in peace, and thank you.

And Jack, my old friend, please go easy on that choir of angels up there, ok? Not everyone was blessed with Burton Cummings' falsetto. ;)