Richard Perry, the producer behind a collection of hits including Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” and the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited,” has died at age 82. As confirmed by his friend Daphna Kastner Keitel, Perry died in a Los Angeles hospital after suffering cardiac arrest.
Before he was a producer, the Brooklyn-native was classically trained on piano, guitar, oboe, and bass. Perry’s career in the music industry began when he was signed to Coral Records as a singer with his doo-wop group, The Escorts, but by the late 1960s he shifted his focus to production.
His early records included Tiny Tim’s debut album, God Bless Tiny Tim (which earned Perry his first top 20 hit, “Tip-Toe Thru’ the Tulips With Me”) and Fats Domino’s comeback record Fats Is Back.
By the early 1970s, Perry was already a major hitmaker. That decade he would work with numerous artists including Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, and Barbra Streisand. In her 2023 memoir, “My Name is Barbra,” Streisand wrote, “Richard had a knack for matching the right song to the right artist.”
For Carly Simon, Perry produced 1972’s No Secrets featuring “You’re So Vain,” which became her signature song. He went through three drummers before finding the perfect sound, and, according to Simon, recorded 100 takes of the song before he was satisfied.
In 1978, Perry founded his own label, Planet Records, and signed the Pointer Sisters. He would go on to produce their hits “I’m So Excited,” “Jump (For My Love),” and “Neutron Dance.”
Perry was given a Trustees Award for lifetime achievement as part of the 2015 Grammys. In 2020 he wrote a memoir, “Cloud Nine: Memoirs of a Record Producer.”
“I try to make the artist the biggest and best they can possibly be,” Perry told Musician magazine in 1985. “I always conceived of producing as bringing the artist to life in someone’s living room in the most glorious, complimentary performance one could imagine.”
