Jimmy Bowen

Jimmy Bowen ( born November 30, 1937 as James Albert Bowen in Santa Rita, New Mexico) is an American music producer and rockabilly musician.

Career as a musician

Raised in Texas Jimmy Bowen began his career as a country and rockabilly musician. In the run of Buddy Knox Rhythm Orchids band he played bass guitar. In 1956, she recorded two songs: Party Doll with Knox as a singer and I'm Bowens Stickin ' with You. The label Roulette Records newly founded published for two singles that sold millions of copies.

How to Be a Producer

While his friend Buddy Knox remained as an interpreter at the Roulette label, Jimmy Bowen tried a few little plates successful as a producer. After a brief stint as a disc jockey in Colorado Springs in 1960, he moved to Los Angeles, where he first worked with Glen Campbell. Later he became a producer of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, whose career was experiencing a low point. It was the time of the British music invasion. The Beatles dominated the scene for the aging Bard Hollywood had hardly anyone is interested. The 30 -year-old Bowen did not even managed the impossible: He brought Sinatra back to the top. With the Bert Kaempfert song Strangers In The Night number one on the pop charts was reached.

In the following years, Bowen worked for various record companies. At times he was president of the MGM label. Mid-1970 he moved to Nashville. Here, he first worked with Tompall Glaser, who had his own studio. In 1984 he moved to the crisis-ridden MCA label. Despite reservations from the country scene made ​​it the outsider within one year of the turnaround. Ruthlessly he dismissed veteran employees and unprofitable artists. He also modernized the backward studio technology and encouraged the musicians to variantenreicherem game.

Bowen was so successful that he became one of the most powerful men in the Music City in no time - but also the most hated. In 1988 he became president of Capitol Nashville label. This just started the career of Garth Brooks, the future superstar of country music. Brooks was thanks to its high record sales the only one who could offer Bowen Paroli.

In the 1990s, Bowen became ill with cancer. He moved back to Hawaii, where he wrote his autobiography Rough Mix. Only in 2005 came after more than ten years back in the music scene to produce an album with Merle Haggard.

Jimmy Bowen is now regarded as the most important modernizer of country music. He introduced a new recording techniques and brought the studios on the current state of the art. A good part of the commercial successes of the genre in the 1980s and 1990s can be attributed to his work. Overall, he produced more than 60 number - one hits. The list of his supervised or sponsored musicians includes names like George Strait, Hank Williams Jr., Garth Brooks, Steve Earle, Reba McEntire, The Judds, and of course, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

437987
de