When it came to producing the greatest hits of the 1970s and 1980s, Bill Schnee wrote the book. Today, the Franklin resident has written another book that chronicles his fascinating career in the music industry.
Chairman at the Board: Recording the Soundtrack of a Generation is Schnee’s personal account of a career that has placed him in the room for some of the greatest moments in the history of recorded music. A prolific storyteller, Schnee was encouraged to write the book by friends and peers who were captivated by his tales. The result is a narrative that is as entertaining as it is compelling.
“I wrote the book for the guy next door,” says Schnee, a multiple Grammy and Emmy Award-winning producer. “Anyone like me that loves music and records but hasn’t been as fortunate as I was to go behind the curtain.”
In the sense that his career aligns with the heyday of pop music, when radio ruled and the local record store was a hub of social activity, Chairman is an informal history of American culture from that era. But as it was happening, Schnee didn’t recognize that he was part of something that would become so indelible.
“I didn’t really think about what was going on at the time, it was just one project to the next,” he says. “The first record I produced that sold two million was when I started realizing, ‘Wow, one out of every how many people here has bought that record?’ That was kinda interesting! First time I ever heard anything on the radio that I had produced, that was pretty special, too.”
The chapters, which are named after songs on which Schnee worked, are instantly recognizable to any fan of seventies or eighties pop. The stories provide insight into the minds and idiosyncrasies of the artists, about how those particular songs came to be, and Schnee’s influence on them.
Originally, Schnee tried to make it as a performer but it was during a recording session with producer Richie Podolor (Three Dog Night, Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf) that his journey took a different path. “When we went into Richie’s studio for the first playback, I felt something emotional from our band that I had never ever felt. And it was a real ‘ah ha!’ moment. I knew right then that I wanted to know how to do that. That was the moment that sent me on my
course for life.”
It’s a course that has crossed paths with the likes of Carly Simon, Gladys Knight, Steely Dan, Huey Lewis and The News, Ringo Starr, Boz Scaggs, Barbara Streisand, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and many others who are all accounted for in Chairman.
Published by Backbeat Books, Chairman at the Board: Recording the Soundtrack of a Generation is available everywhere books are sold. Additional information, including how to gain access to unpublished chapters, is available at BillSchnee.com.