Eddie Kramer was born on April 19, 1942, in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a recording producer and engineer. Kramer has collaborated with several artists now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. These include The Beatles, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, The Kinks, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Carlos Santana.
Kramer has engineered and/or produced records for other well-known artists in various genres. They include Anthrax, Joe Cocker, Peter Frampton, John Mayall, Mott the Hoople, John Sebastian, Carly Simon, The Small Faces, Dionne Warwick and Whitesnake.
Kramer's movie soundtrack credits include Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight, Festival Express, Jimi Plays Monterey, Jimi Plays Berkeley, Live at the Fillmore East, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, The Pursuit of Happiness, Rainbow Bridge, The Song Remains the Same, and Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More. Kramer is interviewed extensively in Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train a Comin,' a two-hour American Masters documentary which debuted in November of 2013.
He is also a photographer who has exhibited a number of his intimate images of performers, particularly Hendrix, with whom he worked on Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, Electric Ladyland, Band of Gypsys, and The Cry of Love, as well as the posthumous Valleys of Neptune, People, Hell and Angels, Miami Pop Festival, and all other releases produced through Experience Hendrix, the organization formed by Hendrix's legitimate heirs. Kramer was born to art and music-loving parents Sonny and Minna Kramer, active opponents of apartheid who left South Africa in favor of London in the early 1960s for political reasons. At age four he began studying the piano. That instrument remained his first love, but he also dabbled with the violin and the cello. He studied classical piano at the South African College of Music. During these studies he became fascinated with jazz and rock, much to his father's chagrin. Kramer moved to London at age 19, some six months after his parents' relocating there. There, in the primordial part of his recording and engineering career, he recorded jazz groups in a home studio with primitive recording equipment, installed hi-fi equipment in antique furniture, and installed album playback systems for the Soho Record Centre, the preeminent London record store chain of the day.
1960s
Kramer got his first industry job at age 20, in 1962 at Advision Studios. A year later he was hired by Pye Studios, where he frequently assisted on mobile recordings of classical works. He also assisted on Pye Studios recordings by the Kinks, The Searchers, The Undertakers, Petula Clark, and Sammy Davis Jr. In 1964 he founded KPS Studios, a mono and two-track facility which was acquired in 1965 by Regent Sound, where the Rolling Stones had recorded their first album. Regent then tasked Kramer to help build and run their new four-track studio. The Beatles had recorded Fixing a Hole there, later to be featured on their 1967 album Sergeant Pepper. Kramer engineered two Beatles hit singles which appeared on Magical Mystery Tour, All You Need is Love and Baby You're a Rich Man. These were cut at Olympic Studios, where, in 1967, Kramer engineered albums for the Rolling Stones, Small Faces, Traffic, and Jimi Hendrix.
Kramer instantly became a permanent part of Hendrix's creative process, collaborating on the four albums the guitarist released before his passing in 1970.
In 1968 Kramer relocated to New York, primarily to continue working with Hendrix. Headquartered first at The Record Plant and later working as an independent producer and engineer, Kramer produced the first Johnny Winter album and engineered a sequence of five Led Zeppelin albums, beginning with Led Zeppelin II.
In the summer of 1969 Kramer decamped to the Woodstock Festival, where he and his crew recorded the entire festival in a harried, sleepless, three-day binge. It required vitamin B shots for stamina, and was interspersed with brilliant performances from several of rock's then-reigning acts, as documented in both the film, Woodstock, and the three-disc album Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More.
1970s
Kramer began the second decade of his career working alongside architect John Storyk to oversee creation of Jimi Hendrix's state-of-the-art studio, Electric Lady Studios, built and equipped for a then-astonishing $1 million. He served as Director of Engineering there from 1970 to 1974, producing Carly Simon's debut solo album, Carly Simon, as well as albums for Sha Na Na and Peter Frampton, and also engineering albums for Lena Horne, Dionne Warwick, and David Bowie, David Live and Young Americans. (The latter featured rhythm guitar from John Lennon on its Number One hit, "Fame".)
In 1971 he mixed Humble Pie's double album Performance Rockin' the Fillmore, featuring Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton, still Larry Corryell's Barefoot Boy, his first and only album for Flying Dutchman label, and Curtis Mayfield's double album Curtis/Live!, his first release after leaving The Impressions. In 1973 Kramer mixed Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy. In the same year he began a lengthy association with Kiss. Earlier he had produced a five-song demo that won their first recording contract. He eventually produced Alive II, Double Platinum, Rock and Roll Over, Love Gun, Alive III as well as member Ace Frehley's first solo album, Ace Frehley, which yielded a hit single, "New York Groove". Also in 1973 he engineered the live Derek and the Dominos album In Concert.
Kramer left Electric Lady Studios in 1975. Working independently, he engineered the Rolling Stones' Love You Live, Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti and The Song Remains the Same, and Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive!, the biggest-selling album of 1976, a 2-disc release that sold over 14 million. In the same year he mixed Bad Company's third album, Run with the Pack.
1980s to present
Kramer produced Buddy Guy, classical guitarist John Williams award-winning country group The Kentucky Headhunters, hard-core rockers and metalheads such as Fastway, and Anthrax. He produced Among the Living for Anthrax in 1987, which yielded a Top 10 single in the UK, "I Am the Man."
September 1992 saw the publication of a book co-authored by Kramer and John McDermott. Hendrix: Setting the Record Straight was built on Kramer's first-hand recollections of his years of friendship and collaboration with Hendrix, and augmented by fresh interviews with key musicians and other participants in the meteoric Hendrix career.
In 1993 Kramer produced and engineered Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix, featuring tracks by Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, The Cure, Buddy Guy, classical violinist Nigel Kennedy, Living Colour, jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, hip hop artists P.M. Dawn, Spin Doctors, and others. The album raised three-quarters of a million dollars for music and dance scholarships (Berklee College of Music, the Juilliard School, and Dance Theatre of Harlem), administered by the United Negro College Fund.
In 1994 Kramer released a two-part video series entitled Adventures in Modern Recording, utilizing interviews with Les Paul, the seminal guitarist as well as pioneer of both electric guitar development and modern recording techniques such as multi- tracking and looping. In the same year Kramer produced the Spin Doctor's single for Woodstock '94, as well as Buddy Guy's Slippin' In the 1995 Grammy winner for Best Blues Album and winner of the W.C. Handy Award for Album of the Year in 1996. Buddy Guy and the Saturday Nite Live Band with G.E. Smith, also produced by Kramer, was a 1996 Grammy nominee.
At the time of his death, Jimi Hendrix had a considerable backlog of material recorded in anticipation of future album releases. In a multi-million-dollar lawsuit which concluded in 1995, the heirs of Jimi Hendrix won back the rights to his voluminous recordings.[3] Since then, Kramer has served as co-producer of all Hendrix releases.
Kramer produced a second Hendrix tribute album in 1995, In From the Storm. Its extremely diverse artists' roster included the London Metropolitan Orchestra, Toots Thielemans, Carlos Santana, Robben Ford, Taj Mahal, Sting, Steve Vai, Buddy Miles, Brian May, and Bootsy Collins. In 1997 he was the producer of Now, the third Paul Rogers studio album. He won a 1999 Grammy award for his audio production on the video for Jimi Hendrix's live album Band of Gypsys. Kramer collected another Grammy in 2002 for engineering a single entitled The Game of Love, with Carlos Santana and vocal by Michelle Branch. The track also won a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
In 2004, Kramer had several Hendrix-related projects, including helping DigiTech design and create an effects pedal which emulates characteristically Hendrixian guitar sounds. He also remastered Hendrix albums for Classic Vinyl, and remixed Woodstock, a posthumous live release, in 5.1 surround sound. Concerning his remastering work, Kramer told Guitar Player magazine, "I was able to really enhance and improve upon the actual sound, so if the original sound was good I was able to make it even better. I gave it a more full-bodied sound. I was able to improve some of the dynamics. Of course this is made possible by new technologies and equipment." Kramer specifically credited modern monitors, which provide abundant high-end detail, making it clear where various instruments are within the stereo image.
In 2005 Kramer reunited with architect John Storyk to design Anacapa Studios in Malibu, California. In the same year, Kramer remastered the Woodstock video footage of Jimi Hendrix for DVD release, revealing a fuller perspective of the guitarist's performance.
Again working with Digitech, Kramer helped design and create a Brian May guitar effects pedal in 2006. Also that year, galleries in Santa Monica, California, Hollywood, California, and Rotterdam exhibited Kramer's photographs of rock stars performing, recording, and in candid moments.
Gallery photographic exhibitions in 2007 included Santa Fe, New Mexico and Beverly Hills, California. Kramer also remixed Evil Ways a previously unreleased live Santana track from Woodstock, in 2007, for the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. In 2008 Kramer mixed tracks for the Jimi Hendrix avatar (a character that a game player can use as an alter ego) Activision's Guitar Hero. He also engineered and mixed a 2008 album with Joey Santiago and Dave Lovering of the Pixies.
Kramer again exhibited photos in 2009, at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in Manhattan, as well as a newly-opened branch Morrison Hotel Gallery in Del Mar, California. He was filmed and interviewed in 2009 for a BBC documentary about Sir George Martin, producer of all but one of the Beatles' album releases. In that same year he remixed the posthumously-released Band of Gypsys Live at the Fillmore East, along with albums by Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Santana, and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Waves Audio, a producer of software for audio engineers, released the Eddie Kramer Collection in 2009, a set of five plug ins for replicating Kramer's studio touch in recording guitar, drums, vocals, bass, and special effects.
A 2010 exhibit at San Francisco Art Exchange displayed Kramer's photos of Hendrix and other rock luminaries. During this year he also remixed Cheap Sunglasses, a re- make of a ZZ Top single by the Australian hard rock band Wolfmother. In 2010, in conjunction with John McDermott and the Hendrix family's organization, Experience Hendrix, Kramer prepared Valleys of Neptune, an album of previously-unreleased Hendrix performances.
Kramer was chosen to be a presenter at the 2011 Grammy Technical Awards. Also in 2011 he recorded preeminent pedal steel blues/gospel guitarist Robert Randolph and the Family Band on his album entitled Lickety Split, and Carlos Santana, a guest star on two of the album's tracks, as well as completing and further mixes of Hendrix recordings in 5.1 Surround Sound. 2011 also saw the release of three more Kramer plug-ins for Wave, Kramer Master Tape, the Kramer HLS Channel, and the Kramer Pie Compressor.
In 2012 he did further sessions with Randolph, and Buddy Guy, and produced and engineered tracks for Acoustic Generations, a Hendrix tribute album featuring contemporary acoustic remakes of Hendrix songs. Still in progress, the project will have contributions from Brandi Carlile, Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Jason Mraz, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Billy Gibbons, Rafael Saadiq, Heart, and Crosby and Nash.
Kramer's activities in 2013 included introducing three Eddie Kramer Signature guitar effects pedals from F-Pedals, with partner Francesco Sondelli at the NAMM Show (National Association of Music Merchants), and also consulting with former Doors guitarist Robby Krieger on a new recording studio. Kramer also worked again with Robert Randolph in recording a "sacred steel" band for a 2013 release called Robert Randolph Presents: The Slide Brothers. March 5, 2013, was the release date of People, Hell and Angels, a collection of 12 songs which Jimi Hendrix had planned for his follow-up to Electric Ladyland. Tracks that comprise "People, Hell & Angels" were recorded in 1968-69, following the breakup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The backing musicians include Buddy Miles and Billy Cox, later to become Hendrix's Band of Gypsies, and Stephen Stills on bass. Somewhere, a single released from the album, reached Number One on the Billboard Hot Singles Sales Chart. November 2013 saw the release of the Hendrix documentary Hear My Train A Comin', and another Hendrix live album, Miami Pop Festival.
"Jimi utilized the studio as a rehearsal space", Kramer has said, addressing the wealth of posthumous material left by the guitar great, and why he remains a vital figure to generations born since his passing. "Thank God he did." Kramer has described Hendrix as "Very sharp, very focused, very funny, very shy, totally dedicated to his music and his art. He was such a complete human being with such far-reaching intellect." Kramer places Hendrix among Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Louis Armstrong. "He really is in that league", Kramer says, "because his individuality was so strong and his message was so strong and his mastery of his instrument was so complete. He was a maverick. He broke a lot of barriers, musically and in every way." "Tastes and sounds may change", echoes Chris Talbott of the Associated Press, "but Hendrix always remains close at hand".
Continuing his involvement with cutting-edge technologies, Kramer is working with Digital Theatre Systems (DTS) in the development of Headphone: X, an app which replicates 5.1, 7.1, and 11.1 Surround Sound in any type of headphone.
Kramer is also a frequent lecturer at La Fabrique Studios in Saint Remy de Provence, home of Mix with the Masters, week-long seminars and workshops in which younger recording and mixing engineers wishing to improve their skills work closely with veteran producers, engineers and mixers.
In May 2014 in Genoa, at the FIM, Fiera Internazionale della Musica, Kramer obtained from the director of the event Verdiano Vera, the FIM Award 2014 - Legend of Rock - Best Studio Sound Engineer and announced the forthcoming publication of his memoir, From the other side of the glass.
