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Artist News Awards Top Stories
Butler, Eno and Harris honoured at first ever producer awards
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 13 February 2009
It was the inaugural Music Producers Guild Awards in London last night, a new annual event designed to celebrate all those unsung heroes who help make records good. The event also saw the presentation of the first Brit Award of 2009, because the new awards event shares its Producer Of The Year category with next week’s Brits, which has resurrected its producer gong.
Bernard Butler took that prize, or, rather, those prizes. Having being handed his MPG trophy by BPI chair Tony Wadsworth, there to represent the Brit Awards, Duffy was wheeled on to present the former Suede guitarist with his Brit – he having produced a number of tracks on her debut album ‘Rockferry’.
Butler beat the legend that is Brian Eno to that prize, though the somewhat inspirational former Roxy Music man didn’t go away empty handed, him being awarded the Joe Meek Award For Innovation In Production.
He used his acceptance speech to discuss the mystery behind the role of the music producer, observing that too few people appreciate the difference between performing music on stage and the art of the recording studio, and of the producer’s role in the latter. Interesting food for thought, given part of the reason for the MPG Awards existing is to boost the profile of the producer community.
The other lifetime achievement type award went to the late Chris Blair, who won the MPG Special Award for his long career as a mastering engineer at the Abbey Road studios. In his 35 years at the London studio he worked with everyone from Queen and Pink Floyd to The Manic Street Preachers, Oasis and Radiohead, as well as mastering the majority of the Now compiation series. Blair died, aged 55, in 2005, and his award last night was collecting by his widow and son Catherine and Oliver.
But, I hear you ask, what about the CMU sponsored Best Remixer Award? Well, we’re very pleased to say it went to CMU favourite Calvin Harris, and not because of any dodgy vote fixing on our part, but because his remixing skills most impressed the MPG members who voted, and rightly so.
Other featured artists getting nods from the MPG voters were Elbow, who won Best Single for ‘One Day Like This’ and Best Album for ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, both produced by the band’s keyboardist Craig Potter.
Commenting on the first ever MPG awards, the body’s chair Mike Howlett told reporters: “We hope this event will become an integral part of the music industry calendar for many years to come. Audio professionals are positioned at the very heart of the music industry – we make the content that is the industry’s product – and it is important that we are acknowledged as vital and key contributors”.
The full list of winners is as follows…
Producer of The Year: Bernard Butler
Recording Engineer of The Year: James Towler
Best Mix Engineer: Cenzo Townshend
Best Mastering Engineer: Ray Staff
Best International Producer of the Year: Danger Mouse
Best Live Album of The Year: Girls Aloud – Tangled Up
UK Album of The Year: Elbow – Seldom Seen Kid
UK Single of The Year: Elbow – One Day Like This
The Joe Meek Award for Innovation In Production: Brian Eno
Best Re-mixer: Calvin Harris
Best Newcomer: Paul Epworth
Best Studio: British Grove Studios
Unsung Hero: Andy McBride
Music Producers Guild Special Recognition Award: Chris Blair
