James Guthrie

James K. A. Guthrie (born 14 November 1953) is an English recording engineer and record producer best known for his work with the progressive rock band Pink Floyd serving as a producer and engineer for the band since 1978.

He is the owner and operator of das boot recording in Lake Tahoe, California.

Married to Melissa Kathryn (Braun) Guthrie and parent of two cats, Bert & Jack.

Original music and scoring.

Guthrie began his career on 1 October 1973 at Mayfair Studios (in the previous location of 64 South Molton Street) in London, as a trainee tape operator and later assistant engineer, initially trained by studio owner John Hudson.

A year later he moved to Audio International studios, working under Richard Millard.

His earliest credits are as an assistant engineer on the first two albums by glam rock singer Alvin Stardust.

By 1976 Guthrie was employed as one of the engineering team at Utopia Studios which also included John Mackswith and Ian Cooper.

During his tenure he worked as the engineer on The Bay City Rollers' Wouldn't You Like It? release (produced by studio owner Phil Wainman), and for producer Barry Blue on Breakout by The Dead End Kids as well as the first two albums for London-based R&B band Heatwave (Too Hot To Handle and Central Heating), which would yield the hit singles "Boogie Nights", "Always and Forever" and "The Groove Line".

Utopia was also where he first worked with Andy Jackson (Jackson apprenticed as an assistant engineer under Guthrie's supervision), whom Guthrie later introduced to Pink Floyd and was hired as the band's primary engineer (a position Jackson still holds, as the Senior Mastering Engineer for David Gilmour's studio Astoria UK).

His initial producer credits would be for singer-songwriter Arlen Greene (co-producing the song "The Jazz Pianist" in 1976) and Fury (their only known single "Miss Demeanor/Stay on Your Feet" in 1977).

Guthrie's connection with GTO Records landed him engineering and production duties on the second and third albums for The Movies (Double A and Bullets Through The Barrier); followed by work with Runner (producing their only release, which made the Billboard Top 100).

After producing the Judas Priest track "Better By You, Better Than Me" for the album Stained Class, he was selected to produce their follow-up album Killing Machine (aka Hell Bent for Leather).

In mid-1978, Guthrie received a request from Pink Floyd's manager, Steve O'Rourke, to meet with him regarding potential production projects.

First was a pitch to produce singer/songwriter Tom Robinson (and the end result was his production of "Our People", the b-side of the "Bully for You" single in 1979).

The other was for Pink Floyd, about to embark on their new project, a concept album which was eventually titled The Wall.

Based on his previous production credits and after meeting with Guthrie, Roger Waters believed he would be a good fit.

Guthrie accepted the assignment with the request that he would be allowed to engineer the record himself.

During this time he first worked with Greg Walsh (who would later go on to produce Heaven 17 and Tina Turner among others), whom Guthrie asked to join his FOH production team for the live performances of Pink Floyd's The Wall in 1980 and 1981.

By 1980, Guthrie's body of work in regards to engineering, mixing, and production would include a total of six hit singles on both the British and American charts: the first three singles from Heatwave, Marshall Hain's "Dancing in the City", Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" and The Pointer Sisters' "He's So Shy".

Guthrie was the only member of the production team to be awarded by NARAS for his contributions, receiving the 1980 Grammy award for Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical.

A case can be made for Guthrie's involvement as an important element of the timeless sound Pink Floyd was able to achieve with The Wall.

Guthrie's initial involvement with Pink Floyd was to last nearly five years; in addition to engineering and co-production duties on The Wall, he also served as the Sound Mixer (supervising the Front of House engineering team) on most of the performances of The Wall live as well as actual recording of some of the performances (he would later provide the mix and production for the release Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980–81), as well as Sound Coordinator on the film adaptation Pink Floyd—The Wall (he would engineer the music for film as well as produce it in collaboration with Waters and Gilmour).

Guthrie appears in at least three documentaries about Pink Floyd: in The Lost Documentary (filmed in August 1980 and never officially released but was made available in 2004), he is interviewed and receives an onscreen credit as "Sound Mixer".

In The Other Side of The Wall (chronicling the making of Pink Floyd The Wall) he appears onscreen during a sequence depicting recording of additional music for the film but is neither credited nor interviewed; and in Retrospective: Looking Back at The Wall (included on the DVD release of Pink Floyd—The Wall) he is interviewed and receives an onscreen credit as "Music Producer" in the second half of the documentary.

Guthrie also appears in the "Editing and Music" featurette for the DVD release of The Last Mimzy, in a sequence which depicts recording for the Waters song "Hello (I Love You)" but is neither interviewed nor credited; as well as the music video produced for the song.

In the 1980s, Guthrie would produce a number of other releases, including Heatwave's fourth album Candles (co-produced with lead singer Johnnie Wilder, Jr.), Queensrÿche's major-label debut The Warning, Ambrosia's concept album Road Island (the final release of the David Pack era), and three tracks on The Boomtown Rats' In the Long Grass.

He would also work as an engineer on various releases, such as Kate Bush's Hounds of Love (all orchestral sessions) and The Dream Academy's Remembrance Days; as well as contributing miscellaneous music and sound design for films such as Lethal Weapon, The Dead Zone and Lifeforce.

Guthrie received a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for Best Film Sound in 1982 for his work on the film, (along with sound editor Eddy Joseph, production mixer Clive Winter, and dubbing mixers Graham Hartstone and Nicholas Le Messurier).

He was then asked to co-produce (along with Michael Kamen) The Final Cut, the last release of Waters-era Pink Floyd.

According to Andy Jackson, who served as engineer for the recording along with Guthrie, the use of the name "Max" in the songs "The Gunner's Dream" and "Paranoid Eyes" is an appropriation of Guthrie's nickname (the members of the production team – Guthrie, Jackson and Kamen – each had nicknames), which Waters had originally included as a joke, but decided that it suited the overall concept and created an actual character in the narrative with the name.

In 1986 Guthrie emigrated to the United States, first residing in Los Angeles where he and his business manager/partner Larry Belling owned and operated Slippery Studios, a recording facility specifically geared towards sessions for film.

Guthrie eventually settled in Lake Tahoe, California where he designed his own home-based studio, das boot recording (named in tribute to Guthrie's love of WWII-era American submarines).

Guthrie and his assistant engineer, Joel Plante, supervise every remastering of the Pink Floyd back catalogue, as well as mixing and mastering of various works (some for 5.1 Surround Sound), including Pink Floyd-related releases.

In addition, Guthrie is also credited with suggesting Jon Carin as a keyboard player for Roger Waters' touring band (making Carin one of a select group of people to have played with both Waters and Gilmour, and an incarnation of Pink Floyd), and arranged for Kashmir lead vocalist and guitarist Kasper Eistrup to audition for the same tour (as documented in the film Rocket Brothers), as well as introducing vocalist Rachel Brennock (his then-girlfriend, who used the stage name Rachel Fury) to Pink Floyd, she joined the touring band from 1987 to 1989.

Guthrie later worked at other London-area studios such as The Manor, Advision, and Britannia Row.

He was also interviewed (without onscreen credit) for the electronic press kit used to promote the release of Pulse in 1995.

A little-known feature of the Waters DVD release In the Flesh is when the viewer selects the option for "A/V Setup" the menu screen shows a looping film of Guthrie (as well as his assistant Joel Plante) at the recording console inside Le Mobile Remote Recording Studio, used to record the audio for the CD and DVD releases.

David Gilmour stated in a March 2000 interview with Record Collector, regarding the contributors, "Another crucial figure is James Guthrie. The album's wonderfully clear and punchy, and very modern-sounding."

Nick Mason also acknowledged Guthrie's contribution specifically in regards to the drum sound in an interview with TapeOp magazine: "James Guthrie was great on The Wall – I thought he did a great job."