Music Mavens Part One: Rick Rubin

It's awards season once again. Many of the big award shows are already over, such as the People's Choice Awards, The Golden Globes, The Screen Actor's Guild Awards, and the Oscars are a couple months away. This Sunday is the grand daddy of award shows for the music industry, The Grammys. So, over the next few days, we will have a 4-part series looking at some of the heavy hitters of the music industry.

You could say that Rick Rubin has the Midas touch. Many recordings he has worked on have turned out to be gems that have yielded gold or platinum records. In 1984 he co-founded Def Jam records with Russell Simmons. That label became the go-to company for hip hop stars. They signed Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, 3rd Bass and LL Cool J. Rubin has worked as a producer and/or composer for the hip hop artists as well as a variety of artists from all genres over the years. It seems like when a musical artist has a career that needs a shot in the arm, they call in Rick Rubin. He has worked with Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Slipknot, The Black Crowes, The Cult and many more. He has contributed songs to film soundtracks for Less Than Zero, Pump Up the Volume, Can't Hardly Wait, Friday Night Lights and many more. He has won 10 Grammy awards.

Here are just a few of the recordings he has worked on as a producer and/or composer.

Radio--- LL Cool J--- 1985
King of Rock--- Run-DMC--- 1985
Reign in Blood--- Slayer--- 1986
Raising Hell--- Run-DMC--- 1986
Licensed to Ill--- Beastie Boys--- 1986
Tougher Than Leather--- Run-DMC--- 1988
South of Heaven--- Slayer--- 1988
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back- Public Enemy- 1988
Root Down--- Beastie Boys--- 1995
System of a Down--- System of a Down--- 1998
Renegades--- Rage Against the Machine--- 2000
Audioslave--- Audioslave--- 2002
Neil Diamond--- 12 Songs--- 2005
Red Hot Chili Peppers--- Stadium Arcadium--- 2006
Johnny Cash--- American V--- 2006

Information from imdb.com, allmusic.com and http://top40.about.com/od/popmusicproducers/p/rickrubin.htm.