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Producer Phil Ramone Looks Back

The legendary music producer Phil Ramone's vast discography spans more than 40 years and includes the likes of Bob Dylan, Stan Getz, Madonna, Billy Joel and Paul Simon.

Ramone was a violinist as a child, and got his start in the music industry as a recording engineer. He was a pioneer supporter of the compact disc in the 1980s, and has earned several Grammys. Talking about some of his many career highlights, Ramone reminisces about experiences recording with Dusty Springfield ("The Look of Love") and Joao Gilberto ("Girl from Ipanema"). And he calls Billy Joel "high adventure, one of the great performers of all time."

On one of his latest projects, Ramone produced tracks with Diana Krall, Bonnie Raitt and others for Ray Charles' final album, the duets collection Genius Loves Company. Another recent collaboration was producing On the Moon, jazz sensation Peter Cincotti's latest album.

Does Ramone ever make mistakes? He answers this and other questions from NPR's Scott Simon.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Scott Simon is one of America's most admired writers and broadcasters. He is the host of Weekend Edition Saturday and is one of the hosts of NPR's morning news podcast Up First. He has reported from all fifty states, five continents, and ten wars, from El Salvador to Sarajevo to Afghanistan and Iraq. His books have chronicled character and characters, in war and peace, sports and art, tragedy and comedy.