Posted on 10/12/2022 8:38:00 AM PDT by Impala64ssa
Brooks Arthur, who engineered a string of 1960s rock’n’roll classics and in the 1970s turned an abandoned Rockland garage into a recording studio for seminal albums by Bruce Springsteen and Janis Ian, died Oct. 9, 2022, at his home in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 86.
The Brooklyn native, born Arthur Brodsky, had lived for years in California, most recently producing music for Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions. He had just completed his autobiography, according to his publicist, Jo-Ann Geffen.
Here in Rockland County, Arthur’s recording wizardry is commemorated on a historic plaque along Route 303 in Blauvelt, NY, where his legendary 914 Sound Recording Studios minted music history in the early to mid-1970s. The property is now home to a car wash.
Among the gems recorded in the unassuming two-story concrete building were Springsteen’s first two albums, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, as well as the iconic title track from his third record, Born to Run.
The 1975 album Between the Lines featuring the song At Seventeen won Grammys for Janis Ian, Arthur and engineer Larry Alexander of Valley Cottage.
In a Facebook post mourning his death, Janis Ian said Arthur “taught me how to sing on a mic, who engineered ‘Society's Child,’ who took a chance on me at twenty-one, who fed me when I was hungry, who produced and engineered ‘At Seventeen,’ who was a mainstay in my life from the time I was fourteen years old until this very moment.”
Arthur, with a resume that included work with Carole King, Lieber and Stoller, Van Morrison and the Shangri-Las, partnered with famed producer Phil Ramone to open 914 Sound Studios in 1971. At the time lived in Valley Cottage with his wife and two daughters.
"I found this old garage," he told me during a 2015 interview. "It had two sliding doors, around the side it had sort of a double door entrance. It had the two lifts for the cars ... We poured fresh cement, found an SSI console. ... I was creating what I as an engineer and producer thought would make a fine studio."
Among the artists who sought out 914’s relaxed vibe were Melanie, Loudon Wainwright III, Blood Sweat and Tears, Ashford and Simpson, Dusty Springfield, the Ramones and James Taylor.
“The room had a sound and the room had a soul and what came out of those recording sessions made music industry history and made artistic history,” Arthur told me in an interview earlier this year.
Recalling the orchestrations for Springsteen’s early recording sessions in his tiny studio, Arthur told me: “We had as many as 35, 36 musicians, strings, brass, reeds, percussion, in various sessions at one time in my room,”
My 2015 article on Born to Run’s 40th anniversary led Springsteen mega-fan Michael Magnone to honor his late friend Kevin Quaranta by sponsoring the plaque on the studio’s former grounds. The Historical Society of Rockland County approved and helped produce the plaque, which was dedicated Aug. 18, 2016, in a ceremony attended by hundreds of rock’n’roll enthusiasts.
Leader of the pack
An aspiring singer, Brooks Arthur started his career in the music business while in high school as a part-timer in the Decca Records mailroom. A few years later, he was hired by Aldon Music as a songwriter and demo singer along with Carole King and Neil Sedaka.
Arthur’s career as a recording engineer included the hits My Boyfriend's Back, Hang On Sloopy, Chapel of Love, Leader of the Pack, and Van Morrison’s American debut album, Blowin' Your Mind, which included Brown-Eyed Girl, on which he sang backup.
He later served as music supervisor for the Oscar-nominated song Glory of Love from the movie The Karate Kid II, and produced Sandler’s The Chanukah Song. He was co-writer and co-producer on Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights.
Never could stand Springsteen. Mainly for the reasons you enumerate.
LMAO - you owe me a keyboard.
Say what you will about Springsteen (uber nut job lib), but the man put on the best concert I ever went too.
You need to get out more :)
I detest Springsteen because of his music and the way the media salivated over his crap for years. Bruce Sh!tsteen, as i call him, was my introduction to bias in the media.
In the 70’s when rags such as Rolling Stone and others routinely trashed the mighty Led Zeppelin, Sh!tsteen could do no wrong despite what i thought was boring, mundane music.
Everyone would reply, “Have you ever seen him in concert???!!! Have you ever seen him in concert???!!” when i told them i did not like Sh!tsteen. So finally a girlfriend took me to see him in 1985- the concert was long, boring and pretentious.
It was only years later I realized what a political hypocrite this guy was.
Glory Days is pretty good ...
I have to agree, the old fatuous phony of today put on a great show in 1978 with more energy than I’ve seen since.
You’ve obviously never been to an Iron Maiden concert...nobody does it better!
Bingo.
"I'm Going Down lyrics;"
Down, down, down, down
I'm going down, down, down, down
I'm going down, down, down, down
I'm going down, down, down, down
I'm going down, down, down, down
Oh darling I'm going down
I'm going down, down, down, down
Egad. What a talent.
When i saw him in concert it started great. After the first three songs i thought, “hey- i may like this!!”
Then i remembered why i hated his music so much...the 5th song sounded exactly like the 6th song which sounded exactly like the 7th song which sounded exactly like the 8th song.
Then there was the preaching....and the lecturing...and a 20 minute version of the Beetle’s “Twist and Shout.” What a complete bore!!!
Um ... didn’t Woodstock (now 845 but not then) put the 914 on the rock ‘n roll map ?
That doesn't make him a bad musician however.
His "Nebraska" album just had its 40th Anniversary and Sirius/XM played the entire album on my way home from work yesterday. That is really an epic work that cannot be denied, just because he's a flaming a*hole in person.
Well said!
I loved Springsteen’s first 5 albums (up through “The River”). After that I lost interest. He got too preachy.
That’s just the chorus. There are also three verses of lyrics. Choruses are often repetitive.
From his very beginnings through now— Springsteen is a fake- fake rocker,fake “blues”man, fake revolutionary
(sucking up to Pete Communist Seeger with his longneck banjo- a card carrying admitted Communist who followed the Comintern’s direction of Anti-WWII and Anti Nazi- until Hitler invaded the Soviets. Then it was.. US join the World War with our “allies” Stalinist Soviet Russia!). Springsteen singing crappy organizing union songs with Pete Seeger at the Obamaumao the First Inauguration on the steps of the LINCOLN memorial! FAKE FAKE)
He can’t sing, barely play and is desperate to keep his “show” going. But- aside from the FAKE (Springsteen marketed to Viet vets— a huge lie) “Born in the USA” crap-—the ultimate insult was when his management INSERTED him into the Traveling Wilburys, constantly getting in the camera shots with the Great ROY ORBISON... who was the real deal. Springsteen is the kind of “rocker” that fat boy fag Chris Christie listened to and probably still listens to.
No regular guy at all— a regular folkie origin COMMIE no doubt. FAKE. Dry up and go away please... bruce. Note: the idiots that be in Orlando have him doing an incredibly priced ticketed show in ... Jan/Feb. It’s not selling, not even to the disney downline queers.
All great tunes, especially Chapel of Love.
Saw him at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse in 1984 when he extended his Born in the USA tour
IMO I lost interest in his act when he started pumping iron & dancing.
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