David Briggs (
February
29,
1944 -
November
26,
1995) was an American
record producer best known for his work with
Neil Young and his band
Crazy Horse. He is noted for his eclectic
imagination and style.
Early life
David
Briggs was born in Douglas, Wyoming
. Briggs left Wyoming in 1962 to hitchhike his way to Los Angeles
and Canada
, then
finally settled in California
, the place he would call home for the rest of his
life. In the early sixties, Briggs began producing in the
music business working on
Bill Cosby's
label,
Tetragrammaton
Records.
[245638] One of the first albums he produced
was for
comedian Murray Roman. According to Briggs, this was the
first album ever released with the word "fuck" on it. Working on
Cosby's label led Briggs into doing his own production work with
people such as
Alice Cooper,
Spirit and Jerry Lynn Williams
[245639].In 1966 David produced a release on
ATCO Records,"I WON'T COME DOWN" with Laramy Smith
Career
In 1968, after picking up
Neil Young
while hitchhiking, Briggs went on to produce the
singer/songwriter's first solo album,
entitled
Neil Young
(1968). This led to a lifelong friendship between the two men, with
Briggs co-producing over a dozen of Young's albums (see discography
below). The most acclaimed work together being
Everybody Knows This Is
Nowhere and
After the
Gold Rush. Young's
Sleeps with Angels album (1994) is
the last work that Briggs produced before his death in 1995. Other
than producing with Young, Briggs worked on albums with many
successful artists such as
Spirit,
Tom Rush,
Nils
Lofgren,
Steve Young,
Nick Cave and the Bad
Seeds, and
Royal Trux.
David had one son, Lincoln, with artist
Shannon Forbes in 1969. In 1988, Briggs
married Bettina Linnenberg. Bettina would soon be noted as the
production coordinator on many of the projects that Briggs produced
in the 1990s. These projects included
Nick
Cave,
13 Engines,
Sidewinder, and
Royal Trux. She even helped him on projects that
would never be released such as work done with
John Eddie,
Blind
Melon, and the
Sweet and Low
Orchestra.
Death and posthumous projects
David Briggs died on
November 26,
1995, after a battle with
lung cancer. He was 51 years old. Before his
death, he was still working with
Joel
Bernstein on the
Neil Young
Archives project. This project had been underway for five
years before his death and there could be anywhere from three to
twenty albums worth of unreleased material.
After Briggs' death Neil Young and
Crazy Horse went on to record material
such as
Year of the
Horse, released in 1996.
Critical views
David Briggs is remembered as a man who pushed musicians and
friends to the very limits of their capabilities and utilized a
low-tech, highly emotional and lively approach to "bring out the
best" in every artist he worked with
[245640]. Briggs, an accomplished writer and musician
himself, was one of the first producers to take the place of the
traditional studio "sound-man" at the recording board and learn to
lay down track himself. When he said, "Do it again", they did it
again. When he said, "Come listen", they knew there was something
worth listening to. He will go down as one of the greatest
non-technical rock and roll producers in the industry. His motto
was "Never give up the master tapes."
Briggs' work was not universally acclaimed. Neal Smith of the Alice
Cooper group later said
"David hated our music and us.
I recall the term that he used, referring to our music, was
"Psychedelic Shit". I think "Easy
Action" sounded too dry, more like a TV or radio commercial and
he did not help with song arrangement or positive input in any
way."[245641]His sessions with Nick Cave were also
acrimonious, which led to Cave remixing the album
Henry's Dream.
Selective discography as Producer or Co-Producer
Neil Young
Other Artists
References
Wikis
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