Carly Simon, Rod Stewart, more

As we’ve seen with visionaries like Phil Spector and Sam Phillips, pop record producers can have hugely influential moments that define an era – but then, as styles and technology evolve around them, they never quite find their footing again. Richard Perry, who died on December 24 at the age of 82, was not a household name like Spector or George Martin, but the longevity of his career, particularly from the Sixties to the Eighties, was a legacy all its own: Perry left a Work that can now be viewed as a guide and history of pop over these decades. And he did it with work that never felt opportunistic or brazen, an achievement in itself.

A proud Boomer, Perry grew up listening to original rock & roll and was a member of a singing group, the Escorts, rooted in the doo-wop harmonies of his native New York. Early in his behind-the-scenes career, he famously – or at least semi-famously – produced records by Tiny Tim and Captain Beefheart. But Perry’s defining moment was his work with Barbra Streisand on “1971.” Stoney End. Singers rooted in standards often had a hard time transitioning to counterculture composers (Sinatra’s “Mrs. Robinson,” anyone?), but Streisand and Perry managed to get Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, and others of that ilk cover. Streisand’s performance of Nyro’s title track is one of the most uninhibited and upbeat pieces of music she’s ever made, and the album itself never sounded forced. (What a shame she never recorded a full LP of Nyro covers with Perry.)

The way Perry ushered Streisand into the singer-songwriter era was also consistent with his role in dominating the genre. But Perry didn’t just do it work with Carly Simon and Harry Nilsson. He had an unerring ability to envelop troubadours in productions that would not normally have suited them and to preserve their intimacy: think of the symphonic sweep of Nilsson’s definitive version of “Without You” or his velvety arrangements of Simon’s “The Right “Thing to Do”. and “Haven’t Got Time for the Pain” or his masterpiece with Simon, “You’re So Vain.” Perry knew that articulate songwriters also needed hooks. (Praise also goes to his work on Ringo Starr’s best album, Ringoespecially “Photograph,” which is spetorian in its layered grandeur.)

By the late 1970s, Perry’s generation was approaching or entering its 30s and struggling with adult pressures, divorce, and countless nagging problems. At the same time, the singer-songwriter movement was growing up (and sonically sicker) with these fans, and Perry was there at that moment, too. He took an idiosyncratic British troubadour named Leo Sayer and turned him into an average balladeer on “When I Need You” and a dance-happy warbler on “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.” He transformed the always chaste-sounding Art Garfunkel into a bedroom ballad Break out. Perry’s 1977 James Bond song “Nobody Does It Better” with Simon and his post-Guess Who hit “Stand Tall” by Burton Cummings achieved the same effect: the baby boomers were no longer children, and neither was their music.

Perry continued reading the Pop Tea papers. For many 70s acts, the transition to the 80s sound could be difficult; Does anyone remember the synth-pop albums by Peter Frampton or Graham Nash? But here too, Perry made this transformation seem effortless and organic, never more so than in his work with the Pointer Sisters. Perry had already saved her once, reviving her career in 1978 with a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s then-unheard “Fire.”

But starting with “He’s So Shy,” Perry enveloped the sisters in blaring synths, drum machines and undeniable hooks, and the result was a string of singles – “Slow Hand,” “I’m So Excited,” “Automatic,” “Jump ( For My Love), “Neutron Dance” – that was nothing less than the pop sound of the MTV era. Perry’s production of DeBarge’s “Rhythm of the Night,” a Caribbean cruise, drew on the Eighties’ mix of rhythm and melody and had the smoothness of a collaboration between Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones, even surpassing much of the duo’s work Bad. At the same time, Perry continued to guide his generation to different levels of musical maturity: Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias’ unlikely encounter “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” heralded how country would become mainstream pop.

Starting in the 1990s, Perry’s presence on the charts declined as alternative rock, hip-hop, EDM and other genres took hold. That made sense: Perry was too more more committed to melody than rhythm. Working with Clive Davis and the late Phil Ramone, Perry had a final moment thanks to his work on Rod Stewart’s albums of Great American Songbook covers.

Stewart wasn’t the first to go there; Carly Simon and Linda Ronstadt, to name just two, had previously recorded standard albums. As is well known, Perry also decided not to work with Nilsson A little touch of Schmilsson in the night, one of the very first projects of its kind. But the timing of the Stewart albums, which hit the market in the early 2000s, was key. Feeling alienated from much of 21st-century pop, Perry’s generation needed a lifeline to the past—and the Stewart albums delivered, even if the formula wasn’t exactly fresh.

But in some ways, Perry’s last major appearance on the pop charts with these records was an aberration. The hallmark of his career has never been nostalgia. If anything, he kept saying to his generation: Music will change as much as you want it to, and don’t be afraid to go along with any of it.