LiveDaily: Have you changed as a producer now as compared to back in the '60s and '70s?

Jack Douglas: Obviously the technology changed, and I had to change with it--at least, how to understand what we have to use today. I also have 30 years worth of experience with everything else, and I have quite a collection of old equipment, tube equipment.

When you get a new project to work on, how do you approach the artist?

What I usually bring to a production is, "How do you want to do this one?" I am very oriented towards getting a performance and getting the feel. And whether it's going to be drum loops or live. And getting into an artist's head. Most important for me is that the record is the artist's record, not the producer's record. You have to put your ego out of the way. The artist's ideas always have to come first.

Do you have a musical background?

I started out as a folk guy in the early 60's. I became Robert Kennedy's campaign songwriter when he was running for the Senate. After that was over, I joined a rock band, moved to Liverpool. I came back and played with different bands, was signed to a lot of different labels. Had some minor hits.

While I was being produced by the Isley Brothers, I decided to change and become an engineer. I went to engineering school in New York, Studio of Audio Engineering. The first school. First class ... there were 60 guys in the classroom. And the teacher came out and said, "If you think there's going to be no math in this class, I'll give you your money back right now." And the next day, there were six of us there.

We didn't see a board for six weeks. We didn't see tape for a month. It was one of those kind of courses. Six months of that, and when we came out of there, we understood the whole philosophy.

Which meant ...

We could fix anything. We understood how a sound got into a microphone through a wire and onto tape. But the real practical experiences had to be out in a studio. I got to end up in a good studio.

I worked my way up from janitor to assistant, which is the way everybody goes. I got to watch a lot of great producers at work. And I started making a book in my head, watching other engineers, seeing what worked, what didn't.

Then I got to engineer, and Bob Ezrin was a client of mine. We were doing Alice Cooper records like "Billion Dollar Babies" and "School's Out." And he said, "You want to try your hand at producing?" I said, "Absolutely." And I ended up producing Alice, and it just took off.

Once in an acid trip back in '67 or '68, I remember listening to the Beatles' "White Album" and thinking, "George Martin, he's the man!" It was so weird that I ended up producing John. I got turned onto the whole production thing by listening to him.

When did you first work with John?

I started working with John on the "Imagine" album. We didn't see barely any tracking. He brought most of those tapes, either recorded in 8-track, or in some cases on a Nagra [portable audio recorder]. He had done a 2-track mix and he just wanted to lay stuff over. Most of the vocals were done in New York, all of the sweetening. A few of the tracks were cut in the Record Plant.

What was he like to work with?

On "Imagine," John was really producing it with Phil Spector, so he was doing most of the work. Phil basically said, "Yeah, okay, good." I started hanging out with John then. That's around when I moved to Liverpool.

Working with John, I just always knew that he was absolutely brilliant and a genius, but he was also just a really cool and humble guy. The first time I was alone with him in a room, he just had this power to totally relax you.

If you were ever a fan of the Beatles, like people from my generation, you had this feeling when you were little that the Beatles were your friend in some way. There was something in their records that always felt like you were close. When I got to know John, I realized that it was real, that he actually had some ability to really bring it across.

He was just the consummate professional. Like when he did a vocal, he understood immediately: "I have a producer I'm working with and I'm the artist." He would ask me, "Am I singing flat? Is this working?" It was so easy to work with him, because if I said, "John, I think you can do that better," he would say, "Okay." He wouldn't have an ego, he wouldn't say, "I'm John Lennon!" He'd say, "Let's do it again." The consummate artist.

You also engineered the album "Who's Next"?

That was my first engineering gig. Those recordings are just being re-released, because they were re-recorded in London because of a number of problems, one of them being a tax problem--the Who wasn't supposed to be recording in the U.S., they were supposed to be touring. Anyway, they're re-recording those tracks. But now I believe there's a new "Who's Next?" CD that has the New York sessions on it, and all the vocals are live. Those are the ones I did.

It was Jack Adams and myself. Jack was an R&B engineer and I was his assistant. Jack was not into doing the Who. He was into Aretha, just: "God, let me out of here! Take over PLEASE." And the first thing they did was "Won't Get Fooled Again" and my hair was standing straight on end.

I partied with them every night. Keith Moon was just electrifying, and funny. I am a New Yorker, born and raised, and those guys took me to places in New York I have never seen before. Clubs that were on the 60th floor of some luxury apartment building, the whole floor would be a club. I would be like, "How did you guys know this was here?" What a riot.

I felt really bad when Keith died. That should have been a warning to us all, really. ... If you look up "rock and roll excess" in the dictionary, his picture is there.