Tom Dowd
Tom Dowd (October 20, 1925 – October 27, 2002) was an American recording engineer and producer.
His talent for math and physics led him to work on the Manhattan Project at Columbia. He would later work with nuclear testing in Bikini Atoll. Once discharged from the Army, he began to apply his background in science to music.
Dowd began his career as an engineer recording jazz records in New York after World War II. He then joined Atlantic Records and recorded seminal works by Ray Charles, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. He is credited as the engineer who popularized the eight-track recording system for commercial music. He also devised various methods for altering sound in post-recording phase. Later in the 1960's he would record for Aretha Franklin, Cream and the Allman Brothers. In the 1970's, he worked on albums by Rod Stewart and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He was closely involved in the recording of Eric Clapton's magnum opus, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.
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Categories: People stubs | Stuyvesant High School | 1925 births | 2002 deaths