Jack Douglas

Who is Jack Douglas?

Jack Douglas is an American record producer. He was born in New York City. Starting out as folk musician and performer, he worked on Robert Kennedy's senatorial campaign as a song-writer. Douglas then moved to England and joined a succession of bands before returning to New York to attend the Institute of Audio Research as a member of its first graduating class. His first professional job was at the new recording studio Record Plant Studios, not as producer or engineer, but as the janitor. Soon he was working at the recording desk contributing to projects by Miles Davis, The James Gang, Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick, Montrose, Rough Cutt, Artful Dodger, Moxy, Flipp, and Mountain.

A chance encounter with a group member led Douglas to help engineer The Who's early sessions for Who's Next at The Record Plant. After this landmark recording he was given a chance to engineer John Lennon's classic Imagine album. Douglas and Lennon formed a close bond and worked together for the remainder of Lennon's life.

As a Record Plant staff engineer, Douglas also forged working relationships with Patti Smith, Blue Öyster Cult, the New York Dolls, Cheap Trick, Starz and most notably Aerosmith. Douglas engineered and produced many of Aerosmith's albums in the 1970s, including Get Your Wings, Toys in the Attic, Rocks and Draw the Line, all of which have gone multi-platinum. Toys in the Attic and Rocks broke Aerosmith into the mainstream and have become highly influential, with both albums ranking among Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". His close relationship with Aerosmith extended beyond producing and engineering, as Douglas was also a musical contributor to the group when they came up short of material on their projects. For example, Douglas helped write the band's 1978 hit "Kings and Queens". He was often given the nickname of "the sixth member" of Aerosmith, due to his close relationship with the band. Douglas was replaced as producer by the band for the 1979 release Night in the Ruts, but Douglas was to again work with the group on 1982's Rock in a Hard Place and several of Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry's solo albums. For much of the late 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, Aerosmith worked with other producers, but in the mid-2000s, they re-united with Jack Douglas on the 2004 blues cover album, Honkin' on Bobo. Douglas will also produce the band's upcoming album Music from Another Dimension!, slated for release in November 2012. The band continues to maintain a cordial friendship with Douglas.