Snuff Garrett

Thomas Lesslie Garrett (July 5, 1938 – December 16, 2015) known as Snuff Garrett or Tommy Garrett, was an American record producer whose most famous work was during the 1960s and 1970s.

Early years

Garrett was born in Dallas, Texas, United States,^[1] and attended South Oak Cliff High School, dropping out in the 10th grade.^[2] In 1976, he returned to Dallas to receive a special high school diploma that conferred an "honorary music degree."^[3]

Biography

At seventeen, Garrett was a disc jockey in

In 1959, Garrett became a staff producer at Liberty Records in Hollywood, after having joined the label to work in the promotions department. Although not a musician, Garrett showed he had a knack for finding hit songs, going on to produce a string of hits and becoming the label's head of A&R until he left Liberty in 1966. His first job as producer for the label was on Johnny Burnette's "Settin' the Woods on Fire" on July 9, 1959. Among Garrett's roster of artists were Bobby Vee, Johnny Burnette, Gene McDaniels, Buddy Knox, Walter Brennan, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, and Del Shannon.^[5]

Garrett was invited early on to produce the Monkees before they had become a major selling act, but a test session did not go well, with the Monkees preferring to work with Boyce and Hart, writers of "Last Train to Clarksville" and the Monkees' theme song.

He was also responsible for hiring

Between 1961 and 1969, Garrett produced The 50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett, a series of over 25 instrumental albums on Liberty Records featuring solo guitar work by Tommy Tedesco, six of which appeared on the Billboard Top LPs chart.^[6]

In 1966, Garrett produced an album by singer-songwriter Sonny Curtis on the Viva label, The 1st of Sonny Curtis, which contains some of Curtis' most popular tunes, including "Walk Right Back" (an Everly Brothers hit). Other tracks that came out of this session are "My Way of Life", "Hung Up in Your Eyes", and "I Fought the Law and the Law Won".^{[citation needed]} In 1966–67, Garrett and J. J. Cale co-produced A Trip Down the Sunset Strip (attributed to the Leathercoated Minds), a compilation of psychedelic covers, together with four instrumentals of Cale's own composition.^[5]

In addition to his hits with Sonny & Cher for Kapp Records and MCA Records in the 1970s, Garrett also produced Vicki Lawrence's "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" for Bell Records (a song written by Lawrence's then-husband Bobby Russell), and Tanya Tucker's "Lizzie and the Rainman" for MCA. Both of these songs had been intended for Cher; but her husband and manager at the time, Sonny Bono, thought it might offend Cher's Southern fans.^[7] Other artists produced by Garrett in the 1970s included Brenda Lee and "singing cowboy" Roy Rogers. These recordings and others marked a shift by Garrett away from pop-rock toward the easy-listening "countrypolitan" sound.^{[citation needed]}

Garrett worked regularly with the

In 1976, when home video was in its infancy, Garrett bought cassette rights to the old

Garrett lived in Bell Canyon, California, in a ranch built for himself.^[9]

Death

Garrett died of cancer in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of 77.^[10]

Awards

Garrett was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame on November 14, 2015 in Austin, Texas.

References