Beau Hill
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Beau Hill is an American record producer who is best known for his work with Alice Cooper, Kix, Winger, Streets, Warrant, Fiona, Europe and Ratt.
He's also played instruments for and sang backing vocals for some of the artists he's produced, as well as his band Airborne released in 1979.
Biography / The Beau Hill Story Experience: defined as… knowledge, skill, understanding, familiarity and know-how. These are the words used by scores of artists that have worked with Beau Hill in the course of a remarkable career that spans over two decades.
In his lifetime of notable achievements in the entertainment business, Beau Hill’s experience ranges from recording artist, to record production, with sales approaching 50 million units, to artist management and record company executive, as one of the founding partners of Interscope Records. He has co-written hit singles, fronted his own band, and worked with legends on both sides of the studio glass.
At age six Beau entered The Texas Conservatory of Music and studied classical piano and composition. Five years later he was playing guitar in local groups and began learning how to write pop / rock music. He graduated from Jesuit College Prep, Dallas, and was accepted at Yale but declined to attend in order to pursue a career in recording and production.
1971 - 1974 Beau attended the University of Colorado, majoring in music and history, while working as an engineer at Applewood Recording Studios.
1974 - 1978 After being promoted to Head Engineer at Applewood, Beau got his first production job working for “Chicago” producer and Caribou Ranch Studios owner James Guercio. During this time period Beau honed his production skills after hours at Applewood doing demos with his band “Airborne”. These demos caught the ear of veteran producer Keith Olsen (Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner, Whitesnake, Grateful Dead).
1978 “Airborne” signed a major recording contract with Columbia Records and a management contract with Irving Azoff and Bob Buziak at Frontline Management. Keith Olsen produced the debut album in LA.
1980 Beau moved to New York City, signed with Chrysalis Records and Aucion Management (Kiss, Billy Idol), and recorded the debut album with his new group “Shanghai”, produced by Bruce Fairbairn and Bob Rock (Bon Jovi, Metallica).
1981 - 1982 An opportunity presented itself for Beau to develop and record Houston based singer/songwriter Sandy Stewart. Sandy’s demos found there way to Stevie Nicks, immediately after her first platinum solo effort, and resulted in Sandy getting signed to Modern / Atlantic Records (Stevie’s label), with Beau as the producer. Sandy and Beau went on to co-write three songs with Stevie for her next solo venture “The Wild Heart”.
1983 - 1984 Atlantic Records president Doug Morris recruited Beau to produce the newly signed group “Ratt”. The debut effort sold over 3 million copies domestically alone, and made Beau Hill an internationally acclaimed producer. Beau went on to produce the next three “Ratt” albums, which all enjoyed multi-platinum success.
1986 In London, Beau produces and arranges the original motion picture soundtrack to Hearts of Fire. The recording features three new songs by Bob Dylan with Eric Clapton and Ron Wood.
1987 - 1990 The formation of ‘Control Management’ found Beau stretching his talents in a slightly new direction, working with Winger, who’s debut Atlantic Records album sold 1.8 million copies.
Worked with multi-platinum band Warrant as well.
1990 Beau was tapped by Doug Morris to form a new label for Atlantic Records with multi-platinum producer Jimmy Iovine. Shortly after the introduction of Ted Fields Interscope Records was born.
1994 - Present Beau has continued producing, mixing and developing new talent including up and coming Michigan rockers, Bad Side. Beau mixed some songs for the band's 2007 CD, BAD SIDE II (released September 18, 2007). He has also been involved with several successful international business ventures, but his passion and drive is to work with up and coming artists, and help create the next Bob Dylan or Nirvana.
Affiliations NARAS National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (The Grammys) Voting Member
AES Audio Engineering Society
BMI Broadcast Music, Inc. Writer / Music Publisher
ASCAP American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Music Publisher