was a key player on the L.A. music scene in the '60s and early '70s.
in the early part of the decade. Teaming up with future
. He also began writing surf songs with
. Yet it was not until
was hired as a staff producer at Columbia Records that he really began to shape the sound of California rock.
Assigned to a new band named
the Byrds,
Melcher helped craft the group's fusion of rock and folk into a groundbreaking sound. Tension between the producer and
the Byrds' manager, however, caused
Melcher to be booted as the band's producer, but not before the group, under
Melcher's direction, recorded the definitive version of
Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn." After his departure from
the Byrds,
Melcher went to work with a ragtag
Stonesy garage band named
Paul Revere & the Raiders. Using his studio expertise,
Melcher transformed the group into an accessible pop outfit and eventually began writing songs with the group, including the hits "Him or Me -- What's It Gonna Be?" and "The Great Airplane Strike."
By now a hot producer,
Melcher was instrumental in signing another near-legendary L.A. band,
the Rising Sons, led by
Taj Mahal and
Ry Cooder. Yet in opposition to
the Byrds and
Paul Revere (groups who had a definite direction),
the Sons' collective influences never came together and
Melcher had difficulty producing them.
Melcher remained a presence on the L.A. scene throughout the late '60s, collaborating with such mainstays as
Glen Campbell and
Bruce Johnston and, passing into infamy, when his former house on Cielo Drive became the site for the grizzly Manson Family murders.
Melcher had known
Manson and it was rumored that the producer's lack of interest in
Manson's songwriting career was why the house on Cielo Drive was targeted.
In the early '70s,
Melcher was once again hired as
the Byrds' producer on albums such as
The Ballad of Easy Rider,
Untitled, and
Byrdmaniax, but his producing and arranging choices were so off the mark that the latter album was referred to in Barney Hoskyns' book Waiting for the Sun as "Melcher's Folly." As the mellow country sound of the mid-'70s eventually took over the southern California musical climate,
Melcher eventually faded from the spotlight and, with the exception of an occasional production (
the Beach Boys' comeback hit "Kokomo"), did less and less in the studio each year. After a long battle with cancer,
Melcher passed away November 19, 2004.
–
Steve Kurutz, Rovi