Nick Venet was an American record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 who began his career at age 19 with World Pacific Jazz

Pacific Jazz Records

Pacific Jazz Records was a Los Angeles-based record label best known for releasing cool jazz or West coast jazz. It was founded by Richard Bock and drummer Roy Harte in 1952....

. He is primarily known for signing the Beach Boys and producing their early material.

Career

He was Mentored by Lee Gillette, John Hammond

John H. Hammond

John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...

, and Richard Bach

Richard Bach

Richard David Bach is an American writer. He is widely known as the author of the hugely popular 1970s best-sellers Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, and others. His books espouse his philosophy that our apparent physical limits and mortality are merely...

, he worked with such notables as Chet Baker

Chet Baker

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...

, Lord Buckley

Lord Buckley

Lord Richard Buckley was an American stage performer, recording artist, monologist, and hip poet/comic...

, Nat "King" Cole, Stan Getz

Stan Getz

Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...

, Chico Hamilton

Chico Hamilton

Chico Hamilton , is an American jazz drummer and bandleader.-Early life through 1960s:Hamilton was born in Los Angeles, California. He had a fast-track musical education in a band with Charles Mingus, Illinois Jacquet, Ernie Royal, Dexter Gordon, Buddy Collette and Jack Kelso...

, Stan Kenton

Stan Kenton

Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....

, Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress in a career spanning six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and...

, Gerry Mulligan

Gerry Mulligan

Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophonists in jazz history – playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz – he was also...

, Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...

, and Kay Starr

Kay Starr

Kay Starr is an American pop and jazz singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940s and 50s. She is best remembered for introducing two songs that became #1 hits in the 1950s, "Wheel of Fortune" and "The Rock And Roll Waltz"....

. At 21 he joined Capitol records

Capitol Records

Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

, giving them their first hits in a decade with The Lettermen

The Lettermen

The Lettermen are an American male pop music vocal trio. The Lettermen's trademark is close-harmony pop songs with light arrangements. The group started in 1959...

. As well as being a producer, he was head of A&R

A&R

Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...

 at Capitol.

Venet created the "Produced By" credit on singles and albums and started album liner notes for crediting individual performers, musicians, and engineers of pop and rock records. Venet is primarily known for signing the Beach Boys and producing their early material. Nik produced a number of other important Capitol clients, including Ray Anthony

Ray Anthony

Ray Anthony is an American bandleader, trumpeter, songwriter and actor.- Biography :...

, The Buddies, Glen Campbell

Glen Campbell

Glen Travis Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.During his 50 years in show...

, Cashman, Pistilli, and West, Jim Croce

Jim Croce

James Joseph "Jim" Croce January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973 was an American singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and 11 singles...

, Ingrid Croce

Ingrid Croce

Ingrid Croce is an American author, singer-songwriter and restaurateur. She is the widow of singer-songwriter Jim Croce and the mother of singer-songwriter A.J. Croce. Between 1964 and 1971, Ingrid and Jim Croce performed as a duo and wrote together. In 1969, Capitol Records released their album,...

, King Curtis

King Curtis

Curtis Ousley , who performed under the stage name King Curtis, was an American saxophone virtuoso known for rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, funk and soul jazz. Variously a bandleader, band member, and session musician, he was also a musical director and record producer...

, Karen Dalton

Karen Dalton

Karen J. Dalton was an American folk blues singer and banjo player associated with the early 1960s Greenwich Village folk music scene, particularly with Fred Neil and the Holy Modal Rounders as well as Bob Dylan.-Biography:Dalton, whose heritage was Cherokee, was born Karen J. Cariker in Enid,...

, Bobby Darin

Bobby Darin

Bobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...

, the Four Preps

The Four Preps

The Four Preps are an American popular music male quartet. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the group amassed eight gold singles and three gold albums...

, George Gerdes, Jimmie Haskell, Hearts & Flowers

Hearts & Flowers

Hearts & Flowers was a Los Angeles folk-rock club band, perhaps most significant as one of the groups that launched the career of Eagles' founding member and guitarist-songwriter, Bernie Leadon. The lineup included Larry Murray , Dave Dawson and Rick Cunha . Leadon replaced Cunha on their second...

 with Bernie Leadon

Bernie Leadon

Bernard Mathew "Bernie" Leadon, III is an American musician and songwriter, best known as a founding member of the Eagles. Prior to the Eagles, he was a member of two pioneering and highly influential country rock bands, Dillard & Clark and the Flying Burrito Brothers...

, Hedge and Donna, The Hondells

The Hondells

The Hondells were an American surf rock band who hit the Top 10 with the 1964 single "Little Honda"."Little Honda", written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love of The Beach Boys, was inspired by the popularity of Honda motor bikes in Southern California during the early 1960s. The band recorded the song...

, the Honeys

The Honeys

The Honeys were a 1960s girl group, who recorded for Capitol Records, and were a kind of female counterpart to the Beach Boys; Beach Boy Brian Wilson served as their record producer and chief songwriter....

, the Kingston Trio

The Kingston Trio

The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds...

, The Leaves

The Leaves

The Leaves were an American garage band formed in California in 1963. They are best known for their version of the song "Hey Joe", which was a hit in 1966. Theirs is the earliest release of this song, which became a rock standard.-History:...

, Lothar and the Hand People

Lothar and the Hand People

Lothar and the Hand People was a late-1960s psychedelic rock band known for its spacey music and pioneering use of the theremin and Moog modular synthesizer....

, Mad River

Mad River (band)

Mad River was an American psychedelic rock band.Mad River formed at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in April 1966. The band took its name from the nearby Mad River. By March 1967 they had relocated to Berkeley, California. There they came to the attention of cult author Richard Brautigan...

, Maffit & Davies, Ian Matthews

Iain Matthews

Iain Matthews is an English musician and songwriter. He was born Iain Matthew McDonald, in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. He was known in the 1960s first as Ian McDonald, then as the 1960s progressed, as Ian Matthews...

 and Matthews Southern Comfort, Onzie Matthews, Les McCann

Les McCann

Les McCann is an American soul jazz piano player and vocalist whose biggest successes came as a crossover artist into R&B and soul.-Biography:...

, Fred Neil

Fred Neil

Fred Neil was an American folk singer-songwriter in the 1960s and early 1970s. He did not achieve commercial success as a performer, and is mainly known through other people's recordings of his material – particularly "Everybody's Talkin'", which became a hit for Harry Nilsson after being...

, Vince Martin

Vince Martin (singer)

Vince Martin is an American folk singer and songwriter.He first recorded with the Tarriers in 1957, on the hit single Cindy, Oh Cindy. He became more widely known with his duo recordings with Fred Neil in the early 1960s...

, Rick Nelson, Dinsmore Payne, Lou Rawls

Lou Rawls

Louis Allen "Lou" Rawls was an American soul, jazz, and blues singer. He was known for his smooth vocal style: Frank Sinatra once said that Rawls had "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game"...

, Billy Lee Riley

Billy Lee Riley

Billy Lee Riley was an American rockabilly musician, singer, record producer and songwriter. His most memorable recordings included "Rock With Me Baby," and "Red Hot".-Biography:...

, Murray Roman

Murray Roman

Murray Roman was an American stand-up comedian whose career was cut short by a car crash. Many consider his style, and material, to be similar to Lenny Bruce.-Biography:He was Keith Moon's favorite comedian...

, Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...

, Jack Scott, Maxine Sellers, Serendipity Singers, John Stewart, the Stone Poneys, Allan Taylor, Guthrie Thomas, The Vettes, Wendy Waldman, The Walker Brothers

The Walker Brothers

The Walker Brothers were an American 1960s and 1970s pop group, comprising Scott Engel , John Walker , and Gary Leeds...

, Sammy Walker

Sammy Walker

Sammy Walker is an American singer-songwriter. Influenced by the folk and country sounds of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams, Walker emerged in the mid 1970s with two albums for the Folkways label and two albums for Warner Brothers...

, and Timi Yuro

Timi Yuro

Timi Yuro was an American soul and R&B singer. She is considered to be one of the first blue-eyed soul stylists of the rock era.-Early years:...

.

He created spoken word albums such as John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks, the Odyssey Theater Players in The Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Carl Reiner

Carl Reiner

Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...

 & Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...

' 2000 Year Old Man series, and Orson Welles

Orson Welles

George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

' Begatting of the President. When Capitol Vice President Alan W. Livingston

Alan W. Livingston

Alan Wendell Livingston , born Alan Wendell Levison, was an American businessman best known for his tenures at Capitol Records, first as a writer/producer best-known for creating Bozo the Clown for a series of record-album and illustrative read-along children's book sets, then as the executive who...

 left to start Mediarts Records

Mediarts Records

Mediarts Records was a small record label founded by former Capitol Records executive Alan W. Livingston and producer Nik Venet. The label's first release was Dory Previn with 'On My Way To Where' Other artists signed on the label were e.g. Don McLean, Paul Anka, Odia Coates, Bill Conti, The Hello...

, he took Venet with him. There Venet produced Dory Previn

Dory Previn

Dory Previn, née Dorothy Veronica Langan , is an American lyricist, singer-songwriter and poet.During the late 1950s and 1960s she was a lyricist for motion picture songs, and with her first husband André Previn received several Academy Award nominations...

 and Don McLean

Don McLean

Donald "Don" McLean is an American singer-songwriter. He is most famous for the 1971 album American Pie, containing the renowned songs "American Pie" and "Vincent".-Musical roots:...

. He stayed on a few years when the company was sold to United Artists

United Artists

United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

. He also recorded such luminaries as Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke

Samuel Cook, , better known under the stage name Sam Cooke, was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and...

 and the Pilgrim Travelers

Pilgrim Travelers

The Pilgrim Travelers were a gospel group popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s.-Musical career:Formed in the early 1930s in Houston, Texas, they were strongly influenced by another Texas-based quartet, the Soul Stirrers...

, Ivory Joe Hunter

Ivory Joe Hunter

Ivory Joe Hunter was an American rhythm and blues singer, songwriter, and pianist. After a series of hits on the US R&B chart starting in the mid 1940s, he became more widely known for his hit recording, "Since I Met You Baby" . He was billed as The Baron of the Boogie, and also known as The...

, Sarah Kernochan

Sarah Kernochan

Sarah Kernochan is a documentarian, film director, screenwriter and producer from the United States.After graduating in 1965 from Rosemary Hall , where she was a classmate of Glenn Close, and in 1968 from Sarah Lawrence College, she worked as a ghostwriter for The Village Voice for about a year...

, Vince Martin

Vince Martin (singer)

Vince Martin is an American folk singer and songwriter.He first recorded with the Tarriers in 1957, on the hit single Cindy, Oh Cindy. He became more widely known with his duo recordings with Fred Neil in the early 1960s...

 and the Tarriers

The Tarriers

The Tarriers were an American vocal group, specializing in folk music and folk-flavored popular music. Named after the folk song "Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill", and founded in 1956 by Erik Darling, Alan Arkin, and Bob Carey, the group had two hit songs during 1956-57: "Cindy, Oh Cindy" and "The...

, the Nashville Street Singers, Ted Neeley

Ted Neeley

Ted Neeley is a rock and roll drummer, singer, actor, composer, and record producer. He is probably best known for performing the title role in the film Jesus Christ Superstar in 1973....

, Wayne Newton

Wayne Newton

Wayne Newton is an American singer and entertainer based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He performed over 30,000 solo shows in Las Vegas over a period of over 40 years, earning him the nicknames The Midnight Idol, Mr. Las Vegas and Mr. Entertainment...

, Jack Nitzche, Shorty Rogers

Shorty Rogers

Milton “Shorty” Rogers , born Milton Rajonsky in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played both the trumpet and flugelhorn, and was in demand for his skills as an arranger. Rogers worked first as a professional musician with Will Bradley and...

, Bonnie Murray Tamblyn, Harriet Schock

Harriet Schock

Harriet Schock is an American singer, songwriter, teacher, author, and actress. She made three albums for a major label in the 70s, scoring gold and platinum awards for her Grammy-nominated Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady, before moving into teaching and soundtrack work, and then resuming an ongoing...

, Gene Vincent

Gene Vincent

Vincent Eugene Craddock , known as Gene Vincent, was an American musician who pioneered the styles of rock and roll and rockabilly. His 1956 top ten hit with his Blue Caps, "Be-Bop-A-Lula", is considered a significant early example of rockabilly...

, Waddy Wachtel

Waddy Wachtel

Robert "Waddy" Wachtel is an American musician, composer and record producer, most notable for his guitar work...

, Clara Ward

Clara Ward

Clara Ward was an American gospel artist who achieved great success, both artistic and commercial, in the 1940s and 1950s as leader of The Famous Ward Singers....

, Sarah Kim Wilde, Bobby Womack

Bobby Womack

Robert Dwayne "Bobby" Womack is an American singer-songwriter and musician. An active recording artist since the early 1960s where he started his career as the lead singer of his family musical group The Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career has spanned more than 40...

, and Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...

. He also produced the original cast albums for the Broadway musical Salvation

Salvation

Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...

and the off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 hit The Last Session

The Last Session

The Last Session is an off-Broadway musical about a singer/songwriter who has decided to commit suicide to end his battle with AIDS, but only after one last recording session in the studio.-Overview:...

by Steve Schalchlin

Steve Schalchlin

Steve Schalchlin is an American songwriter, actor and musician. He is widely regarded as one of the first HIV/AIDS bloggers, beginning his in 1996 to keep family and friends updated on his failing health. When he responded well to a last ditch effort in treatment by his doctor, he found out that...

 - ironically, Venet's last session.

His name is listed in the music credits for the 1965 skateboard film, Skaterdater.

Later life and death

He later changed his name to Nik Venet in honor of his grandfather. He died on 2 January 1998 of Burkitt's lymphoma

Burkitt's lymphoma

Burkitt's lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system...

. He is survived by his filmmaker son, Nik Venet III.

External links