Prominent Recording Engineer Bill Price Dies at 72

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Bill Price

You might not be familiar with his name but you certainly know the recordings he helped to create: Bill Price, a recording engineer who worked in the studio with everyone from Paul McCartney to the Sex Pistols to Guns N’ Roses to Roxy Music, died December 22 at age 72. The cause of death was cancer.

The British Price, born Aug. 8, 1944, began his career at Plessey Electronics, then moved to Decca’s West Hampstead studios in the early ’60s where he worked with such artists as Eric Clapton, John Mayall, the Moody Blues and Tom Jones. In November 1969 he engineered the hit “Reflections of My Life” by The Marmalade.

Watch the video for “Reflections of My Life” by the Marmalade

In 1970, Price went to work as chief engineer at George Martin’s Air Studios on Oxford Street, where he contributed to wildly diverse recordings by McCartney (“Live and Let Die”), Mott The Hoople, Pink Floyd, Stan Getz, Harry Nilsson, Stevie Wonder and many others.

Bill Price engineered the Pretenders’ first two albums

In 1976, Price started working at Wessex Studios as chief engineer and studio manager. As punk and new wave began to dominate the British music scene, he—often in tandem with producer Chris Thomas—applied his expertise to recordings such as the Sex Pistols’ sole studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, as well as music by the Pretenders, the Clash (The Clash, London Calling and Sandinista!) and others of that genre. Meanwhile, he continued to engineer for more mainstream artists like Elton John and Pete Townshend (the latter’s Empty Glass and White City: A Novel albums).

Other artists who benefited from Price’s skills over the years included Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Blondie, Rod Stewart, INXS, Big Audio Dynamite, Sparks, the Waterboys, Stone Roses and the Jesus and Mary Chain. He was still active in recent years, remastering all of the Clash’s albums for reissue by Sony Music and working with younger bands such as the Libertines and Babyshambles.

Listen to the Clash’s “London Calling,” a classic recording Price engineered