The engineers on the album were Gene Paul and Joel Kerr, still at work today.
(The assistant was Stephen Dowd, son of the legendary Tom Dowd).
Gene William Paul (born August 20, 1944) is an American audio recording / mixing / mastering engineer, producer and musician. He was an engineer at Atlantic Recording Studios during their famed 1960s–80s period and is currently the chief mastering engineer at G&J Audio, a mixing and mastering studio for major and independent labels focused on reissues and new recordings. He has worked on thousands of projects, and has engineered 9 Grammy Award-winning albums with 29 total nominations in 15 different categories. He has engineered many hit recordings, including 7 #1's on the Billboard Pop & Jazz charts, 6 more in the Pop Top 10, 10 more in the Jazz Top 10 and 5 in the R&B Top 20.Son of famed guitarist and inventor Les Paul, the inventor of the solid-body electric guitar and early innovator of multitrack recording, Gene Paul spent his youth developing his engineering skills in the family recording studio and spent a decade as the drummer in his father's touring band from 1959 to 1969, with singer Mary Ford (his stepmother) for the first half. "Without even knowing it, I was being taught about presenting music, which was a great experience. I worked on putting the shows together with dad. I watched him record his own music as well as groups. If he said, 'Do you want to know about this?' I'd say, 'Yes.' And I'd go set up a mike. By the time I grew up, I knew how to record."
His career took off after joining Atlantic Records in 1969 where he quickly became a world-renowned engineer and producer. "The people there, like Tom Dowd, Arif Mardin, Joel Dorn, Ahmet Ertegun, they were all gentle people. You would think that they were all superstars, but they never acted that way. Being at Atlantic was like being welcomed into someone's house. It was a house of music. You never knew who was going to come in, one day Aretha [Franklin], the next The Modern Jazz Quartet, King Curtis, Gladys Knight. ... It was truthfully hard to go home at night."
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| Joel and Gene |
Joel Kerr is the founder and studio manager for G&J Audio (formerly DB Plus) from 1987. He envisioned a studio that was ‘musician friendly’, where the artist’s music came first and based on his belief that professional audio services shouldn't cost the farm. It’s a formula that worked for over 30 years. A trumpet player in his youth, Joel ventured into the music world more than 45 years ago as an audio engineer at Atlantic Recording Studios. He has worked with legendary producers Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler & Arif Mardin and with artists including King Curtis, Steve Goodman, Cissy Houston & The Sweet Inspirations, Gary Burton, Cornell Dupree, David Newman, Jerry Stiller & Anne Meara, Black Heat, Cactus, Hall & Oates, Danny O’Keefe, Donny Hathaway, Neil Rosengarden, Maggie Bell, Barnaby Bye, Margie Joseph, Herbie Mann, Sam Samudio, Les McCann, Oscar Brown Jr, Marion Williams, Doug Sahm, John Prine, Ramatam, Mongo Santamaria, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Chris Brubeck and New Heavenly Blue, Yusef Lateef, Carly Simon, Aretha Franklin, Bette Midler, Keith Jarrett, Eddie Harris and Maxi Priest.