Mark Kerner Abramson (March 16, 1934 – May 20, 2007) was an American

record producer A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...

and artist. He produced recordings of

Judy Collins Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning nearly seven decades. An Academy Awards, Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Awards, Grammy Award-winning rec ...

, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band,

Bob Gibson Robert Gibson (November 9, 1935October 2, 2020), nicknamed "Gibby" and "Hoot", was an American baseball pitcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1959 to 1975. Known for his fiercely competi ...

Love Love is a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment to a person, animal, or thing. It is expressed in many forms, encompassing a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most su ...

, Phil Ochs, Tom Rush, Judy Henske, Josh White, The Wackers and many other artists.

Career

Starting out as one of

Elektra Records Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the ...

' earliest producers in 1958, he learned audio engineering working closely with label founder Jac Holzman. In Holzman's history of Elektra ''Follow the Music'', he recalls Abramson's production work: "He had a natural musical and dramatic sense and absorbed the practical aspects of engineering rapidly. He was an artist himself, with an even temperament, able to get along very well with the artists, and he became a hybrid recording engineer/producer—our first." In addition to music production, Abramson directed art films and promotional music shorts of

and

The Doors The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, comprising vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most influential and controversial rock acts ...

. Notably, the films made for The Doors' "Break on Through" and "The Unknown Soldier" were early forerunners of the music video era and were shown at live concerts. After leaving Elektra, Abramson became more involved in the visual arts, and his photography, paintings and sculpture have been exhibited in numerous galleries. In his later years, he was Program Director for Family of Woodstock in

Woodstock, New York Woodstock is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, New York, Kingston. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The popula ...

. While filming his movie and unavailable as a record producer, Judy Collins took a sabbatical, waiting for her favorite producer to return.

Personal life and death

Abramson was married in 1967 to Janet (Janis) Young in a small country church near Philadelphia. Together they had two sons, Ethan and Jared. His wife was a stage, movie and television actress, appearing in ''The Boston Strangler'' with Tony Curtis- as the only potential victim to survive, and in ''Loving'', with George Segal, as his "adulterer partner". She was a regular on the NBC soap operas, ''Our Five Daughters'' and ''Another World''. They separated in the late 1970s, and Young went on to teach in the drama department at Bennington College for about two decades. Mark Abramson died in May 2007.

References

1934 births 2007 deaths Record producers from Massachusetts Elektra Records Nonesuch Records 20th-century American male artists Artists from Brookline, Massachusetts {{US-record-producer-stub