ABSTRACT
A noted pop producer of the 1960s, Wilson is known for his work with Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, the Animals, Frank Zappa, and the Velvet Underground. Born Thomas Blanchard Wilson, Jr., in Waco, Texas, the Black Wilson attended Harvard where he first heard and fell in love with jazz music. On graduation, he was hired by Savoy records, and then worked briefly for United Artists and Audio Fidelity, producing albums for jazz musicians John Coltrane, Sun Ra, and Cecil Taylor, among others. Wilson joined Columbia in 1963 in their pop department as a staff producer. Assigned to work with Bob Dylan, Wilson oversaw Dylan’s transformation from folk-protest singer to surrealist rock poet,producing the classic albums Another Side of Bob Dylan and Highway 61 Revisited. Wilson also oversaw the debut album by the folk-protest duo, Simon and Garfunkel, adding drums to their subdued recording of “Sounds of Silence,” and transforming it into a hit. That success led him to be hired by MGM in 1965 to head the pop department of their Verve label and bring younger acts to the label. He signed Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention to the label, overseeing its initial albums, as well as the first recording by the New York avant-garde rock band the Velvet Underground; his biggest pop success at MGM came with the U.K. group the Animals. Wilson was less active as a producer after the early 1970s, turning his attention to various business ventures, including New York’s Record Plant Studio, which he cofounded in 1968 with his engineer Gary Kellgren and additional partner Chris Stone; it became the premier recording studio in the city by the late 1970s, with a second, successful branch in Los Angeles. Wilson died in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack.
