Shel Talmy, Producer for the Who and The Kinks, Dead at 87

Shel Talmy, the producer behind hits including the Kinks‘ “You Really Got Me” and the Who’s “My Generation,” died on Wednesday following complications from a stroke, a representative confirmed to Rolling Stone. He was 87.

Born in Chicago in 1937, Talmy first started working in the music industry in the late Fifties, moving out to London in 1962 to work at Decca Records. He started working with the Kinks in 1964, producing “You Really Got Me” that same year. He was a significant figure in the Who‘s early career, signing the band to his production company. He produced “I Can’t Explain,” the band’s first single under the Who moniker, as well as their signature song “My Generation.”

Rolling Stone ranked “My Generation” at Number 232 on its latest edition of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time List, while “Really Got Me” came in at 176.

Talmy had also worked with David Bowie early in his career. Other artists Talmy had produced for include Manfred Mann, The Easybeats, and The Small Faces. Talmy regularly worked with legendary producer and engineer Glyn Jons, and he hired Jimmy Page as a studio guitarist before he’d go onto his career with the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin. Talmy left London in 1979, returning to the U.S. and residing in Los Angeles, where he continued to work in music for the rest of his life.

“Shel Talmy was truly a one-off”, songwriter Alec Palao, who served as Talmy’s archivist and historian, said in a statement. “Even the briefest survey of the most essential pop and rock recordings of the 1960s would need to include something Shel produced, and that in itself is an incredibly meaningful legacy.”