Susan Rogers

Last updated

Susan Rogers (born August 3, 1956) is an American professor, sound engineer, and record producer best known for being Prince's staff engineer during his commercial peak (1983-1987), [1] including on albums like Purple Rain , Around the World in a Day , Parade , Sign o' the Times , and The Black Album ." [2] During this time, Rogers laid the foundations for Prince's now-famous vault by beginning the process of collecting and cataloguing all his studio and live recordings. [1] She has also worked as a sound engineer and record producer for other musical artists such as Barenaked Ladies (producing the 1998 album Stunt ), David Byrne, Robben Ford, Jeff Black, Rusted Root, Tricky, Michael Penn, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Tevin Campbell. [3] Rogers is an associate professor in the Music Production and Engineering and Liberal Arts departments at Berklee College of Music. [4]

Contents

Life and career

Rogers was born on August 3, 1956, and grew up in Southern California. She developed an early interest in recorded music and, in the 1970s, moved to Hollywood. Her interest in working in a studio led her to work at the University of Sound Arts as a receptionist. After overhearing a conversation about maintenance technician training, she decided to start studying electronics, acoustics, and magnetism. [1] This led her to apply for a job at Audio Industries in 1978, where she trained as an MCI console and tape-machine technician. [5] She went on to become a maintenance tech for Rudy Records, Graham Nash and David Crosby’s studio, in 1981, where she got her first experience as an assistant engineer. [1] Rogers moved to Minneapolis in 1983 to become Prince's technician. [1] Her role quickly evolved into engineer despite only previously being an assistant engineer. [5] As Prince’s new recording studio Paisley Park opened its doors, Rogers left her job as his engineer and went on to have a 22-year career in the music industry. [2]

In 2000, Rogers decided to leave the music business [1] altogether and pursue a career in academia. [2] She earned her doctorate in music cognition and psychoacoustics in 2010 from McGill University. [4] [6]

Rogers’ book, This is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You, co-written with Ogi Ogas, was published by W. W. Norton in 2022 ISBN   9780393541250. [7] [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prince (musician)</span> American musician (1958–2016)

Prince Rogers Nelson, known mononymously as Prince, was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. The recipient of numerous awards and nominations, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest musicians of his generation. He was known for his flamboyant, androgynous persona; his wide vocal range, which included a far-reaching falsetto and high-pitched screams; and his skill as a multi-instrumentalist, often preferring to play all or most of the instruments on his recordings. His music incorporated a wide variety of styles, including funk, R&B, rock, new wave, soul, synth-pop, pop, jazz, blues, and hip hop. Prince produced his albums himself, pioneering the Minneapolis sound.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chaka Khan</span> American singer (born 1953)

Yvette Marie Stevens, better known by her stage name Chaka Khan, is an American singer. Known as the "Queen of Funk", her career has spanned more than five decades beginning in the early 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. With the band she recorded the notable hits, "Tell Me Something Good", "Sweet Thing", "Do You Love What You Feel" and the platinum certified "Ain't Nobody". Her debut solo album featured the number-one R&B hit, "I'm Every Woman". Khan scored another R&B charts hit with "What Cha' Gonna Do for Me" before becoming the first R&B artist to have a crossover hit featuring a rapper, with her 1984 cover of Prince's "I Feel for You". More of Khan's hits include "Through the Fire" and a 1986 collaboration with Steve Winwood produced a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, "Higher Love".

<i>Purple Rain</i> (album) 1984 studio/soundtrack album by Prince and the Revolution

Purple Rain is the sixth studio album by the American singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Prince. It was released on June 25, 1984, by Warner Bros. Records, as the soundtrack album to the 1984 film of the same name. Purple Rain was musically denser than Prince's previous albums, emphasizing full band performances, and multiple layers of guitars, keyboards, electronic synthesizer effects, drum machines, and other instruments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Carnes</span> American singer and songwriter

Kim Carnes is an American singer and songwriter born and raised in Los Angeles. She began her career as a songwriter in the 1960s, writing for other artists while performing in local clubs and working as a session background singer with the famed Water Sisters. After she signed her first publishing deal with Jimmy Bowen, she released her debut album Rest on Me in 1971. Carnes' self-titled second album primarily contained self-penned songs, including her first charting single "You're a Part of Me", which reached No. 35 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in 1975. In the following year, Carnes released Sailin', which featured "Love Comes from Unexpected Places". The song won the American Song Festival and the award for Best Composition at the Tokyo Song Festival in 1976.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olympic Studios</span> Commercial recording studio in London, England

Olympic Studios was a renowned British independent commercial recording studio based in Barnes, London. It is best known for its recordings of many artists throughout the late 1960s to the first decade of the 21st century, including Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Ella Fitzgerald, Queen, Ray Charles, the Who, B.B King, Traffic, Prince, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, Madonna, Adele, Björk and MIKA. It is often regarded as being as significant as Abbey Road Studios, and remains an important cultural landmark. The studio's sound mixing desks became famous when the technology and design they pioneered was manufactured commercially.

<i>Around the World in a Day</i> 1985 studio album by Prince and the Revolution

Around the World in a Day is the seventh studio album by American recording artist Prince, and the second release on which his backing band the Revolution is billed. It was released on April 22, 1985, by Paisley Park Records and Warner Bros. Records. Departing somewhat from the commercial sound of his previous release, the massively successful Purple Rain (1984), the album instead saw Prince experimenting with psychedelic styles and more opulent textures. In compliance with Prince's wishes, the record company released the album with minimal publicity, withholding accompanying singles until almost a month after the album's release.

David Tickle is a British record producer and engineer. As a producer, he is noted for his work with Split Enz, and in Canada, for his mid-1980s work with Red Rider, Platinum Blonde and Gowan. He later produced Joe Cocker, The Divinyls "I Touch Myself", and was signed to produce the international hit for 4 Non Blondes "What's Up?". As an engineer or mixer, Tickle worked on best-selling albums by Blondie and U2. As a mixing engineer, he worked on several hit 1980s releases by Prince.

Sylvia Lenore Massy is an American record producer, mixer, engineer, instructor and author. Massy is renowned for her multifaceted production/mixing and engineering skills, with her first major breakthrough occurring with 1993's Undertow, the full-length triple platinum-selling debut for Los Angeles alternative metal band Tool as well as her work with System of a Down, Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Brazilian band South Cry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Record Plant</span> Recording studio in Los Angeles, California, United States

The Record Plant is a recording studio established in New York City in 1968 and currently operating in Los Angeles, California. Known for innovations in the recording artists' workspace, it has produced highly influential albums, including Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run, Blondie's Parallel Lines, Metallica's Load and Reload, the Eagles' Hotel California, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction, and Kanye West's The College Dropout. More recent albums with songs recorded at Record Plant include Lady Gaga's ARTPOP, D'Angelo's Black Messiah, Justin Bieber's Purpose, Beyoncé's Lemonade, and Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next.

Julia Adamson is a Canadian composer, musician and current label manager of Invisiblegirl Records. In 1967 her family moved to Manchester, England.

Ogi Ogas is an American writer and computational neuroscientist. As of May 2016, he is a visiting scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he serves as Project Head for the Individual Mastery Project. Ogas is also known for his participation in game shows, especially Grand Slam (2007) and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (2006).

"The Beautiful Ones" is the third track on Prince and the Revolution's soundtrack album Purple Rain. It was one of three songs produced, arranged, composed, and performed by Prince, the other two being "When Doves Cry" and "Darling Nikki". The song was recorded at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles by Peggy Mac and David Leonard on September 20, 1983. The song replaced "Electric Intercourse" on the Purple Rain album.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Audio engineer</span> Engineer involved in the recording, reproduction, or reinforcement of sound

An audio engineer helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, and reinforcement of sound. Audio engineers work on the "technical aspect of recording—the placing of microphones, pre-amp knobs, the setting of levels. The physical recording of any project is done by an engineer... the nuts and bolts."

"Around the World in a Day" is a song performed by Prince and the Revolution and is the opening track of the album of the same name. The track represents a completely different direction that Prince wanted to go after the massively successful Purple Rain album and film of the same name.

Susan Christie is an American singer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is best known for a minor hit folk song “I Love Onions” (1966) and for her critically acclaimed solo psychedelic-folk album Paint A Lady (2006). Her song "Rainy Day" from Paint A Lady is featured in the film Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Empress Of</span> American singer-songwriter (born 1989)

Lorely Rodriguez, known professionally as Empress Of, is an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer based in Los Angeles, California. To date, she has released three studio albums via XL Recordings and Terrible Records, her critically acclaimed debut, Me (2015), Us (2018) and I'm Your Empress Of (2020).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maggie Rogers</span> American musician (born 1994)

Margaret Debay Rogers is an American singer-songwriter and record producer from Easton, Maryland. After her song "Alaska" was played to artist-in-residence Pharrell Williams during a master class at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 2016, she gained widespread recognition. She has released two independent albums, The Echo (2012) and Blood Ballet (2014) and two studio albums, Heard It in a Past Life (2019) and Surrender (2022). She was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2019.

"The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" is a song written and performed by Prince. It is the fourth track on his 1987 double album Sign o' the Times, and features a reference to one of Prince's favorite artists, Joni Mitchell. The track was planned to be the album's fifth and final single, but this never came to fruition and remains unreleased in that format.

Betty Cantor-Jackson is an American audio engineer and producer. She is best known for her work recording live concerts for the Grateful Dead from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, including the Cornell 5/8/77 album. She is noted for her ear for recording and her long tenure with the band.

<i>Entre eux deux</i> 2022 studio album by Melody Gardot and Philippe Powell

Entre eux deux is the sixth studio album and the first collaborative album by American singer and songwriter Melody Gardot and Brasilian pianist Philippe Powell. Decca released the album on May 20, 2022.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Helmreich, Stefan; McMurray, Peter (2017). "Tape, Prince, and the Studio: Interview with Susan Rogers 23 May 2016, Cambridge, MA". Twentieth-Century Music. 14 (1): 135–147. doi:10.1017/S1478572217000111. ISSN   1478-5722. S2CID   164596991.
  2. 1 2 3 Crane, Larry (January 2017), "Susan Rogers: From Prince to Ph.D.", Tape Op , 117: 18–30
  3. ↑ C.J. (June 26, 2018). "From Prince to Ph.D., Prof. Susan Rogers knows music". Star Tribute.
  4. 1 2 "Susan Rogers – Berklee Online Faculty". online.berklee.edu. Retrieved 2019-11-30.
  5. 1 2 Flans, Robyn (2019). "Let's Go Crazy". Mix. 43 (8): 18–19. ISSN   0164-9957 – via Business Source Premier.
  6. ↑ Brownstein, Bill (February 8, 2018). "McGill grad Susan Rogers shares memories of Prince's purple reign". Montreal Gazette.
  7. ↑ Luhrssen, David (2022-11-17). "This is What it Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas". Shepherd Express. Retrieved 2022-12-03.
  8. ↑ Schulz, Isaac (2022-11-22). "Why Do We Love the Music We Love?". Gizmodo. Retrieved 2022-12-03.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.