Don Was

Detroit school friends David Weiss and Don Was (real name Don Fagenson) crafted some of the kookiest pop music of the 1980s, mixing together funk, disco, jazz and dance rhythms and recruiting a wide range of artists to record their satirical party anthems. They released an electro album of Hank Williams songs, worked with musicians as diverse as the MC5, Leonard Cohen, Iggy Pop and Frank Sinatra and scored a string of club hits; including the UK Top 5 single Shake Your Head featuring vocals from Ozzy Osbourne. It all helped earn Was a reputation as one of the world's leading producers and he went on to work with Bonnie Raitt on her Grammy Award-winning album Nick Of Time (1989) as well as work for Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Willie Nelson and Hootie And The Blowfish. He won the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year in 1995 and worked on the soundtrack to The Beatles film Backbeat, before reforming Was (Not Was) in 2004 and becoming President of the classic jazz label Blue Note Records in 2012.

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