Popular record producer, Bob Johnston, who was best known for producing Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" and Johnny Cash's "At Folsom Prison," died on Aug. 14, Friday, in Gallatin at a Nashville hospice. He was 83.
The veteran record producer was shifted to hospice facility a week ago where he succumbed to the heart failure. He is survived by his wife, a son and three grandchildren.
Born and brought up in a professional musical family, Johnston produced his early work as a songwriter and rockabilly singer by collaborating with his mother. He first saw the limelight after he produced the hit single, "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte," for Patti Page in 1965 and eventually gained the assignment to produce Bob Dylan and other bigger artists of the time including Simon, Johnny Cash, Flatt & Scruggs and Leonard Cohen.
Around the same time, Johnston began collaborating with Joy Byers, the popular songwriter who had famously contributed in more than a dozen songs for Elvis Presley, and later married her, New York Times reported.
After producing several hit albums as a staff member of Columbia Records, Johnston became an independent producer in 1972 and immediately produced the Lindisfarne's chart topping number, "Fog On Tyne." In the 1970s, he worked with several artists such as Billy Joe Shaver on "When I Get My Wings", Doug Kershaw on "Louisiana Man," Jimmy Cliff on "Give Thankx" and John Mayall on "Bottom Line."
In the 1990s, the veteran record producer worked on the tribute album, "Go Cat Go!," with rockabilly singer Carl Perkins and a slew of other artists such as George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash and Simon, Rolling Stone reported.