Biography
During his time on staff as a producer for RCA toward the close of the 1960s, Rick Jarrard guided the recording of several strong-to-outstanding LPs by the Jefferson Airplane, José Feliciano, and Harry Nilsson. His standout contribution arrived with Surrealistic Pillow, the Jefferson Airplane's second album and the first to feature Grace Slick. As the musicians moved deeper into psychedelic territory from their folk-rock base, Jarrard's production kept the material accessible to mainstream listeners through careful reverb placement and effective vocal-harmony blends. The record still performed well commercially, reaching number three on the charts and yielding the Top Ten singles "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love," yet some band members considered Jarrard an uninspired company man. They therefore barred him from further work with the group and brought in Al Schmitt for the less pop-oriented follow-up, After Bathing at Baxter's. Speaking with Grace Slick biographer Barbara Rowe, Schmitt noted that the band, aside from Slick, "did not like the sound of Surrealistic Pillow because there was far too much echo on it. They made it clear that they had not been happy with Rick Jarrard."
Jarrard also produced Nilsson's opening two albums, Pandemonium Shadow Show and Aerial Ballet, plus selected tracks from his third, Harry. Sales remained modest at the time—Nilsson had not yet scored a hit—but the sessions yielded polished pop-rock results with skillful orchestral arrangements, and Aerial Ballet introduced his cover of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'," which gained traction only after it was chosen as the theme for the film Midnight Cowboy. Nilsson evidently wanted revisions, because in 1971 he extracted material from his first two albums, remixed the tracks, added new vocals to several, and compiled the results as the oddly titled Aerial Pandemonium Ballet. Jarrard's other major commercial achievement, after Surrealistic Pillow, was José Feliciano's number-two album Feliciano!, which contained the number-three single cover of "Light My Fire."
Jarrard also produced Nilsson's opening two albums, Pandemonium Shadow Show and Aerial Ballet, plus selected tracks from his third, Harry. Sales remained modest at the time—Nilsson had not yet scored a hit—but the sessions yielded polished pop-rock results with skillful orchestral arrangements, and Aerial Ballet introduced his cover of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'," which gained traction only after it was chosen as the theme for the film Midnight Cowboy. Nilsson evidently wanted revisions, because in 1971 he extracted material from his first two albums, remixed the tracks, added new vocals to several, and compiled the results as the oddly titled Aerial Pandemonium Ballet. Jarrard's other major commercial achievement, after Surrealistic Pillow, was José Feliciano's number-two album Feliciano!, which contained the number-three single cover of "Light My Fire."