Tom Dowd (October 20, 1925 – October 27, 2002) was an American recording engineer and producer for Atlantic Records. He was credited with innovating the multi-track recording method. Dowd worked on a virtual "who's who" of recordings that encompassed blues, jazz, pop, rock and soul records.

Career[link]

Early years[link]

Born in Manhattan, Dowd grew up playing piano, tuba, violin, and string bass. His mother was an opera singer and his father was a concertmaster.

Dowd graduated from Stuyvesant High School in June, 1942 at the age of 16.^[1] He continued his musical education at City College of New York. Dowd also played in a band at New York's Columbia University, where he became a conductor. He was also employed at the physics laboratory of Columbia University.

Military work[link]

At age 18, Dowd was drafted into the military with the rank of sergeant. He continued his work in physics at Columbia University. He worked on the Manhattan Project contributing to the atomic bomb. The purpose of the work was unclear until 1945.^[2] Dowd planned to obtain a degree in nuclear physics when he completed his work on the Manhattan Project. However because his work was top secret the university did not recognize it, and Dowd decided not to continue, since the university's curriculum would not have been able to further his physics education. His research for the military was more advanced than the academia of the times.^[2]

Music[link]

Dowd took a job at a classical music recording studio until he obtained employment at Atlantic Records. His first hit was Eileen Barton's "If I Knew You Were Comin', I'd Baked a Cake." He soon became a top recording engineer there and recorded popular artists such as Ray Charles, The Drifters, The Coasters, Ruth Brown and Bobby Darin, including Darin's famous rendition of Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht's "Mack the Knife". He captured jazz masterpieces by John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker. It was Dowd's idea to cut Ray Charles' recording of "What'd I Say" into two parts and release them as the A-side and B-side of the same single record.

Dowd worked as an engineer and producer from the 1940s until the beginning of the 21st century. He recorded albums by many artists including Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Derek and the Dominos, Rod Stewart, Wishbone Ash, Cream, Lulu, Chicago, The Allman Brothers Band, Joe Bonamassa, The J. Geils Band, Meat Loaf, Sonny & Cher, The Rascals, Willie Nelson, Diana Ross, The Eagles, Kenny Loggins, James Gang, Dusty Springfield, Eddie Harris, Charles Mingus, Herbie Mann, Booker T. and the MGs, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin and Joe Castro.^[3] Dowd received a Grammy Trustees Award for his lifetime achievements in February 2002.

He died of emphysema on October 27, 2002 in Florida, where he had been living and working at Criteria Studios for many years.^[4]

Legacy[link]

Tom Dowd helped to shape the artists that he worked with, and because he worked with an array of great artists on some of the world's greatest recordings, Dowd was highly influential in creating the sound of the second half of the 20th Century. It was he who encouraged Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records to install an Ampex eight-track recorder, enabling Atlantic to be the first recording company to record using multiple tracks.^[5]

Dowd is credited as the engineer who popularized the eight-track recording system for commercial music and popularized the use of stereophonic sound. Although stereo had been invented in the 1930s, Dowd was the first to use it on a record. He also pioneered the use of linear channel faders as opposed to rotary controls on audio mixers. He devised various methods for altering sound after the initial recording.^[1]

In 2003 director Mark Moormann premiered an award-winning documentary about his life entitled Tom Dowd and the Language of Music. In the 2004 biopic Ray, Tom Dowd was portrayed by actor Rick Gomez.

On December 7, 2011 Tom Dowd was named as an inductee into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2012. The ceremony took place on April 14, 2012 and Robbie Robertson gave the induction speech.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Tom Dowd and The Language of Music
• Discography

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Ronald Wayne "Ronnie" Van Zant (January 15, 1948^[1] – October 20, 1977) was an American lead vocalist, primary lyricist, and a founding member of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. He was the older brother of the founder and vocalist of 38 Special, Donnie Van Zant, and of current Lynyrd Skynyrd lead vocalist Johnny Van Zant.

Early life[link]

He was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, to Lacy (1915–2004) and Marion (1929–2000) Van Zant. Van Zant aspired to be many things before finding his love for music. Notably, Ronnie was interested in becoming a boxer (as Muhammad Ali was one of his idols) and in playing professional baseball. Ronnie also tossed around the idea of becoming a stock-car racer. In fact, he would say that he was going to be the most famous person to come out of Jacksonville since Lee Roy Yarbrough.

Lynyrd Skynyrd[link]

Van Zant formed Skynyrd late in the summer of 1964 with friends and schoolmates Allen Collins (guitar), Gary Rossington (guitar), Larry Junstrom (bass), and Bob Burns (drums). Lynyrd Skynyrd's name is a mock tribute to a gym teacher the boys had in high school, Leonard Skinner, who disapproved of male students with long hair.^[2]

The band's national exposure began in 1973 with the release of their debut album, (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd), which has a string of hits and fan favorites including: "I Ain't the One", "Tuesday's Gone", "Gimme Three Steps", "Simple Man," and their signature song, "Free Bird", which he later dedicated to the late Duane Allman of The Allman Brothers Band.^{[citation needed]}

Lynyrd Skynyrd's biggest hit single, although "Free Bird" was a close second, was "Sweet Home Alabama" which came off the album Second Helping. "Sweet Home Alabama" was an answer (or response) song to Neil Young's "Alabama" and "Southern Man." The common belief that Van Zant and Young were rivals may be incorrect; they may have actually been fans of each other or could be considered collaborating on several occasions by using response lyrics to each others' lyrics.^{[citation needed]} Young's song "Powderfinger" on the 1979 album Rust Never Sleeps was reportedly written for Skynyrd, and Van Zant is pictured on the cover of Street Survivors wearing a T-shirt of Young's Tonight's the Night.^[3]

Personal life[link]

Van Zant married Nadine Inscoe on 2 January 1967. The couple had a daughter, Tammy (born 1968), before divorcing in 1969. He then married Judy Jenness in 1972. They remained married up until his death in 1977. This marriage produced one daughter, Melody, born in 1976.

In his spare time, Van Zant enjoyed baseball, and was a fan of the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox.

Van Zant had several run ins with the law, especially in 1975, when he was arrested for hurling a table out of a second-story hotel room.^[4]

Death[link]

On October 20, 1977, a Convair CV-300 carrying the band between shows from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, crashed outside of Gillsburg, Mississippi. The passengers had been informed about problems with one of the plane's engines and told to brace for impact.^[5] Van Zant died in the crash on impact, after the aircraft struck a tree. Bandmates Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray were also killed. Remaining band members survived, although all were seriously injured.^[6] According to former bandmate Artimus Pyle and family members, Van Zant frequently discussed his mortality. Pyle recalls a moment when Lynyrd Skynyrd was in Japan: "Ronnie and I were in Tokyo, Japan, and Ronnie told me that he would never live to see thirty and that he would go out with his boots on, in other words, on the road. I said, 'Ronnie, don't talk like that,' but the man knew his destiny."^[7] Van Zant's father, Lacy, said, "He said to me many times, 'Daddy, I'll never be 30 years old.' I said, 'Why are you talking this gunk?' and he said, 'Daddy, that's my limit.'" Van Zant's father later noted that, "God was a jealous god. Taking him for reasons I don't know."^[7] Van Zant was 29 years old at the time of his death.

Van Zant's younger brother, Johnny, took over as the new lead singer when the band reunited in 1987.

Van Zant was buried in Orange Park, Florida, in 1977, but was relocated after vandals broke into bandmate Steve Gaines' and Ronnie's tombs on June 29, 2000. Van Zant's casket was pulled out and dropped on the ground. The bag containing Gaines' ashes was torn open and some scattered onto the grass.^[8] Their mausoleums at Orange Park remain as memorials for fans to visit.

According to the cemetery listing website Find-a-Grave, Van Zant was reburied at Riverside Memorial Park in Jacksonville, near the grave of his father Lacy and mother Marion. Both his current resting place and the empty mausoleum in Orange Park are listed. The following statement was made on the Find-a-Grave entry of his current resting place in Jacksonville: "Due to the June 29th, 2000 vandalization of his original grave site, his casket was moved to this new location and buried in a massive underground concrete burial vault. To open the vault would require a tractor with a lift capacity of several tons. It is also patrolled by security."^[9]

A memorial park funded by fans and family of the band was built in honor of Van Zant. The Ronnie Van Zant Memorial Park is located on Sandridge Road in Lake Asbury, Florida, nearby his hometown of Jacksonville.

References[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Anderson, R. Michael (2000-06-30). "Van Zant's tomb defaced". The Florida Times-Union. http://www.jacksonville.com/special/lynyrdskynyrd/vanzantstombdefaced.html. Retrieved 2008-07-05. 
• Check-Six (2007-05). "The 'Lynyrd Skynyrd' Crash". http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/LynyrdSkynyrd-N55VM.htm. Retrieved 2008-07-05. 
• "SKYNYRD HISTORY LESSONS - Name Changes and Ten Dollar Gigs". The Official Lynyrd Skynyrd History Website. http://www.lynyrdskynyrdhistory.com/less2.html. Retrieved 2008-07-05. 
• Social Security Death Master Index (2007-05). "Ronald Van Zant Social Security Death Index (#73220275)". http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/zsearch.aspx?ix=ssdiall&qt=l&zfn=Ronald&zln=Van+Zant. Retrieved 2008-07-05. 
• Soorus (2002-09-01). "Current Find-A-Grave Record for Ronnie Van Zant". Find-A-Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Van+Zant&GSsr=41&GRid=6742069&. Retrieved 2008-07-05. 
• US National Transportation Safety Board (1978-06-19). "Aircraft Accident Report - L & J Company, Convair 240, N55VM, Gillsburg, Mississippi, October 20, 1977" (PDF). National Technical Information Service. pp. 27 pages. http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/ntsb/aircraft-accident-reports/AAR78-06.pdf. Retrieved 2009-03-22. 

External links[link]

• NTSB Aircraft Accident Report for N55VM
• Original Find-a-Grave entry
• Current Find-a-Grave entry