Jack Douglas, Producer for John Lennon, Aerosmith, Cheap Trick and More, Dies at 80

Jack Douglas, a top-flight rock producer whose work in the 1970s and early 1980s included John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Double Fantasy,” Aerosmith’s “Rocks” and “Toys in the Attic,” Cheap Trick’s debut album, Patti Smith’s “Radio Ethiopia” and more, died on Monday, according to a social media post from his family. No cause of death was cited; he was 80.

A native of the Bronx borough of New York City, Douglas started out as a folk musician in the early 1960s and worked on Robert F. Kennedy’s 1964 senatorial campaign as a songwriter. He soon changed gears to focus on studio work, attended the Institute of Audio Research and took a job at the just-opened Record Plant in midtown Manhattan — starting out, like so many budding engineers, as a janitor. But he soon found his way behind the consoles and worked as an engineer on recordings by Miles Davis, the Who, the New York Dolls, Alice Cooper, Joe Walsh’s James Gang, Mountain, and others. He also worked on John Lennon’s “Imagine” album, striking a friendship with the former Beatle that would culminate with their work on “Double Fantasy” in 1980.

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Alice Cooper producer Bob Ezrin encouraged Douglas to become a producer, and under his tutelage he co-produced Aerosmith’s second album “Get Your Wings” and Cooper’s “Muscle of Love.” As the ‘70s progressed his star rose quickly as he churned out a series of hard-hitting but hook-filled rock albums: in 1976 alone, he helmed Aerosmith’s “Rocks,” Cheap Trick’s debut, Patti Smith’s “Radio Ethiopia” and lesser-known but strong albums by Starz, Montrose and Bux, continuing to work with many of those groups on subsequent albums, notably Cheap Trick’s “At Budokan” and Aerosmith’s “Live Bootleg.”

He worked so closely with Aerosmith that he received songwriting credit on the 1977 song “Kings and Queens”; although the band fell into substance abuse and two members left during these years, he continued to work with both camps into the 1980s.

Douglas’ glory years culminated with “Double Fantasy,” for which he helped Lennon and Ono assemble a crack band that included two David Bowie alums (drummer Andy Newmark and guitarist Earl Slick), Peter Gabriel bassist Tony Levin and ace session guitarist Hugh McCracken. However he was stunned by Lennon’s murder shortly after the album was released, and reassembled much of the band for Ono’s harrowing “Season of Glass” the following year.

He continued to work over the ensuing decades, with a wide array of rock acts ranging from Zebra and Supertramp to Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash’s solo projects and newer acts like Local H and Clutch — as well as a reformed New York Dolls in the early 2000s.

Douglas sat for a long interview with Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan’s podcast late last year.