Jack Douglas, Legendary Producer for Aerosmith, John Lennon, and Cheap Trick, Dead at 80

Jack Douglas, a legendary producer and engineer who worked on iconic albums by Aerosmith, John Lennon, and Cheap Trick, among others, died at age 80 on Monday, May 11th.

His daughter Sarah told Rolling Stone that her father passed away after a battle with lymphoma, with his family issuing the following statement: “He most enjoyed being with his family — his wife, his four children and five grandchildren — and he died peacefully, with us surrounding him. He lived an incredible life and was an amazing storyteller. He was very, very funny and goofy and loved to tell jokes. He loved what he did, and he worked til the very end. We will miss him a lot.”

Douglas, who was born in the Bronx, New York, started out as a folk musician, and penned songs for Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign. He initially got a job at the New York City studio the Record Plant as a janitor before working as an engineer on albums by Miles Davis and the James Gang.

He worked on The Who’s abandoned Lifehouse project, with some of the songs eventually making it onto the album Who’s Next, before being tapped to engineer John Lennon’s 1971 album Imagine.

Douglas went on to engineer Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies and the New York Dolls self-titled debut before making the leap to producer on Aerosmith’s 1974 album Get Your Wings. He then produced Aerosmith’s next three multiplatinum albums, Toys in the Attic (1975), Rocks (1976), and Draw the Line (1977), and even co-wrote the song “Kings and Queens.”

With Cheap Trick, he produced their 1977 self-titled debut, and worked as a mixing supervisor on the band’s iconic concert album At Budokan. In 2021, Consequence had the pleasure of having Douglas participate in a roundtable discussion about At Budokan alongside Corey Taylor, Linda Perry, Butch Walker, and Cheap Trick’s own Rick Nielsen (watch below).

Douglas also produced John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1980 album Double Fantasy, earning a Grammy for Album of the Year. And in subsequent years, he worked on albums by Clutch, Local H, Slash’s Snakepit, and more.

Our condolences go out to Jack Douglas’ family, friends, and musical collaborators during this difficult time. Watch him discuss Cheap Trick’s At Budokan during Consequence‘s aforementioned roundtable panel below.