Richard Perry, the record producer behind smash hits such as You’re So Vain and The Great American Songbook series, passed away at the age of 82.
His friend Daphna Kastner confirmed to AP that the recipient of a Grammys Trustee Award in 2015 breathed his last at a Los Angeles hospital after falling into a cardiac arrest.
“He maximised his time here,” she told the outlet, adding, “He was generous, dun, sweet and made the world a better place.”
“The world is a little less sweeter without him here. But it’s a little bit sweeter in heaven,” Kastner says of the late legend who was godfather to her son.
Perry’s illustrious career, which spanned decades, included producing Ringo Starr’s album featuring all four Beatles and producing for Art Garfunkel, Barbara Streisand, Carly Simon, and Diana Ross in the 1970s.
Additionally, he is credited as a producer of Rod Stewart’s It Had To Be You: The Great American Songbook and has worked with acts such as Donna Summer, Julio Iglesias, Neil Diamond, and Randy Travis.
In the late 1970s, Perry started his own Planet Records label and signed The Cretones, Pointer Sisters, and Billy Thermal, among many others. However, he sold the label to RCA Records in 1983.
