Richard Perry, legendary music producer who worked with Barbara Streisand, Rod Stewart and more, dies aged 82

Richard Perry, the hitmaking record producer whose many successes included Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’, Rod Stewart’s The Great American Songbook series, as well as a Ringo Starr album, has died aged 82.

The Grammy Trustee Award recipient reportedly died at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest, according to his friend Daphna Kastner.

"He maximised his time here," said Ms Kastner, who called him a "father friend" and said he was godfather to her son.

"He was generous, fun, sweet and made the world a better place. The world is a little less sweeter without him here. But it's a little bit sweeter in heaven."

Perry was widely known as a “musician’s producer” and proved at home with a wide variety of musical styles, one of the rare producers to have No. 1 hits on the pop, R&B, dance and country charts.

During the 70s, he worked with a wide array of legendary artists such as Barbra Streisand, Art Garfunkel, Diana Ross and more.

He was regarded as the producer who helped Streisand modernize her sound, revived careers like Fats Domino’s, and elevated rising stars like Leo Sayer.

"Richard had a knack for matching the right song to the right artist," Streisand wrote in her 2023 memoir, My Name is Barbra.

In the ‘70s, Perry helped facilitate a near-Beatles reunion. He had produced a track on Starr’s first solo album, Sentimental Journey, before working on the 1973 record Ringo, which would prove the drummer was a commercial force in his own right.

It featured contributions from Harry Nilsson, Billy Preston, Steve Cropper, Martha Reeves and all five members of The Beatles, reached No. 2 on Billboard and sold more than 1 million copies.

He dated Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda among others and was briefly married to the actor Rebecca Broussard.

Perry was born in New York City into a musical family. His parents, Mark and Sylvia Perry, co-founded Peripole Music, a pioneering manufacturer of instruments for young people. With his family’s help and encouragement, he learned to play drums and oboe and helped form a doo-wop group, the Escorts, that released a handful of singles.