The Man Who Impacted The King of Pop (Part 4)

 Recording Engineer Extraordinaire over Four Decades



A career that has impacted Jazz, Pop,Blue, R&B and Soul to the Signature Sound of Michael Jackson.



“Bruce has bridged the old and new generations of recording artists with wealth knowledge and experience from the 1950s into the 21^st century and is also known as the godfather of recording industry, working with Nat King Cole during the late 1950s and early 1960s. By the following decade he was working with the legend’s daughter Natalie Cole on her gold and platinum recordings.”

Bruce Swedien and Quincy Jones in the recording studio.

He was involved in the recording and mixing of many of Quincy Jones’ multi-platinums and multi-grammy-award-winning projects, such as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (1982), ”Bad” (1987) and ”Dangerous” (1991). He also engineered for Natalie Cole, Donna Summer, in particular on the album “Donna Summer”, featuring “Love in Control (Finger on the Trigger)” in 1982, and finally George Benson (“Give Me the Night” 1980). Quincy’s Qwest Records roster of artist included Patti Austin, whose album “Every Home Should Have One” featured the single “Baby, Come to Me”, USA number one on the Billboard Pop chart listings for two weeks, 19^th February to 26^th February 1983 with James Ingram on duet.

The album achieved gold certification from RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) on 1^st March 1983. Bruce sound engineered two gold certified album projects for James Ingram entitled “It Your Right” (1984) and “The Power of Great Music”(2001). James also received a Grammy award for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male at the 1984 – 24^th Awards Annual Grammy ceremony for the song “One Hundred Ways” and Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal with Michael McDonald at the 1984- 27^th Awards Annual Grammy ceremony for the song “Yah Mo B There”. Both songs were engineered of couse by Swedien.

Since the turn of the new century he has worked on several multi-platinum recording projects, in particular Michael Jackson’s “Invincible” album in his capacity of sound engineer. This album has sold an estimated 8 million copies worldwide, having been originally released in October 2001 and achieving number one on both the UK and USA Pop album charts. As the century progresses, he continues to work with such diverse artist as pop diva Jennifer Lopez on two of her recent studio albums. The first, released in 2003, was “This Is Me….Then”, certified multi-platinum for 2 million copies sold in the USA and then “Rebirth”, released in 2005, which achieved platinum levels for 1.6 million copies sold in the USA according to Nielsen SoundScan.

“Many of the artists that Bruce has worked with were not born when he started his career as a sound engineer during the early to mid 1950s.”


                                   Researched and compiled by               
                                   Mr K Tomlin Music Historian                   
                                  ©RCM Music/Signaturesoundsonline2013-2014