Steely Dan’s producer dies

Normally, the death of a recording engineer wouldn’t merit much comment.
In hi-fi circles, however, Roger Nichols is a legend.
The man who engineered Steely Dan albums Aja (’77) and Gaucho (’81) died of pancreatic cancer on April 9.
As we all know (I hope) those recordings set a new benchmark of sonic clarity in a multitrack environment, and they still get pulled out regularly in hi-fi demonstrations over 20 years later.
Nichols also worked with John Denver, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, Diana Ross, Rickie Lee Jones, the Beach Boys, Bela Fleck, Roseanne Cash and Rodney Crowell, amongst many others.
His earliest projects were with teenage chum Frank Zappa, while still at high school in Cucamonga.
Let’s hope there are enough apprentices in the art of sound to take up his mantle.