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A&R Insider:
Michael Lloyd

By Michael Laskow

June 30, 1999

To say that Michael Lloyd is a record producer is an understatement.

Michael was a Vice President of MGM Records by the age of 20, and for more than 35 years has been producing hit records and soundtracks, earning more than 100 gold and platinum records along the way. Some of the artists he's worked with include, Lou Rawls, Barry Manilow, Dionne Warwicke, The Moody Blues, The Monkees, The Osmonds, Donny and Marie Osmond, Sammy Davis , Jr., The Righteous Brothers, Debby Boone, Pat Boone, Air Supply, and Frank Sinatra, just to name a few--and I mean a few.

Michael Lloyd (top center) with his family.

Michael was also the Music Supervisor for the film "Dirty Dancing" and produced the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack album. He's also done the scoring, music supervision, or had songs placed in 38 feature motion pictures. And he's a partner in Curb Records.

Do you remember the moment in your life when you knew that a career in music was what you wanted to do?

Yes, I had a little transistor radio, and all of a sudden, I became aware of KFWB (an L.A. radio station). I could have been nine or ten which would have been in 1958 or so. I somehow remember it was a rainy day. I had a radio, and I turned it on, and I heard this incredible music. Now, up to that point, I had been playing classical piano from the time I was four. I had listened to my mother's albums of show tunes and Broadway shows because she was involved in that. So this was different to me. I listened to songs like "Step By Step" by the Crests, the Kingston Trio's "Worried Man," "Rock Around The Clock" and "Shake Rattle and Roll." All of these songs were all quite different, but they had a certain energy to them.

Even when I was playing classical music, I had this incredible facility to absorb it. It wasn't a chore. I practiced in the morning before going to school, and also when I got home from school--just all the time. So by the time I discovered pop music and rock 'n' roll, I had been kind of initiated into the whole aspect of practicing and trying to get better and learning music.

I used to make tapes of radio programs because we didn't have enough money to buy records. My godfather was Jimmy Durante, and he bought me a Sony two-track 7-1/2 reel-to-reel tape recorder. I put a microphone in front of the radio and recorded all of the records that I liked to hear. I would listen to these things over, and over, and over. I would learn the parts to all the records, and I would teach the musicians in the bands I was in all of the parts. At that point, it was kind of just copying and picking up what was going on. I literally would spend most of my time doing that, to the detriment of my school work. I never was a good student. The kids that I had in bands did poorly in school, too. Their parents yanked them out of the band. "Enough of this hobby.' You've got to get back to your studies and to what is going to be important for you." Fortunately, my family believed that this was what was going to be important to me, so I never had any of those problems. It was a very, very important thing for me.

Did your mom become one of those mothers that had to schlep the Farfisa mini-compact around for you?

Yep. We had a station wagon. By the time I was thirteen and had a band, every time we played--and we played all the time--she drove us all around and picked us up. That kind of thing you can't replace. That was, in a nutshell, the genesis of my interest in music.

What advice would you give to somebody who is just starting out?

There are several things that I think fall under "best advice." There is no one way to become successful. However it was that I was fortunate enough to get the opportunities I got doesn't mean that it's a formula or a path everyone should follow. The thing that is important, though, is that you don't know when opportunity is going to come, so you'd better be ready for it when it does come.

How do you get ready?

You learn everything you can about your chosen field. I was a "rock star." That was my chosen field--in very broad strokes. Okay, you get on stage, you perform, you write songs, you sing them. The reality is that that is kind of a narrow little opening. You put out an album every eighteen months maybe. So every eighteen months you get an opportunity to be successful.

However, if you're a songwriter, or if you're record producer, or doing something else working with lots of people, now your chances for success have gone up tremendously. If you're doing songs for motion pictures and/or television show scores and themes, once again, your chances of some kind of success have increased.

You have to have a dream, and it's great to follow a dream, but don't be afraid to expand your dream to include other things that you might not be thinking about in a primary sense. Maybe you can learn about publishing, learn about songwriting and what it takes to be a good songwriter, how it relates to the music business. What is a good song? What kind of songs are hits on the radio? What kinds of songs are being played on certain types of radio stations? What songs cross over to other formats? You learn about what makes a record sound good. Why does one record sound a little better than another one? You can learn about the technical side of things. You can learn about the musicality of a record, of balancing instruments, of arranging them, the tonal qualities that make something sound good, the colors that you bring in and out of songs. Now you're talking about how the record might shape up. Obviously vocal performances are important. How compelling do you need to be? How much emotion do you have to have in a particular style of music and to be a particular kind of singer?

My point is, learn everything you can about the music business in order to be ready when opportunity comes. It might be, "We're looking for someone to go out to clubs to listen to some bands." "Oh geez, I don't want to do that because I want to be the band they discover." But you go out there, and you find a band. Maybe that band gets signed. All of a sudden now, they are taking you more seriously. And you say, "By the way, I've got something else you've got to listen to," and you play them your band. "Why didn't you play us this before?" "Well before I didn't know you, and you wouldn't have been interested." Something can always be turned around to accomplish your primary goal as long as you're in the game.

The trick is getting into the game. Whether it's easier now or harder isn't so much the point. It's always difficult. But when you hear that knock on the door of opportunity, you've got be ready to take advantage of it. The best way to take advantage of it is through education--whether that's through some schooling, private lessons, or on the street, or programs that ASCAP and BMI offer in the way of workshops, or help that TAXI may offer through its convention or critiques. All of this goes to round out your education.

I think you have to have a hot burning passion to do this stuff. I think that you have to obviously have some ability and be personable in some way. But that hot burning passion has got to lead you by the nose to anything--anything that you can do to be involved. I would do anything. I would engineer stuff for other people. I would go in and sit and listen to other people make records. I went to the recording sessions for Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations. I played on "Bluebirds Over the Mountain," by the Beach Boys. Those were big deals. Obviously anyone would do that. But I did stuff for my friend, producer, Kim Fowley where he'd pay me $50, and I'd go in and record all day long. I'd make up songs right then and there, and he'd put it out as some funny, funky thing. I didn't care. I was in the studio recording and doing something. I would have paid him.

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