As the saying goes, if you ask ten music producers what they do, you’ll get fifteen answers. Production happens in plain sight, yet somehow remains a dark art. So I’ve been on a quest to talk to some of my favorite producers about what they actually do.
Larry Klein started out as a musician’s musician before becoming a producer’s producer. As a young bassist in Los Angeles, he was playing with his heroes in the jazz world, including a long, creative stint with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
Over time, he found himself pulled toward the world of songs, singers, and popular music—and pushed away by the jazz insiders’ fixation on what counted as “the real stuff.”
As a session player he showed up on some of the most iconic LA records of the ’80s and ’90s—Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Cher, and his first wife, Joni Mitchell. He seemed destined for the life of a top-tier sideman.
But while married to Joni Mitchell, Klein began moving behind the board. And over the last 30 years, he’s become one of the most sophisticated and thoughtful producers working today. He’s a multiple Grammy winner, but maybe his greatest achievement is his ability to make records that feel timeless and contemporary—a magic trick anyone who has tried to make confident, approachable music in the studio will recognize as much easier said than done.
Back in 2018, I visited Klein at his home studio in Los Angeles for my Third Story podcast. And considering how great his records sound, it shouldn’t have surprised me that underneath it all, he’s still just a huge music fan. Here’s how he sees the producer’s job:
“I see the job of being a producer as identifying this thing that is inside an artist—the magic little amulet that has the capability of touching people—and fanning the flame of that thing, helping it occupy the bulk of the picture.”
For Klein, a big part of producing is also deciding whom to work with:
“Whenever I try to identify what it is that attracts me to an artist, it’s some combination of honesty in what they do… I’m not attracted to people whose singing connotes just ambition. I’m attracted to a person’s voice, whether they’re an instrumentalist or a singer.”
And he has trusted his ear well. Klein has produced projects for Joni Mitchell, Madeleine Peyroux, Melody Gardot, Herbie Hancock, Norah Jones, Luciana Souza—who he’s married to now—and many more.
He also, like so many musicians, visualizes the music he makes:
“I see this compelling center in what they do. And my job is to help that thing dominate the picture—hopefully in a way that helps them move beyond the boundaries they’ve had before, maybe even make the best thing they’ve ever made.”
In the end, Klein says that kind of generosity is its own reward:
“On some level it’s a selfish process. In the process, I’m serving my own desire to make something that touches me.”
Hear my full conversation with Larry Klein on The Third Story Podcast.
