Record Producers

Rick Rubin's not about to tell you which new bands he wants to sign because he doesn't want to tip off the competition. He finds it hard enough to even go out to clubs to check out acts because his presence at a showcase can trigger a bidding war. The thinking: If Rubin is interested, there must be something there. But Rubin did agree to offer some insight into his thinking by giving us some of the established acts he'd love to work with.

If you're a casual pop fan, it must seem puzzling week after week to see what appears to be an unknown rapper entering the national album sales chart in the Top 10. In the first half of 1998 alone, there has been a series of dramatic debuts: * DMX's "It's Dark and Hell Is Hot" entered the charts at No. 1 the week of May 24, selling an estimated 250,000 copies. * Silkk the Shocker's "Charge It 2 Da Game" sold 245,000 copies the week of Feb.

In stark contrast to the recent trend in which any number of producers are enlisted by a hit artist for a new album, the "Dick Tracy" song soundtrack album instead has one producer riding herd over a daunting diversity of name performers. The range of voices includes k.d lang, Erasure, Brenda Lee, Ice-T, Tommy Page, Darlene Love, Al Jarreau and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Phil Spector's ongoing murder trial hasn't stopped the fabled producer from returning to the career that made him famous. His production work in recent years has been sporadic, but he has produced a new track titled "Crying for John Lennon" by 20-year-old singer-songwriter Hargo, to be included in a forthcoming Lennon documentary, "Strawberry Fields."

Don Was isn't the most sought-after producer in the business because he gives artists that patented Was (Not Was) sound. In fact, each of the records he's worked on sounds distinct. "It seems kind of disrespectful when you start getting to artists like Bonnie Raitt or Bob Dylan or Elton John--it's a lot of nerve to say 'Lemme stamp my fingerprint on your forehead.' If I have instincts as an artist, I have an outlet for it, and it's not to dump it all over Bob Dylan's record."

Hip-hop musician Money B was questioned along with two dozen other witnesses after a record producer was shot and killed outside a nightclub, police said. "We had 25 witnesses," homicide Lt. Judie Pursell said Friday. "He, along with other people, were identified as possible witnesses. He and many others were part of the interview process." Ronald Blackburn, 31, of San Leandro was shot twice and died early Thursday after a release party for Money B's latest album, "Talkin' Dirty."

On the eve of 2001, Calendar brought together three pairs of high-profile creators and administrators from disparate parts of the entertainment and arts world to candidly discuss issues of the day. In this first installment, "Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf sat down with Grammy-winning record producer Rick Rubin to reflect on a year's worth of controversy over content that stretched from Hollywood to Capitol Hill. Are artists' rights in danger?

"Do you hear the beat? Do you hear it? Ba ba ba, ba ba ba ba ba ba. Sidestepping. . . ." Bobby Taylor of Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers is in full voice now, belting out "Sidestepping," a pop/R & B song he had written just a few hours earlier. That Taylor has written a new song is hardly news; he's been in the music business almost forever. But where he's writing his songs--now, that is unique. He's back in Motown.

There's a bit of a sneer on Matthew Wilder's face as he looks at a blow-up of the cover of his album "Bouncin' Off the Wall," hung in the recording studio behind his home in Van Nuys. "That's a leftover from the '80s," he says, disdainfully dismissing the striking, Cocteau-like surreal image on the cover. Of course, Wilder knows that most pop fans who remember his name dismiss him as a leftover.