Rock Producer Keith Olsen Has Passed Away
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Keith Olsen, a record producer whose resume spans rock’s greatest, died on Monday (March 9) at his home in Genoa, Nevada. He was 74 years old.
According to The New York Times, Olsen’s daughter Kelly Castady said he died of a cardiac arrest.
The rock producer worked with a number of music icons, including the Grateful Dead, Santana, Pat Benatar, Whitesnake, Rick Springfield, Ozzy Osbourne and Scorpions, among others. Most notably, he produced Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s 1973 collection Buckingham Nicks. Olsen played one of the songs for Mick Fleetwood, and Nicks and Buckingham were soon asked to join Fleetwood Mac.
“Mick Fleetwood had asked us to join Fleetwood Mac, sight unseen,” Nicks told The Observer in 2011. “Keith Olsen had played him ‘Buckingham Nicks,’ and told him Lindsey and I came as a pair.”
Olsen then produced the band’s self-titled, chart-topping 1975 album, which included classics like “Rhiannon,” “Say You Love Me” and “Landslide.”
Funny, the Buckingham Nicks album is the first thing I thought of when I read this. What GREAT album.
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Thanks Keith - RIP
Thanks Keith - RIP
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RIP Keith ! A Great Guy - I
RIP Keith ! A Great Guy - I Worked For Him Years Back
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Grateful Dead in the studio
Grateful Dead in the studio (Automated Sound): Right to left: Keith Olsen (producer, seated on amplifier), Jerry Garcia (seated, paying guitar), Bob Weir, ca. 1977
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/arts/music/keith-olsen-dies.html
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I’m from Genoa. About 800
I’m from Genoa. About 800 folks. Had no idea he lived there.
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Starting in January 1977, the
Starting in January 1977, the band and Olsen bore down on new material – including the epic “Terrapin Station” suite and Weir’s reggae-influenced “Estimated Prophet” – at Sound City, the funky but first-rate San Fernando Valley studio recently immortalized in Dave Grohl’s Sound City documentary. More so than probably any previous studio collaborator, Olsen put the bandmates through their paces, making them rehearse and replay parts until they nailed them. Normally, the Dead would have bristled, but not this time: “Keith was cracking the whip, but we liked it – it made us sharper,” says Hart. “We became much more disciplined. And Keith was always a little too small to hit. So he got away with a few things.”
Although he got high with Garcia on at least one occasion, Olsen didn’t become fully acclimated to the Dead universe until the later wrap-up sessions in New York, when Belushi came by, did cartwheels in the studio and hung out. “He drank everything he could and took everything and then passed out in front of the console,” Olsen says. “Everyone said, ‘Don’t bother him – let him be.’ This was all still really new to me.” Yet Olsen was also impressed with Garcia’s creativity and nonstop input: “He would have 20 ideas for everyone. He’d say, ‘I got a bunch of ideas,’ and we’d do them all. He really enjoyed the process.”...
....As with Keith Godchaux, Garcia turned to opiates – in particular, a new, strong Persian style of heroin. At the time, Garcia hid his growing habit from his bandmates; Hart and Godchaux say they didn’t realize until later that he was using. And given the quality of Garcia’s playing and singing in 1977, there was no reason to suspect anything at that point. “I think it made him feel good,” says Loren, “and when he felt good, he played good.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-grateful-deads-greates...
Grateful Dead in the studio (Automated Sound): Right to left: Keith Olsen (producer, right) at the mixing board, ca. 1977
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Offstage, Keith and Donna
Offstage, Keith and Donna Jean Godchaux were an increasingly volatile couple. Donna Jean was, in her words, “no angel,” and was regularly using cocaine and drinking wine. She’d tried heroin once and hated it: “I just threw up for 24 hours. So I couldn’t plant my feet in that patch.”
But her husband became increasingly beholden to the drug; Olsen remembers him mostly sleeping on a couch during the Terrapin Station sessions.
Photographer Peter Simon took a bunch of mostly unpublished photos of some Terrapin sessions for Rolling Stone that are on his archive. Some great stuff on their, as he took pics of a bunch of bands.
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If you're interested in Keith
If you're interested in Keith Check out the Dave Grohl-produced music documentary titled "sound city"
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He Use To Live In Pacific
He Use To Live In Pacific Palisades Ca and Maui - He Gave Me Pressings of A Few Albums - RIP Keith.
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I'd like to hear a release of
I'd like to hear a release of Terrapin Station with all of the overdubbed orchestral parts excised, like they did for the Beatles "Let It Be-Naked" release.
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Was Olsen a 'twerp" or a
Was Olsen a 'twerp" or a "plumber"?
Or did they come later?
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He looks like Keith Emerson.
He looks like Keith Emerson.