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Bob Power's comments on what a producer is from:

http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/video-archive/transcript/bob_power__it_ always_takes_longer/transcript

Quote:

Bob Power: In the seventies, a producer was either someone from the record label, who had made a lot of records, and again, maybe knew a lot about music, maybe not, an independent who maybe knew a lot about music, maybe not. Someone with a lot of money, who maybe knew a lot about music, and maybe not. And in those days, their involvement in the record took all sorts of different forms. A lot of times the producer – and this is not, every producer does not do this, but a good producer does all these things. A lot of times, a producer would book the studio, book outside musicians if that was the case, make sure all the people in the band turned up and didn't get too f****d up, if that was the case. Helped decide what songs were going to be on the record. And again, not all of these things, but sometimes one or many or all of them. Talk to the band, or the musicians about how they were going to approach the material. Hired an arranger, if they were using studio musicians. If the producer was an independent, dealt with the record company to keep them off of the artists back. Kind of, weighed the balance on what the artist wants to do, versus what the record company needs, which is still one of the most important things that a producer can do in that, in a record label environment.

RBMA: So it was a lot like, a janitor, a mediator, a...

Bob Power: Mother, father, drug dealer, you know, whatever. And again, a lot of producers were just one of those things. You know, I know a lot of real famous people and I'm not going to name names, who I really like, and they got a lot on the ball. But I realized that back in the seventies, a lot of famous records, it was because the artists were there, and this is actually true about my career as well. It's because [of] what the artist does, that made the record special, and the producer was just a baby-sitter or a buffer between the artist and the record label. But anyway, now a producer can just be a lot of different things, and all the things I mentioned before; from someone who makes beats, to someone who has money, to someone who has any or all of the skills that I talked about.

RBMA: So back then it wasn't necessarily someone who was touching a knob at all?

Bob Power: Absolutely not! And in fact, one of the ways...well this has always been true. You don't need to be an engineer or this or that to be a producer. And you know, you say “well what is a producer then? How do you define a producer?” Well a producer is probably someone, who is responsible for all of the things that come together that make the record the way it is. Sometimes the sonics or the way a record sounds are not very important to a record. But in many cases, a producer is responsible for the sonics whether he turns a knob or knows what a fader does or not. He's responsible for, you know, the material and the artist and how deep the record goes. And I may be screwing myself out of a lot of money – and I've said this in mix sessions where I'm getting paid stupid money to be there every day and, you know, get stupid about the kick drum. A great artist can make a great record on a mini disc.

http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/video-archive/lectures/bob_power__it_al ways_takes_longer Full video

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