Recording engineer Al Schmitt, who won 20 Grammy Awards for his work with musical artists that included Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan, died Monday, his family said.
In 2015, Schmitt became the first music engineer-mixer to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Schmitt won his first Grammy in 1963, according to the AP.
“An ingenious producer and engineer, a 20-time Grammy winner, a Recording Academy trustees award recipient, and so much more, Al Schmitt was a true legend,” Harvey Mason Jr., chair and interim president/CEO of the Recording Academy, said in a statement.
It was there he began working with legendary engineer/producer Tom Dowd, eventually engineering a session for Duke Ellington and His Orchestra on his own when no one else was around.
“Al was an obvious music enthusiast,” Dowd told Billboard in 2002.
They ran through the song once, maybe twice, and he had it down in his mind and in his hands and was able to fly with it right away.