Richard L. Shurman (born May 23, 1950) is an American

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

sound engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...

music journalist Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

music historian Music history, sometimes called historical musicology, is a highly diverse subfield of the broader discipline of musicology that studies music from a historical point of view. In theory, "music history" could refer to the study of the history o ...

, and backing vocalist. He has produced numerous recordings by notable musicians including

Johnny Winter John Dawson Winter III (February 23, 1944 – July 16, 2014) was an American singer and guitarist. Winter was known for his high-energy blues rock albums and live performances in the late 1960s and 1970s. He also produced three Grammy Award-win ...

Lurrie Bell Lurrie Bell (born Lurrie C. Bell, December 13, 1958, Chicago, Illinois, United States) is an American blues guitarist and singer. His father was renowned blues harmonica player Carey Bell. Career Bell started playing guitar at the age of six ...

, Eddie C. Campbell,

Albert Collins Albert Gene Drewery, known as Albert Collins and the Ice Man (October 1, 1932 – November 24, 1993),Skeely, Richard. "Albert Collins: Biography" Allmusic.com. was an American electric blues guitarist and singer with a distinctive guitar style. ...

, Little Smokey Smothers,

Jody Williams Jody Williams (born October 9, 1950) is an American political activist known for her work in banning anti-personnel landmines, her defense of human rights (especially those of women), and her efforts to promote new understandings of security i ...

Roy Buchanan Leroy "Roy" Buchanan (September 23, 1939 – August 14, 1988) was an American guitarist and blues musician. A pioneer of the Telecaster sound, Buchanan worked as a sideman and as a solo artist, with two gold albums early in his career and two lat ...

Big Bill Morganfield William "Big Bill" Morganfield (born June 19, 1956) is an American blues singer and guitarist, who is the son of legendary McKinley Morganfield, also known as Muddy Waters. Biography Morganfield was born in Chicago, Illinois. He had little cont ...

Larry Garner Larry Garner (born July 8, 1952 in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States) is a Louisiana blues musician best known for his 1994 album ''Too Blues''., quote: " One music journalist noted "If you define 'blues' by the rigid categories of structur ...

Robert Cray Robert William Cray (born August 1, 1953) is an American blues guitarist and singer. He has led his own band and won five Grammy Awards. Early life Robert Cray was born on August 1, 1953, in Columbus, Georgia, while his father was stationed at ...

Hip Linkchain Willie Richard (November 10, 1936 – February 13, 1989), who performed as Hip Linkchain, was an American Chicago blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. His best-known numbers were "Change My Blues" and "That Will Never Do". AllMusic describe ...

Magic Slim Morris Holt (August 7, 1937 – February 21, 2013), known as Magic Slim, was an American blues singer and guitarist. Born at Torrance, near Grenada, Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers, he followed blues greats such as Muddy Waters and How ...

Charlie Musselwhite Charles Douglas Musselwhite (born January 31, 1944) is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the white bluesmen who came to prominence, along with Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop, as a pivotal f ...

Otis Rush Otis Rush Jr. (April 29, 1934 – September 29, 2018) was an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter. His distinctive guitar style featured a slow-burning sound and long bent notes. With qualities similar to the styles of other 1950s art ...

Johnny Heartsman John Leroy "Johnny" Heartsman (February 9, 1936 – December 27, 1996) was an American electric blues and soul blues musician and songwriter. He showed musical diversity, playing a number of musical instruments, including the electronic organ an ...

, and Fenton Robinson. Shurman has also written many

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are desce ...

, and is the publisher of ''Chicago Blues News''. In 2005, he was the recipient of the

Blues Foundation The Blues Foundation is an American nonprofit corporation, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, that is affiliated with more than 175 blues organizations from various parts of the world. Founded in 1980, a 25-person board of directors governs the ...

's "Keeping the Blues Alive" award. He co-produced ''

Showdown! ''Showdown!'' is a collaborative blues album by guitarists Albert Collins, Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland, released in 1985 through Alligator Records. The album is mostly made of original material, with cover versions of songs like T-Bone Walk ...

'', an album which won a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

for

Best Traditional Blues Album The Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album was awarded from 1983 to 2011 and from 2017 onwards. Until 1992 the award was known as Best Traditional Blues Performance and was twice awarded to individual tracks rather than albums. The award w ...

in 1987. Shurman was inducted into the

Blues Hall of Fame The Blues Hall of Fame is a music museum located at 421 S. Main Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Initially, the "Blues Hall of Fame" was not a physical building, but a listing of people who have significantly contributed to blues music. Started in 1 ...

in 2014 for his multitudinous contributions as a 'non-performer'.

Biography

Shurman was born in

Los Alamos, New Mexico Los Alamos is an census-designated place in Los Alamos County, New Mexico, United States, that is recognized as the development and creation place of the atomic bomb—the primary objective of the Manhattan Project by Los Alamos National Labora ...

, United States, and later resided in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

and

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

, before relocating to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

after his father secured employment with

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

. There he befriended a number of blues musicians, and started writing articles for the British magazine, '' Blues Unlimited''. Shurman first attended the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in September 1968. Fearing that his continual attendance at local blues clubs may harm his education, he enrolled at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

, earning a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

library science Library science (often termed library studies, bibliothecography, and library economy) is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and ...

that enabled him to begin full-time employment in a suburban library back in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. He continued to work full-time in a succession of library jobs. His occasional writing work led Shurman to interview musicians such as Albert Collins, Otis Rush, Jody Williams, Johnny Heartsman, and Lee "Shot" Williams. Shurman befriended many blues figures including

Earl Hooker Earl Zebedee Hooker (January 15, 1930 – April 21, 1970) was a Chicago blues guitarist known for his slide guitar playing. Considered a "musician's musician", he performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, and ...

and Johnny Heartsman. His involvement in, and passion for

Chicago blues Chicago blues is a form of blues music developed in Chicago, Illinois. It is based on earlier blues idioms, such as Delta blues, but performed in an urban style. It developed alongside the Great Migration of the first half of the twentieth cent ...

, led Shurman into record production work. His most successful period was with

Alligator Records Alligator Records is an American, Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971. Iglauer was also one of the founders of the ''Living Blues'' magazine in Chicago in 1970. History Iglauer started the label using hi ...

, often working alongside the label's founder

Bruce Iglauer Bruce Iglauer (born July 10, 1947) is an American businessman and record producer who founded Alligator Records as an independent record label featuring blues music. Early life and career Iglauer was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States ...

on production duties. Albert Collins was signed by Alligator Records in 1978, on the recommendation of Shurman, whom Collins had met in Seattle.''Albert Collins - Vital Blues Guitar Series''. Transcriptions: Richard DeVinck. Creative Concepts Publishing (California) 1994. . His first release for the label was ''Ice Pickin (1978), which was recorded at Curtom Studios, Chicago, and produced by Iglauer, Shurman and Richard McLeese. Shurman co-produced the album ''

'', with Iglauer, which won a

for

in 1987. Shurman has contributed to various publications, including ''

Living Blues ''Living Blues: The Magazine of the African American Blues Tradition'' is a bi-monthly magazine focused on blues music, and America's oldest blues periodical. The magazine was founded as a quarterly in Chicago in 1970 by Jim O'Neal and Amy van ...

'', ''

Juke Blues ''Juke Blues'' is a British magazine covering blues, R&B, gospel, soul, zydeco and jazz. It was established in 1985 in London by Cilla Huggins, John Broven and Bez Turner, and is now published in Bath, Somerset, England. Cilla Huggins has been so ...

'' and ''

Block Magazine ''BLOCK Magazine'' is a quarterly magazine about the African-American blues tradition. It is the Netherlands' oldest blues periodical. The magazine was founded in Almelo, in the east of the Netherlands in 1975, by Rien and Marion Wisse. They fr ...

''. In 1997, Shurman jointly compiled and wrote the liner notes for

Sonny Boy Williamson II Alex or Aleck Miller (originally Ford, possibly December 5, 1912 – May 24, 1965), known later in his career as Sonny Boy Williamson, was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He was an early and influential blues harp st ...

compilation album A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several Performing arts#Performers, performers. If by one artist, then generally the tr ...

, '' His Best''. In 2000, Shurman gave encouragement to

to resume performing, and produced Williams' comeback album, ''Return of a Legend'' (2002), on which his bold playing belied his thirty-year break from music.Dahl, Bill (2002). ''Return Of A Legend'' D liner notes In 2010, following the death of Little Smokey Smothers, Shurman and Iglauer jointly penned an obituary which appeared in ''Living Blues''.Dick Shurman & Bruce Iglauer, Obituary in ''

'', no.70, 2010, p.60 In 2014, Shurman was inducted as a member of the

. Shurman has annotated many albums and contributed to chapters of books, feature articles and reviews, and for many years had a news column in ''Living Blues''. He is also a member of the

Chicago Blues Festival The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event held in June, that features three days of performances by top-tier blues musicians, both old favorites and the up-and-coming. It is hosted by the Chicago, Illinois, City of Chicago Department of Cu ...

Advisory Committee. His annotation work included the ten disc

box set A box set or (its original name) boxed set is a set of items (for example, a compilation of books, musical recordings, films or television programs) traditionally packaged in a box and offered for sale as a single unit. Music Artists and bands ...

, '' Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. B.B. King'' (2012). In addition he earlier penned the liner notes for

Howlin' Wolf Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910January 10, 1976), better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer and guitarist. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians of all time. Over a four-decade care ...

's 1991 compilation, ''The Chess Box''.

Selected record production and other work

References

External links

Dick Shurman discography credits at Discogs.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shurman, Dick 1950 births Living people Record producers from Illinois American photographers American writers about music American music historians American male non-fiction writers American music journalists American audio engineers American blues singers Chicago blues musicians 20th-century American musicians 21st-century American musicians University of Washington Information School alumni People from Los Alamos, New Mexico Engineers from Illinois Historians from Illinois