Variety reports that Tom Wilson (one of music’s legendary producers), who died back in 1978 at the age of 47 is going to be the subject of a new documentary. Wilson was actually the producer of Bob Dylan’s three defining early albums (as well as “Like a Rolling Stone”), the first two Velvet Underground albums, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s debut Freak Out! and pivotal music by jazz legends Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor (including tracks with John Coltrane), among many others.
The Wilson documentary will be titled Tom Wilson: Lost in Transition and it’s an estate-authorized documentary from Pfonetic producing duo Greg Richling and Jonathan Sheldon (Immediate Family, Swing State), along with Peabody Award-winning film producer Bob L. Johnson (Rodney King, A Huey P. Newton Story), and Tom Wilson III.
He was even the man who in 1965 overdubbed a folk-rock backing onto a song he’d recorded the previous year by an acoustic duo who had already split up and were living on different continents — that would be Simon & Garfunkel — resulting in the smash hit that ignited their career, “Sounds of Silence” (the duo quickly reunited and hastily recorded a new album). He also produced key songs by the Animals (the classic “Don’t Bring Me Down”), Nico, Soft Machine, Donald Byrd, Art Blakey, Hugh Masekela, Gil Scott-Heron, Blues Project, and others — and yet only serious music geeks have the faintest idea who he was.
Said Greg Richling, film producer and Grammy-winning artist, “Tom Wilson’s many accomplishments as a music producer should have made him a household name with famed producers such as George Martin, Quincy Jones, and Jerry Wexler. Our film will make sure that happens.”
