29th
TEC Awards
Hall
of Fame Inductees
Hal Blaine and John
Meyer
The TEC Awards Hall
of Fame was created in 1988 to recognize
those individuals, living or deceased,
whose careers have best exemplified the
spirit of creative and technical excellence
in professional recording and sound.
 Question:
What musician has racked up the highest
number of recorded hits? Was it Michael
Jackson? The Beatles? Madonna? Elvis?
All wrong.
That title goes to no one other than supersession
drummer Hal Blaine. From the 1950’s through the 1980’s Hal
performed on over 35,000 documented recording
sessions, adding drums and percussion to
more than 350 top ten songs, and over 40
#1 Billboard chart hits. No other session
player comes close to the wide variety
of genres where Hal provided the heart
beat, and often the hook – from the Ronettes
to the Beach Boys, from Elvis to the Tijuana
Brass.
Hal Blaine – born Harold Simon Belsky
in Holyoke, Massachusetts on February 5,
1929 – is legendary for his work as the
core element of the famed Wrecking Crew.
Dubbed the Wrecking Crew because of their
ragtag and new generation habits, they
started out as Phil Spector’s “Wall of
Sound” and soon became the go-to rhythm
section for seemingly all of the hits pouring
out of the Hollywood recording studios
in the 60’s.
As an
A+ session musician in the Golden Age of
pop and rock music, Blaine played on hits
by music’s most influential
artists and groups, including Frank Sinatra,
Elvis Presley, John Denver, the Ronettes,
Simon & Garfunkel, the Carpenters, Jan
and Dean, the Beach Boys, The Mamas and
the Papas, the 5th Dimension, and even
Steely Dan. Hal’s credits include seven
Grammy Records of the Year, six of them
in consecutive years.
Hal is
a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,
the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum,
the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame,
and is widely regarded as the most prolific
drummer in recorded music history.
 John
Meyer is president and CEO of Meyer
Sound Laboratories, Inc. Born in 1943 in
Oakland, Calif., Meyer had already handled
worked on the Steve Miller Band’s sound
at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 when
he attracted public attention with his
invention of the intriguing Glyph loudspeaker,
which Stewart Brand described in The Last
Whole Earth Catalog as “the first loud
sound I ever heard that didn’t make me
want to run.”
In the
mid-70's, Meyer was invited to help establish
an acoustics laboratory at the Institute
for Advanced Musical Studies in Switzerland,
where he began his pioneering work on low-distortion
horns and integrated, large-scale loudspeaker
systems. Since founding Meyer Sound in
Berkeley, Calif., in 1979, Meyer has focused
his efforts on research and development
projects covering a broad spectrum of audio
technologies surrounding the design, manufacture,
and use of loudspeakers.
Working
with a group of dedicated engineers, John
has contributed to a long list of breakthrough
developments that have earned the company
40 U.S. and international patents as well
as numerous industry awards. Always dedicated
to the satisfaction of the audience as
his highest goal, Meyer has worked closely
with artists, sound designers, and venues
of the highest caliber through the ‘80s and ‘90s and into the 21st century to develop and implement
Meyer Sound’s products, which are generally considered the “Rolls Royce” of loudspeakers.
Among
Meyer’s more notable achievements are dedicated loudspeaker processing,
arrayable trapezoidal cabinets, advanced phase correction circuits, SIM™ source
independent measurement systems, self-powered studio monitors and sound reinforcement
loudspeakers, wide bandwidth parabolic transducers, directional subwoofers, and
PSAC™ (Pressure Sensing Active Control) as incorporated in the X-10 linear control
room monitor.
John Meyer
is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society
(AES). Meyer is also a proud recipient
of AES’s Silver Award, as well as an R&D 100
award for advanced developments in electroacoustical measurement. Golden
Strings of the Sarode, a recording he engineered was nominated for a Grammy in 2007.
Today, Meyer Sound has about 300 employees and remains independent, privately-owned,
and operated by Meyer and his wife, Helen, the company’s executive vice president. |
Past Winners:
2012
Rose Mann
Cherney
2008
T Bone Burnett
2007
Ed Greene
2006
David Hewitt
2005 Arif
Mardin
2004
George Lucas &
Elliot Scheiner
2003 Eddie
Kramer
2002 Geoff
Emerick
2001 Roy
Halee
2000 Sam Phillips
1999 Tom Dowd
1998 Colin Sanders
1997 Al Schmitt
1996 Willi Studer
1995 Phil Spector
1994 Frank Zappa
1993 Rudy Van Gelder
1992 Bob Moog,
Bill Porter,
Phil Ramone
1991 Ray Dolby, Bill
Putnam, Bruce
Swedien
1990 Deane Jensen,
Quincy Jones,
George
Massenburg
1989 Wally Heider,
George Martin,
Rupert
Neve
1988 Bob Liftin,
Les Paul
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