LENNY WARONKER
The legendary A&R/producer/exec at the heart of Warners’ Golden Age with tales of Eddie Cochran, Randy Newman, Neil Young, Elliott Smith, Prince and more.
SAT IN THE KITCHEN OF HIS WEST LOS Angeles home on an early winter’s day, absorbing the first of many questions, Lenny Waronker closes his eyes and bows his head in a state of deep concentration. Waronker – one of the business’s most storied producers, A&Rs and label execs, and among the most loved by musicians – ascribes this prayerlike posture to a childhood spent on Hollywood studio soundstages, witnessing classic film scores being recorded. His father, Si Waronker, was a violinist who’d later help corral orchestral musicians at 20th Century Fox for Oscar-winning composer/conductor Alfred Newman.
“My father wasn’t a strict man, except in that environment,” recalls Waronker. “When the orchestra were ready to record, a bell would ring. He would say to me, ‘Don’t move.’ He might’ve said ‘Don’t breathe’ as well. It’s the way I’ve listened to music, or anything, ever since.”
The 83-year-old Waronker delivers his words in soft, measured tones as he recounts a life devoted to helping artists realise their creative potential. The first great discovery came at just 10 years of age, when he recognised the unique gifts of his best friend, Alfred Newman’s nephew Randy, whom he would later sign and produce.
When Waronker was a teenager, his father saw the studio system collapsing and put up the family’s furniture as collateral to fund the launch of Liberty Records. Initially focused on orchestral and film music, the label moved into the pop market with hits by Julie London and The Chipmunks, and entered the fledgling field of rock’n’roll with Eddie Cochran, Fats Domino and Jan & Dean.
Besotted by the music business, the young Waronker served a long apprenticeship at Liberty before moving to Warner Brothers in 1965. Over the next three decades, Waronker and label head Mo Ostin would build one of the most successful and respected record companies in the world – a rare haven for art and artists in a bottom-line-obsessed industry. In the early ’90s, corporate machinations pushed the pair out of the paradise they’d created, and Waronker and Ostin went on to found DreamWorks Records.
These days, Waronker is largely retired and somewhat at a loose end. “One morning you wake up and realise, I don’t have to do shit any more,” he says, chuckling. “I’m still trying to come to terms with that.”
As he reflects on his 70 years of music – as a key facilitator for Brian Wilson and Elliott Smith, The Everly Brothers and Prince – the modest Waronker downplays his contributions. But more than merely bumping into geniuses, Waronker actively sought them out, bringing his deft touch to the careers of cult stars and superstars alike.
“This is a fun way to go back and remember and be part of the stuff you’ve done,” he says, recounting the details from some distant recording session. “When you’ve been
doing it for as long as I have, you start to forget.”
Beyond the music you heard hanging out with your father, how much of an influence was it being exposed to the old Hollywood studio system?
The whole concept of the studio system really affected me. The notion that it was like a university or something. Later, at Warner Brothers, Mo [Ostin] and I were both very interested in the studio system and the guys who ran it, so we were always reading biographies about Irving Thalberg, Louis B Mayer, David Selznick. They were studied, that whole scene was studied – what to do, what not to do. In the mid ’60s, when I first got to Warners, some of those ideas were still usable. In my mind, I wanted to put together some combination of 20th Century Fox and Motown.
What was the first music that really affected you?
As a little boy, my mom took me to see An American In Paris – the theme to the movie was incredible. And you’ve got the visual of Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron dancing in this blue, almost psychedelic [backdrop]. I was nine or 10 years old, so sex wasn’t like a big thing yet, but it was a little question mark. And when I heard that tune, I said, I think I know what sex is like. Because it got to me that way.
You played piano as a kid but gave it up early on. I imagine it was hard to feel competent when your best friend happens to be Randy Newman.
Randy and I had the usual relationship that kids have – we played baseball and football and basketball and all that. But the other half of it was music. We would turn each other onto stuff. He’s a couple years younger, but he was way ahead of me. Once he really started to focus, he was so far ahead. I’m still taken by his talent – and my own ability to recognise it at such a young age, and just get the hell out of the way.
One time, each of us was supposed to write a song for something. Maybe his dad wanted us to do it. Anyway, I wrote some stupid poem-like thing, which is all I was capable of. And Randy worked on this piece of music, this instrumental. And when he finally played it, I just knew he was gifted. Because the chord changes, the melody, it didn’t feel like it was coming from a kid. He was only seven or eight at the time.
Your father started Liberty Records in the mid-’50s. For a kid it must’ve been amazing hanging out with that first generation of rockers like Eddie Cochran.
My father loved Eddie Cochran, thought he was a great musician. Eddie was a really good-looking guy and a glass half-full type, just a lot of energy, and a sweetheart. I was 16 or 17, and my father had a meeting with him. I’m sitting in on this fairly serious meeting with Eddie and his producer/manager Jerry Capehart. Eddie came in to play his new record. I’m in the corner, but close enough to hear. The record starts and it is perfect. I mean, everything happened in this little record, it was amazing. Because I had hung out at the record company for a while, I’d picked up some music business jargon. When the record finished, I couldn’t control myself and I blurted out, That’s un-fucking-believable! Eddie looked at me and said, “I want that kid in all my meetings.” (Laughs) The record he played was Summertime Blues. Can you imagine? Well, something like that will get you hooked on the music business.
You went to college, but at the same time you were learning the ropes at Liberty – working as a gopher for producer Snuff Garrett, doing radio promotion, and eventually moving to the label’s publishing arm Metric Music, where you first started producing.
In those days you had maybe 50 or 60 bucks to make a [songwriting] demo. You could only pay the musicians teeny amounts, but there were young guys around who wanted in, who were really good. People like Leon Russell and Dr John were making demos. There was plenty of talent to do the work cheap. You couldn’t get the big-name session guys and after a while you didn’t really want them. So I made a lot of demos and learned how to multi-track, learned how to work with musicians.
After your move to Warners you had hits for the Mojo Men [Sit Down, I Think I Love You] and Harper’s Bizarre [The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)]. But quickly you gravitated towards more esoteric acts, signing your old pal Randy Newman and Van Dyke Parks – what was the attraction there?
I was always interested in working with somebody unique and interesting. Maybe not obviously commercial, but that if they ever got played on the radio, people might jump on it. It was actually Mo who brought up Randy to me. Randy had been a songwriter, but it was clear he needed to be an artist. He already had a big reputation in town with musicians and a handful of producers. Mo came to me and said, “Do you know about this guy Randy Newman?” (Laughs) I said, Yeah, he’s my best friend and I’ve hesitated to say anything to you because he is my best friend. But we went after him and ultimately got him.
When I was at Metric, there was a songwriter I was working with, Rita Martinson, and she said, “I want to play you this song by Van Dyke Parks,” and she played me High Coin. And I said to her, Rita, your guy didn’t write that. That’s an old turn of the century number or something. And she really had to convince me. Later, I got a hold of Van Dyke and we had a meeting. He came walking in and was exactly what I had expected – this little genius, somebody who had his own style and was very articulate. Too articulate! He played me six or seven things, that ended up basically being [Parks’ 1967 debut] Song Cycle. His music was coming from another world. I decided I’m going to sign this guy on
the spot. I’m sure we negotiated, but that’s when I approached him about it – I said, I think I love you.
In the early days at Warners, you tried to sign the Buffalo Springfield. Do you think if they’d signed with you instead of Atlantic, their story would have turned out differently?
At the time I was just a little A&R guy, so it wasn’t likely to happen. I mean, Neil Young was the only one that I was able to have any kind of talking relationship with when I was going backstage to see the band. Richie
Furay, he was a very nice guy, but he wasn’t around. Stephen Stills was dismissive. Dewey Martin was fucked up. And there was Neil. For whatever reason, we became friendly. He was always the guy I would go to. Many years later, after he’d had a tremendous success at Warner/Reprise, Neil told me, “If the Springfield had gone with you, I think the band would still be alive.” That was the greatest compliment I ever got.
Wasn’t it on the Everly Brothers project that you connected with Ry Cooder?
Yeah, I got a call from Jack Nitzsche who said, “I’ve been working with this guy you have to meet, he’s an unbelievable guitar player and we have this idea for a song for the Everlys.” I’d heard about Ry Cooder, just the name made me think he was in his thirties or forties. Jack comes in with Ry and he was a kid, 19 or 20. Ry pulled out his guitar and a bottleneck. I didn’t even know what a bottleneck was. When I heard him play, I thought, Oh, my God, I’ve heard that sound before. I always thought it was a harmonica or realised at a certain point that these things are going to be a tough sell. It’s like you’re climbing a mountain and it’s probably vertical. I knew what we were up against. But I really believed it was the right thing to do.
That kind of belief became part of Warner Brothers’ reputation as a label that nurtured and stuck with artists. I suppose that paid off with a group like Fleetwood Mac?
Well, we got lucky there. They’d started with Peter Green and then had a period with Bob Welch. And they’d had a small hit, but they were a kind of mid-level act – mid-level, but good. Though certainly not somebody you’d ever bank on selling 40 million records. But they were making some money for the company, so it seemed stupid to let them go. Not that we were smart enough to know anything about what Lindsey [Buckingham] and Stevie [Nicks] were about to bring to the table. That’s all down to Mick [Fleetwood]. But yeah, that was an instance where it certainly paid off. It’s still paying off for Warners.
“I’m still taken by Randy’s talent – and my own ability to recognise it at such a young age.”
In 1968 you produced The Everly Brothers’ conceptual country-rock album Roots. How tough were they to deal with?
That was a last-ditch effort because they hadn’t had much success in a while. They were at a difficult place with each other too. You could sense the tension. They hadn’t written anything – Phil was into Italian love songs. And Don, he was the scary one because he could be explosive. When we were almost finished they said to me, “This is the worst thing we’ve ever done!” (Laughs) They were going on tour for a little while and I told them, Give me a chance to put it together, and then we’ll see what we’ve got. It didn’t end up being a big seller, but it’s considered an important record now – and one of the things I’m most proud of. something. Anyway, we never ended up doing the song with the Everlys, but that was the start of things with Ry, who we also signed.
You made a lot of records with Randy, Ry, and Van Dyke before any of them had hits. You must’ve met with some resistance within the company. I know there’s the famous story of you playing Song Cycle for [Warners president] Joe Smith and him saying, “Where’s the song?”
And he wasn’t trying to be funny either! Van Dyke will quote that forever happily. (Laughs) I don’t know which project it was… it might have been a Randy record or a Ry record or one of the singles that Van Dyke and I kept doing, but I
Along with Russ Titelman, you made some really evocative records in the ’70s, particularly Newman’s Sail Away and Good Old Boys. Your cinematic rooting is interesting because your work always had that quality – you can almost see the music as much as hear it.
In sessions, whenever we would talk about an approach it was always, “What does this track look like?” Even today, if I’m in the studio, the first thing I ask is, What’s the song look like?
Did that philosophy develop into the Warners house style, the so-called ‘Burbank Sound’?
To this day, when people mention the
“Neil Young told me, ‘If the Springfield had gone with you, I think the band would still be alive.’”
‘Burbank Sound’, I don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. It’s funny, in [the late ’80s] we signed Elvis Costello after he left Columbia. I don’t know if you know Elvis – he talks a lot, but what comes out of his mouth is fascinating. We had a dinner and he was talking about how he loved the idea of being on Warners. He was very well-versed in the history of the company and he said he wanted to make a “Burbank Sound” record. And I had to tell him, Elvis, I really don’t know what that means. (Laughs)
Maybe it’s that we didn’t have a single identifiable sound. Russ and I used to talk about it, because he had worked with Phil Spector. Early on, I reached the conclusion that as great as Phil was, Leiber and Stoller were better. One of the reasons was they didn’t have a sound, they were just trying different things. If there is a ‘Burbank Sound’, maybe it’s just about changing environments within a record, and not staying the same. There was always a conscious effort to shift gears, sometimes in a dramatic way, sometimes in a subtle way.
You were made head of Warners’ A&R department in the early ’70s. You went on to assemble what’s considered the greatest A&R team ever – bringing in musicians and producers like Titelman, Nitzsche, John Cale, Ted Templeman, Gary Katz, Tommy LiPuma…
I figured if you have A&R people who are creative, who can go in and make records, then good things are going to happen. Our A&R meetings were wonderful, because we didn’t talk about shit, we just shared our war stories, and we all had them. I remember one meeting in particular, Ted Templeman was a half hour late. Ted was always soft-spoken, but this was a gruff Ted, who’d clearly been up all night, working on this record with Mike McDonald. Ted said, “This song’s got a weird shape and I don’t know what to do any more. Will you guys listen to it and see if there’s anything to it?” It was
The Doobie Brothers’ What A Fool Believes – which ended up being a Number 1 hit and a [Grammy] Song and Record Of The Year. When the track finished, the whole room got up and applauded. And you could just see Ted collapse in relief. It was unbelievable. But without that meeting, who knows? That was the atmosphere we tried to foster.
Even though you continued to produce hits – for Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor and Rickie Lee Jones, among others – by the end of ’70s you moved away from the studio. Why?
Producing is hard. For me, the up moments didn’t happen enough, and the down moments happened too much. And then there was the boredom – often, you were sitting there just waiting for something to click. I don’t know if we had clocks in the studio, but I remember thinking I was always looking at the clock. That was the
beginning of the end for me as a producer.
In 1982, Mo Ostin made you President of Warner Brothers at a particularly difficult time. The industry was in a massive slump, and you had to jettison several longtime artists including Van Morrison and Bonnie Raitt. Was that a tough transition?
I had a very difficult time. Literally the first A&R meeting that I’m in as President, we had to drop several artists. Our department hated doing that, because you were admitting that you made a mistake. In my case, I didn’t like to drop them because they were friends and I didn’t have the heart. I was feeble.
But us ‘dropping’ Van Morrison was bullshit – he basically had an offer from someone else: Polygram, I think. It was a big offer, and there was no way we were going to match it for a couple of reasons. Not because we didn’t believe in him – we knew how good he was. So we said, we’ll give him his freedom, let him go get a better deal.
Of the massive talents that came through Warner Brothers, Prince would presumably be in the top tier?
The first thing I heard from Prince was a cassette of eight or nine songs which eventually made up most of his debut album. I couldn’t believe it, because in those days, the only one that could really pull that off – meaning playing everything – was Stevie Wonder. And in comes this kid, and he’s done it.
I remember we took him in the studio just to see what he was doing. I was uptight about it because I didn’t want him to think he was auditioning. Because he really wasn’t. So we’re in the studio and he puts down drums, then an acoustic guitar, and whatever else. Once it started to come together, it was like, “Enough, you don’t need to do this. I don’t want to waste your time.” We were so taken by his talent. And the first indication that something was up with him was his response, which was, “No, I’ve got to finish. I’ve got to get the bass part on.” He was adamant about it.
Prince was sitting on the floor getting ready to do the bass overdub and there was a little break and I wanted to talk to the engineer, so I had to walk across this cramped little studio floor. I figured if I have to step over or around Prince, I better have something to say. I don’t remember what I said, probably, This sounds amazing. But he looked at me and he said, “Don’t make me black.” Meaning, don’t market me that way. Not that we would have. But he was really saying, I’m competing against Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, the biggest people all across the board. That encapsulated his ambition and his vision, even as an 18- or 19-year-old. His ambition was beyond anything.
Speaking of mercurial geniuses, you were involved in Brian Wilson’s 1988 comeback album. Was that a tricky record to make given he was still in the clutches of his psychiatrist Eugene Landy?
I hate to say this, but Landy was the worst person I ever met. Landy came in with the idea that everybody thought he was a charlatan – which was true and worse. That was the only time I felt like a politician, because I showed him an enormous amount of respect just to get him out of the way. It was also hard because of Landy’s so-called “surf Nazis”, these young blond-haired tough guys, who were watching Brian all the time.
I did co-produce [the track] Rio Grande on that album. That’s what I thought Brian should be doing, these little mini symphonies in the vein of Smile. He was going in the right direction, but it was the height of all the craziness, so it was sort of a missed opportunity.
In the mid-’90s, you and Mo Ostin left Warner Brothers to launch DreamWorks Records. Of all the artists you signed did Elliott Smith seem like the one destined for greatness?
It was absolutely clear that he was special. He was someone who was always pushing himself. The first meeting I had with him, he was very shy, and he had an orchestration book with him. Because of my experience with Randy and Van Dyke, I think he knew I’d understand, so he said, “I want to orchestrate my next record.” I thought, fantastic, go for it. What I didn’t know was just how enormous his musical instincts and his musicality in general was. That’s why his [suicide in 2003] was so sad. There’s no telling where he would be now.
At DreamWorks, you tried to recapture what you’d had at Warner Brothers. Why do you think it didn’t quite work out ultimately?
It was a combination of things. There was an amount of money that was being spent at a time when it probably shouldn’t have been. And our predictions about sales were always off – I mean, way off. The math of the music business was changing. Because it was the era of Napster and streaming was right around the corner. It was the start of a whole different world.
Over the last decade or so, you’ve returned to Warner Music in an emeritus role, and have executive produced records by Dwight Yoakam, Jenny Lewis, and Gary Clark Jr, as well as co-producing Randy Newman’s last album, Dark Matter, with Mitchell Froom.
On Randy’s record I just came in and gave my two cents and all of a sudden I’m ‘co-producing’. I told Mitchell, “You don’t need me, you know what you’re doing.” But it’s fun to give him and Randy a little push. Hopefully, if Randy ever gets to the point of making another record, I’ll be there. If I’m alive, I’ll be there.
Unlike a lot of record executives, you don’t seem particularly concerned about burnishing your legacy. You haven’t written the usual self-aggrandising memoir or put yourself out there publicly that much, despite all your achievements.
I don’t like it. I don’t like how it looks or smells or anything. It’s a disease in a way, worrying about what people are going to say about you – especially after you’re gone. It feels like enough people know about what I was a part of. I don’t need the whole world to know. Besides, if anyone’s really interested, it’s all there in the music and the records we made.
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