Pat Hare born 20 December 1930

Auburn "Pat" Hare (December 20, 1930 – September 26, 1980) was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. His heavily distorted, power chord–driven electric guitar performances in the early 1950s are considered an important precursor of heavy metal music. His guitar work with Little Junior's Blue Flames had a major influence on the rockabilly style, and his guitar playing on blues records by artists such as Muddy Waters was influential among 1960s British Invasion blues rock bands such as the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. 

Auburn Hare, who was African-American, was born in Cherry Valley, Arkansas. When he was 10 his family moved onto a farm near Parkin, Arkansas, where his grandmother nicknamed him Pat. Hare learned his early guitar licks from Joe Willie Wilkins and by 1948 was playing in Howlin’ Wolf‘s band, making the scene around Beale Street in Memphis. He made his recording debut backing Walter Bradford at Sam Phillips‘ Sun Studios in February 1952, and Sam was quick to recognise Pat’s mastery of tone and his coherent solo technique. Sam used him on records by Lillian Mae Harrison and many sessions with Rosco Gordon and Junior Parker‘s Blue Flames. 

Top L-R: Junior Parker, Hamp Simmons, Jimmy Johnson, Eugene Ballow, Pat Hare
Kneeling: Bobby Bland and Joe Frit,. On Tour 1952  

One record Pat cut with Junior in 1953 was ‘Love My Baby’, which has a solo that inspired many rockabilly players with its melodic reverb, and it has been imitated so often so often it seems like a natural phenomenon. His guitar solo on James Cotton's electric blues record "Cotton Crop Blues" (1954) was the first recorded use of heavily distorted power chords, later an element of heavy metal music. According to Robert Palmer, "Rarely has a grittier, nastier, more ferocious electric guitar sound been captured on record, before or since, and Hare's repeated use of a rapid series of two downward-modulating power chords, the second of which is allowed to hang menacingly in the air, is a kind of hook or structural glue. 

                                   

The other side of the single was "Hold Me in Your Arms"; both songs "featured a guitar sound so overdriven that with the historical distance of several decades, it now sounds like a direct line to the coarse, distorted tones favored by modern rock players." According to Allmusic, "what is now easily attainable by 16-year-old kids on modern-day effects pedals just by stomping on a switch, Hare was accomplishing with his fingers and turning the volume knob on his Sears & Roebuck cereal-box-sized amp all the way to the right until the speaker was screaming." 

Pat Hare with Muddy Waters

In May 1954, Pat made some solo recordings for Sun that remained unissued for decades, and one of these, ‘Gonna Murder My Baby’, was to prove prophetic. According to Robert Palmer, this song is "as heavy metal as it gets." Later that year, Pat relocated to Houston and became a first-call session man for Don Robey‘s Duke label, cutting many records with his old friends Rosco and Junior, as well as Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland and Big Mama Thornton. Then Pat was called to Chicago by Muddy Waters, who had already recruited James Cotton to his band. Pat’s first cut at Chess was ‘Forty Days and Forty Nights’ in early 1956, and he played on the classic ‘Got My Mojo Working’, adding his spectacular guitar breaks to Muddy’s performances for almost five years. 

The band played at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960, and the subsequent live album made Muddy’s name around the world, but Pat was credited as ‘Tat Harris’ on the album cover! Shortly afterwards, Pat was fired for drunken behaviour. A mild mannered and affable man when sober, Pat turned nasty when he had a drink, and when he started turning up drunk most of the time, he was unmanageable. Pat in separate respective incidents, punched and shot at Howlin' Wolf with a handgun, and threatened to kill Muddy Waters' harmonica player, George Buford. 

Pat moved to Minneapolis to work with another ex-Muddy sideman Mojo Buford, but on December 15, 1963, in nearby St. Paul, Pat’s tragedy played out. He shot his girlfriend dead, and when the police came to investigate, he shot an officer too. The officer died in an ambulance en route to a hospital, but the woman lingered for nearly a month, succumbing to her injuries the following January. The suspect, though injured in the gunfire, lived to stand trial and was hastily convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment that February. Pat spent the last 16 years of his life in Stillwater prison, in Bayport, near St.Paul, Minnesota, where he formed a band named Sounds Incarcerated. He developed lung cancer in prison and died there on September 26, 1980 just before he was due to be paroled. 

Shortly before his death, Hare was the subject of a PBS mini-documentary. The guitarist was allowed to continue playing behind bars, and even given permission to play occasional concerts outside prison walls. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, All About Blues Music, Guitar World, Bear Family & Jasmine notes)

 

Alvin Lee born 19 December 1944

Alvin Lee (19 December 1944 – 6 March 2013) was an English guitarist, singer and songwriter, who was best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the blues rock band Ten Years After. 

Born Graham Anthony Barnes in Nottingham, Lee enjoyed listening to his father's jazz and blues 78s, discovering material he would later adapt to the rock idiom. He eschewed his father's guitar and his mother's ukulele for the clarinet until skiffle made him switch to guitar. 

In 1960, he restyled himself Alvin Lee and formed the Jaybirds with the bassist Leo Lyons. Like the Beatles, they served their apprenticeship at the Star-Club in Hamburg, before returning to the UK and adding drummer Ric Lee and keyboard-player Chick Churchill. By 1966, they were gigging with three-hit wonders the Ivy League but their manager Chris Wright was much more taken with the blues repertoire they performed on their own. 

Having renamed themselves after a newspaper headline referring to the emergence of Presley, Ten Years After had secured an engagement at the Marquee and became such a word-of-mouth sensation that Wright moved to the capital to manage them. Wright was a former Manchester University entertainment officer who teamed up with Terry Ellis to form the Chrysalis agency and Chrysalis Records. Income from Ten Years After helped finance Chrysalis, while Wright ensured that the band reaped the rewards of a punishing schedule, including a dozen US tours in less than five years. 

Lee's performance at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 was captured on film in the documentary of the event, and his 'lightning-fast' playing helped catapult him to stardom. The film brought Lee's music to a worldwide audience, although he later lamented that he missed the lost freedom and spiritual dedication of earlier audiences. Lee was named "the fastest guitarist in the West" and considered a precursor to shred-style playing that would develop in the 1980s. 

                                   

Ten Years After had success, releasing ten albums together, but by 1973 Lee was feeling limited by the band's style. Moving to Columbia Records had resulted in a radio hit song, "I'd Love to Change the World" but Lee preferred blues-rock to the pop style the label preferred. He left the group after their second Columbia LP. With American Christian rock pioneer Mylon LeFevre, along with guests George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Ronnie Wood and Mick Fleetwood, he recorded and released On the Road to Freedom, an acclaimed album that was at the forefront of country rock. Also in 1973, he sat in on the Jerry Lee Lewis double album The Session...Recorded in London with Great Artists recorded in London, featuring many other guest stars including Albert Lee, Peter Frampton and Rory Gallagher. 

A year later, in response to a dare, Lee formed Alvin Lee & Company to play a show at the Rainbow Theatre in London and released it as a double live album, In Flight. Various members of the band continued on with Lee for his next two albums, Pump Iron! and Let It Rock. In late 1975, he played guitar for a couple of tracks on Bo Diddley's The 20th Anniversary of Rock 'n' Roll all-star album. He ended the 1970s with an outfit called Ten Years Later, with Tom Compton on drums and Mick Hawksworth on bass, which released two albums, Rocket Fuel (1978) and Ride On (1979), and toured extensively throughout Europe and the United States. 

The 1980s brought another change in Lee's direction, with two albums that were collaborations with Rare Bird's Steve Gould and a tour for which the former John Mayall and Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor joined his band. Lee's overall musical output includes more than 20 albums, including 1987's Detroit Diesel, 1989's About Time (the reunion album he did with Ten Years After) recorded in Memphis with producer Terry Manning and the back to back 1990s collections of Zoom and Nineteen Ninety-Four (US title I Hear You Rockin'). Guest artists on both albums included George Harrison. 

In Tennessee, recorded with Scotty Moore and D. J. Fontana, was released in 2004. Lee's last album, Still on the Road to Freedom, was released in September 2012. Lee died on 6 March 2013 in Spain. He died from "unforeseen complications following a routine surgical procedure" to correct an atrial arrhythmia. He was 68. 

His extensive career saw him tour the world multiple times, release 21 studio albums, record 4 live albums and earned him the title “the fastest guitar in the West”. Through all of that, he stayed true to himself, making the music he wanted without outside influence or expectations earning him fans across the globe. At the time of his death, he had a sold-out show booked in Paris for early April and talked about recording a blues album with top musicians in the U.S. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, alvinlee.com & The Independent) 

 

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WARNING!!!!!

It has been brought to my notice that all KRAKENFILE links are being re-directed to not so nice web sites. This website has been the subject of abuse by malware & riskware writers. 

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson born 18 December 1917

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson (born Edward L. Vinson Jr.; December 18, 1917 – July 2, 1988) was an American jump blues, jazz, bebop and R&B alto saxophonist and blues shouter. He was nicknamed "Cleanhead" after an incident in which his hair was accidentally destroyed by lye contained in a hair-straightening product, necessitating shaving it off; enamoured of the look, Vinson maintained a shaved head thereafter. Music critic Robert Christgau has called Vinson "one of the cleanest, and nastiest, blues voices you'll ever hear." 

Vinson was born in Houston, Texas. Taking up the alto saxophone as a child, his proficiency at the instrument attracted local bandleaders even while young Vinson was still at school, and he began touring with Chester Boone's territory band during school holidays. Upon his graduation in 1935, Vinson joined the band full-time, remaining when the outfit was taken over by Milton Larkins the following year. During his five-year tenure with the legendary Larkins band he met T-Bone Walker, Arnett Cobb, and Illinois Jacquet, who all played with Larkins in the late 30s. More importantly the band's touring schedule brought Vinson into contact with Big Bill Broonzy, who taught him how to shout the blues, and Jay "Hootie" McShann's Orchestra whose innovative young alto player, Charlie Parker, was "kidnapped" by Vinson for several days in 1941 in order to study his technique. 

After being discovered by Cootie Williams in late 1941, Vinson joined the trumpeter's new orchestra in New York City and made his recording debut for OKeh Records in April 1942, singing a solid blues vocal on "When My Baby Left Me,” with the Williams orchestra. Vinson also recorded for Hit Records (1944), Capitol Records, (1945) before leaving to form his own big band in late 1945 and recording for Mercury Records. At Mercury he recorded small-group bop and blasting band instrumentals, but his main output was the fine body of suggestive jump-blues sung in his unique wheezy Texas style. Hits such as "Juice Head Baby," "Kidney Stew Blues," and "Old Maid Boogie," were the exceptions, however, as most of Vinson's no-holds-barred songs, including "Some Women Do," "Oil Man Blues," and "Ever- Ready Blues", were simply too raunchy for airplay. 

                                   

 After the 1948 union ban, Vinson began recording for King Records in a largely unchanged style often with all-star jazz units. However, his records were not promoted as well as King's biggest R&B stars, such as Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown, and he left to return to Mercury in the early 50s, rejoining Cootie Williams' small band briefly in the mid-50s. In 1957 he toured with Count Basie's Orchestra and made some recordings with a small Basie unit for King's jazz subsidiary, Bethlehem Records, after which he retired to Houston. 

In 1961 he was rediscovered by fellow-alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and a fine album “Cleanhead and Cannonball,” resulted on Riverside Records with the Adderley brothers" small band consisting also of Joe Zawinul, Louis Hayes, and Sam Jones. He remained active all throughout the ‘60’s and was able to capitalize on the Blues Revival of the decade, gaining a new and younger audience at home and overseas. He did revue style tours with the likes of Count Basie and Johnny Otis, and toured Europe with Jay McShann. A 1969 session for the French Black and Blue label “Wee Baby Blues,” with pianist McShann and tenor saxophonist Hal Singer, was another well timed recording. 

Being adept at both in the jazz and blues vernacular, Vinson found full-time employment at worldwide jazz and blues festivals, a steady international touring schedule and continued to produce dozens of credible albums on other jazz and blues labels such as Bluesway, Pablo, Muse and JSP. He continued to perform until his last days. Vinson recorded extensively during his fifty-odd year career and performed regularly in Europe and the U.S. He died aged 70 in 1988, from a heart attack while undergoing chemotherapy, in Los Angeles, California. 

(Edited from James Nadal bio @ All About Jazz & Wikipedia)

 

Frankie Miller born 17 December 1931

Frankie Miller (born December 17, 1931, Victoria, Texas) is an American country singer, guitarist and songwriter. 

Born in Victoria, Texas, neither of his parents were musicians but there was plenty of music around the Miller household. His older brother Norman taught him to play the guitar. Although singing came naturally, Frankie was more interested in sports than music early in his life. He actually enrolled in Victoria Junior College on a football scholarship, and even thought seriously about a career as a boxer. Eventually the lure of country music became too strong. 

Before long, Frankie and Norman had formed a band and were playing local clubs. Their musical influences were pretty easy to spot. Like almost everyone in the business, they were affected by Hank Williams' style and sound. But they were Texans, and that meant more than just a little bit of Lefty Frizzell and Ernest Tubb.Like most barely professional musicians working local clubs, Frankie had to be a human jukebox. The patrons wanted to hear the songs they knew from records and radio. It was up to Frankie and the Drifting Texans, as he named the band, to provide those familiar sounds. Original material, if tolerated at all, was offered in very small doses. The band's popularity along the Gulf Coast was boosted by a daily radio show over KNAL in Victoria. 

He also worked in Houston, where he gained a contract with the 4 Star subsidiary, Guilt Edge. Though he recorded several numbers in 1951, Miller soon left to serve in the Korean War. He returned two years later with a Bronze Star, and signed to Columbia in 1954. None of the dozen sides he recorded in the subsequent year placed on the charts, though. Miller appeared around Texas (including on Fort Worth's Cowtown Hoedown) during the late '50s and recorded occasional one-off singles for local labels. 

                                   

Don Pierce, owner of the Starday label, had been of the few who appreciated Miller's Guilt Edge recordings, so he signed the young singer in 1959. Miller rewarded the label-owner's confidence that same year when "Blackland Farmer" hit the country Top Five and became one of Starday's most popular recordings. "Family Man" reached number seven in October 1959. 

Miller, Patsy Cline & Ferlin Husky '60

Miller was tapped as Cashbox's Most Promising Country Artist for 1960 and for a time he appeared as a regular on the Louisiana Hayride and guested on both the Grand Ole Opry and the Ozark Jubilee. During the time, Frankie toured with several artists that would become country music icons including Johnny Cash, Ernest Tubb, Buck Owens, Lefty Frizzell and Willie Nelson. Unfortunately, Miller had already reached the pinnacle of his success -- he hit the charts only three more times. "Baby Rocked Her Dolly" entered the Top 15 in 1960 and "A Little South of Memphis" hit number 34 in 1964, while a re-release of "Black Land Farmer" hit number 16 in 1961. 

Between the years of 1959 – 1963 there was no stronger, no more powerful body of work in American country music than the songs recorded by Frankie Miller. Period. Admittedly, that's strong praise. Not every track Frankie cut during this period belongs on your desert island list. But many of them do. There are records here, created during this relatively brief period of time, that are simply among the best country music has ever had to offer. Frankie's best during this period is as good as it gets. That one man should produce so much good music in a very brief period of time is worth your attention. Miller recorded for United Artists in 1965 but retired from music to work at a Chrysler dealership in Arlington, Texas with one exception he had a single released on the Stop label in 1968. 

Frankie reappeared in 2003 and toured throughout Texas and headlined the Rhythm Riot in England in November of 2003. He frequented the Ernest Tubb Record Shopand performed  in the historic Ft. Worth Stockyards. He signed with the Heart of Texas Records based in Brady, Texas, in 2005. "The Family Man" was released on March 25, 2006.  The album contained a couple of rerecorded gems from Miller including "Blackland Farmer" "Pain" "Just Two Lips Away" (a duet with Leona Williams) and  "Family Man" while concentrating on new material for Miller including "Pickin Time" "I Flew Over Our House Last Night" and "The Old Side of Town." 

"I plan to continue to sing and play Country Music for anyone that will listen,” Frankie Miller recently said.  "I love Country Music and the Country Music fans-they are the best in the world." 

(Edited from Bear Family notes, AllMusic & frankiemillercountry.com)

Jeff Carson born 16 December 1963

Jeffrey Lee Herndon (December 16, 1963 – March 26, 2022), known professionally as Jeff Carson, was an American country music artist. 

Jeffrey Lee Herndon was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and raised in Gravette, Arkansas. In his childhood, he played harmonica and guitar and sang in church. In high school, he and some friends formed a band. They won second place at a local talent show for performing the song "Seven Bridges Road". After graduating, he attended another talent competition held at a park in Rogers, Arkansas. The winner of that competition then asked Carson to play in his band. The band split up after four years. 

Carson later moved on to Branson, Missouri, where he found work playing bass guitar in local bands, in addition to writing songs. While in Branson, he met his then-future wife, who persuaded him to move to Nashville, Tennessee, which he did in 1989. They married in 1989. In Nashville, he found work with a band that played at the Opryland Hotel, before convincing the hotel to book him as a solo act. He eventually recorded demos for other artists, before he was discovered by record producer Chuck Howard in 1994 and signed to Curb Records. 

Jeff & Loretta Lynn

Carson's debut single, "Yeah Buddy", was released in early 1995, peaking at number 69 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. It was followed by "Not on Your Love", which became his only number one later that year. Both singles were included on his debut album, titled Jeff Carson, which produced two more Top Ten hits in "The Car" (number 3) and "Holdin' Onto Something" (number 6), the latter of which was previously recorded by John Michael Montgomery. Between those two singles was a Christmas release called "Santa Got Lost in Texas" (number 70), The album's last single was "That Last Mile" at number 62. In 1996, Carson won the Academy of Country Music’s Video of the Year for "The Car". 

                                    

Carson released his second album in 1997. Entitled Butterfly Kisses, this album produced four singles, none of which reached top 40: "Do It Again" at number 55; the album's title track (number 62), which was also a number 1 Adult Contemporary hit and minor country hit for Bob Carlisle as well as a Top 40 pop and country hit for the Raybon Brothers; "Here's the Deal" (number 64); and "Cheatin' on Her Heart" (number 52). This album also included an alternative mix of "Butterfly Kisses" which combined elements of labelmate Kippi Brannon's then-current single "Daddy's Little Girl", as well as a duet with Merle Haggard on a rendition of his hit "Today I Started Loving You Again". 

His eleventh single, "Shine On", was released in 1998. After it, too, failed to reach Top 40, Carson's third album was repeatedly delayed. "Scars and All" did not reach the country charts, but was a number 1 on the Power Source Christian charts. Following it in 2001 was his first Top 40 country single in five years, "Real Life (I Never Was the Same Again)". It reached number 14 at the end of the year, and was followed by the release of his third studio album, also called Real Life. In 2002, Carson suffered a broken vertebra in a sledding accident at home. Although he briefly spent some time in a body cast, he was not seriously injured. Another single from Real Life, entitled "Until We Fall Back in Love Again", peaked at number 47. 

Carson charted again in 2003 with his cover of the Christian pop hit "I Can Only Imagine", a cut from a multi-artist compilation called God Bless the USA 2003. He also co-wrote the track "Where Has My Hometown Gone" on Craig Morgan's album I Love It, as well as Elbert West's single "Kimberly Cooper's Eyes". A duet with Lisa Brokop entitled "God Save the World", released in 2005, also failed to chart. His most recent single, "When You Said You Loved Me", was sent to radio in early 2007, as the lead-off single to an upcoming Greatest Hits package. The single failed to chart, however, and his Greatest Hits album was cancelled. 

In February 2009, he retired from the music business and joined the Franklin, Tennessee, police force as a full-time police officer. More recently, Carson had returned to music, inking a deal with MC1 Nashville and releasing a new version of previously recorded tune “God Save the World” in 2019. He had since signed with Encore Music Group and was working on music with such vocalists as Michael Ray and Darryl Worley. 

Carson died of a heart attack at Williamson Medical Center in Franklin, Tennessee, on March 26, 2022, at the age of 58. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, Hollywood Reporter) 

 

Judy Roderick born 14 December 1942

Judith Allen Roderick (December 14, 1942 – January 22, 1992) was an American folk and blues singer and songwriter, described by Allmusic as: "One of the finest white folk/blues singers of the early to mid-'60s." 

She was born in Wyandotte, Michigan to Howard and Emily Roderick, and grew up in Elkhart, Indiana. She attended the University of Colorado in Boulder, and began singing blues, folk and country music and playing guitar in clubs, starting in the Attic which was in the thick of the folk revival, there she encountered Michael Bloomfield, a very short collaboration with David Crosby which turns up on European bootlegs, and migrated to San Francisco where she was singing the "basket-house" circuit with other young singers - Boz Skaggs and Janice Joplin among others. 

Judy Roderick played the Philly Folk Festival in 1962, and was heard by manager Lee Silberstein, who secured her a record deal with Columbia Records. Her first album, Ain't Nothin' But The Blues, produced by Bobby Scott, was released in 1964. Described at Allmusic as "an eclectic mix of traditional acoustic folk tunes and large arrangements of blues tunes", it featured John Hammond Jr. on harmonica. She performed at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, and at many leading club venues in the eastern United States, developing a loyal following, but a second album for Columbia was never completed after Roderick and Scott disagreed on the direction it should take. 

                                     

Roderick played/sang blues like no other up and down the east coast, in folk venues from Boston to Coconut Grove, including some of the major blues shows at Cafe au Gogo. She was signed for Vanguard Records by Maynard Solomon, and recorded her second and best-regarded album, Woman Blue, released in 1965. 

Again a mixture of blues and folk material, from a variety of sources, it featured musicians Artie Traum, Dick Weissman, Russ Savakus, Todd Sommer and Paul Griffin. The song "Woman Blue" was a folk song recorded by many artists, usually titled "I Know You Rider", and made more popular by the Grateful Dead. The album was issued by Fontana in the UK in 1966, and Roderick went to Britain to promote the record. 

She began writing songs in collaboration with Bill Ashford, and returned to Colorado in 1969, forming a new band, 60,000,000 Buffalo. Their album of original material, Nevada Jukebox, produced by Bill Szymczyk, was released on the Atco label in 1972. However, the band broke up the following year. 

The Big Sky Mudflaps

Roderick moved to Hamilton, Montana, where she continued to perform, often with partner Dexter Payne in his swing band, The Big Sky Mudflaps; she sang some of the songs on two of the band's albums. In 1982, she and Payne formed a new band, Judy Roderick & The Forbears, and recorded a self-titled album with musicians including Mac Rebennack (Dr. John). The album received a limited independent release on cassette only in 1984. Dexter Payne, turned out to be her partner in love and in music for her last 16 years. 

A diabetic since childhood, Judy Roderick died of a heart attack from complications due to the disease on January 22, 1992 at the age of 49. 

The album Woman Blue was remastered and reissued by Vanguard in 1993. One of Roderick and Ashford's songs, "Floods of South Dakota", was later recorded by Tim and Mollie O'Brien; their performance was nominated for a Grammy. The cassette album Judy Roderick & The Forbears, with an additional track of  Judy singing a solo version of Floods of South Dakota, recorded in MT (1976) was remastered for digital release and issued on CD by Dexofon Records, in 2008. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Bandcamp notes)

Lou Adler born 13 December 1933

Lester Louis Adler (born December 13, 1933) is an American record and film producer and the co-owner of the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood, California. Adler has produced and developed a number of high-profile musical artists, including The Grass Roots, Jan & Dean, The Mamas & the Papas, and Carole King. King's album Tapestry, produced by Adler, won the 1972 Grammy Award for Album of the Year and has been called one of the greatest pop albums of all time. 

Lou Adler was born in Chicago, then raised in the Boyle Heights district of East Los Angeles where he had a hard and impoverished childhood. He began his career as co-manager, with Herb Alpert, of the California surf group Jan and Dean. He and Alpert then formed a songwriting partnership, and, under the name "Barbara Campbell," they wrote the song "Only Sixteen," which became a hit for Sam Cooke in 1959. The duo also wrote the song "River Rock" for Bob "Froggy" Landers and the Cough Drops. 

Herb Alpert & Lou Adler

Adler continued writing songs during the early Sixties, and they were recorded by several California groups of that era. He also worked for Screen Gems, and the Colpix and Dimension record labels. While working for those labels, Adler came into contact with several staff songwriters, including Carole King, Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan. The latter two formed a songwriting partnership and began working with Adler's publishing company, Trousdale. In 1964, Adler split with Alpert and founded Dunhill Records. He served as president and chief record producer for the label from 1964 to 1967. 

With his songwriting team of Barri and Sloan, Dunhill scored a major hit with Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction," which reached Number One in 1965. Adler then signed a young group called the Mamas and the Papas, and they scored six Top Five hits in 1966 and 1967: "California Dreamin'," "Monday, Monday," "I Saw Her Again," "Words of Love," "Dedicated to the One I Love" and "Creeque Alley."Adler then sold Dunhill to ABC Records and formed a new label, Ode Records. The new company had a mammoth international hit with Scott McKenzie's summer-of-love anthem "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)." 

                                    

That same year, 1967, Adler was one of the producers of the Monterey International Pop Festival. He was also one of the producers of the film version, Monterey Pop. The festival was a watershed event in rock history, helping break the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and the Who in America. The film was also a huge success.Around this time, Carole King was looking for work as a solo recording artist, and Adler quickly signed her to Ode. While her first two efforts showcased her talents as both a singer and songwriter, her third album, Tapestry, became a commercial and critical success. Adler sensed early on that Tapestry would be a winner. The album won four Grammy Awards in 1972, including Record of the Year and Album of the Year.Adler went on to produce King until she left Ode in the late 1970s. 

Lou Adler, Toni Stern & Carole King

During that decade, Adler did more than produce King. He discovered and started producing comedy records for a couple of comedians out of Los Angeles known as Cheech and Chong. Their comedy routine centered on the drug culture of the day, with a major focus on marijuana. Adler knew an opportunity when he saw it and signed the duo. For the rest of the 1970s, Cheech and Chong were the most popular stoners in America. Albums that Adler produced for them included Big Bambú, Cheech & Chong's Wedding Album and the soundtrack for the film Up in Smoke, which Adler produced. 

Tim Curry & Lou Adler

Around this time, Adler had started focusing more of his attention on movies. In 1974, he saw the original stage version of The Rocky Horror Show. He immediately bought the American rights, brought it to the United States and became executive producer for the film adaptation that was released in 1975 and renamed The Rocky Horror Picture Show. His gamble on the off-kilter comedy paid off, with the film rising to cult status by the late 1980s and continuing to run at midnight showings in theaters well into the new millennium. Then, in 1981, he directed the film Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains. He was also involved with Brewster McCloud and Tommy. 

Adler has lessened his involvement with the music world in the last several years, though he still owns the Roxy Theatre, a key Los Angeles music venue. His impact, particularly on the development of West Coast rock, is undeniable.

He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 as the recipient, alongside Quincy Jones, of the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

(Edited from Al Green bio @ Rhino & Wikipedia)