The blockbuster biopic directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer, focuses on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a physicist who directed the Manhattan Project that led to the development of the atomic bomb.
One of the participants in the secretive research that informed the Manhattan Project would leave that career entirely and instead go on to become one of the most influential record producers, working alongside legendary musicians like The Allman Brothers Band, Aretha Franklin, John Coltrane and dozens of others.
Tom Dowd was born on October 20, 1925 in New York City. A biography published at the time the documentary film about his tremendous life, Tom Dowd And The Language of Music, established Dowd’s path from working on the Manhattan Project to making music:
Upon turning 18 years old, Tom was drafted into the military and immediately commanded the rank of sergeant. His assignment remained the same, though, continuing the secretive work in the physics labs of Columbia University. He operated a cyclotron, changed targets, performed density tests of different elements, and recorded statistics as part of the Neutron Beam Spectography division.
As much of this early nucleonic research was done in New York, the code name for this clandestine work was derived from the Manhattan Engineer District, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to which Tom was assigned. It was not until August of 1945, when an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, that the rest of the world first heard about the “Manhattan Project.”
With his knowledge of radiation exposure and detection devices, Tom was sent to monitor a pair of nuclear explosions in the Pacific before returning home to civilian life in 1946. Unable to get college credit for the highly “classified” work at Columbia, the frustrated young man took a summer job at a classical music recording studio. As fate would have it, a musician’s strike was looming, causing an onslaught of recording activity that initiated Tom into the recording industry.
In 1949, as he recalls, “The recording strike came and went and all of a sudden I received a call from National to do a new artist, Eileen Barton. We only recorded four sides, in one three-hour session, and I never saw the girl again. But, the first record they released was ‘If I Knew You Were Coming, I’d Have Baked A Cake’, which went on to be a monstrous hit.”
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Dowd went on to solidify himself at the forefront of music engineering, making advancements in stereo and other aspects of recording. Closely associated with Atlantic Records and often recording in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Dowd’s undeniably impressive resume reads like a who’s who of the most popular artists from across genres including the likes of Otis Redding, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Cream, Rod Stewart, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Dusty Springfield and many others.
Eric Clapton recorded with Dowd as a member of Cream and as a solo artist. Dowd produced the landmark Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs that Clapton recorded as Derek and The Dominos with The Allman Brothers Band guitarist Duane Allman.
Along with Layla, some of Dowd’s other impressive credits include engineering and/or producing Cream’s Disraeli Gears, The Allman Brothers Band’s Eat A Peach, Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” and Dusty Springfield’s Dusty In Memphis.
Tom Dowd was posthumously inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2012. Watch the Tom Dowd And The Language of Music trailer and the film’s scene featuring Dowd breaking down how he mixed “Layla”:
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Trailer
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Layla
