Profile of Jack Richardson on Famous Like Me

Jack Richardson, (b. 1929) is a noted Canadian record producer and educator. Richardson was born in Toronto, Ontario and had early musical training, playing in various school bands. By 1949 he was playing professionaly in "The Westernaires" who had a regular radio program. In 1958, he was working as an account executive for a firm that produced a regular television program but in the mid 1960's, Richardson and three others from this firm decided to form their own production company, Nimbus 9. Initially audio recording was only one aspect of Nimbus 9, which was formed to provide multi-media production to their clients. Within a brief period of time however, audio recording became the full onus of operations there. Richardson approached the Coca-Cola company with an idea to produce and market 7 inch singles (45's) through a type of bottle cap reimbursment scheme. On one side of the release were a regionally popular band from Winnipeg, The Guess Who, and on the flip-side, a group from Ottawa called The Staccatos (later to become the Five Man Electrical Band). Both of these groups were shortly destined to have world wide hit records.

Taking a chance, Richardson mortgaged his own home to get the funds to produce a full length record with The Guess Who. He took the group to A&R records studio in New York, and produced the classic 1968 Wheatfield Soul album, which spawned a massive international hit "These Eyes". Richardson and The Guess Who were to go on to many more hits in the next few years, and as Richardson's reputation as a producer grew, so to did his list of famous clients. From the early 1970's on, Richardson produced many of the biggest selling records of the era. Alice Cooper ( I'm 18; School's Out), Bob Seger's Night Moves album, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Bay City Rollers, Badfinger, Poco and many others, besides the hits he was producing for The Guess Who, who were for a time (1970) the best selling rock group in the world.

In the mid-1980's Richardson decided on another career change and became a teacher and head of the Music Industry Arts (MIA) program at Fanshawe College, in London, Ontario, where he remains at the present (2005) time.

The Jack Richardson Music Awards, the inaugural year of which was 2005, are named in his honor and given to promising musical artists from London and region in a variety of categories.

Previously, the Jack Richardson Music Award was an award category of the London Music Awards, but that is no longer the case with the separation of the two award shows.

Richardson is the father of noted music producer ggarth Richardson (Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, System of a Down).

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