Nashville, TN (July 1, 2024)—A hitmaker for decades, producer Peter Collins died last month in Nashville. According to published reports, Collins passed at home following an extended battle with pancreatic cancer. Over the course of a nearly 40-year career in the production chair, Collins helped artists craft hit albums and singles across a wide variety of genres, working with acts as varied as Rush, Tom Jones, Musical Youth, Indigo Girls, Suicidal Tendencies, Rick Astley and more. He was 73.
Born January 14, 1951 in Reading, England, Collins first broke into the music industry as a member and producer of UK one-off pop act, Madison, in 1976. After the trio failed to chart, he formed a production company with Pete Waterman (who went on to co-form the late-1980s era-defining pop production team Stock Aitken Waterman), before going on to hit his stride as a hitmaker during the early 1980s, shepherding hits for Musical Youth (“Pass the Dutchie”), The Belle Stars (“Sign of the Times”), Tracy Ullman (“They Don’t Know”) and multiple UK smashes with Nik Kershaw.
Steve Albini, Alt-Rock Musician/Producer, Dead at 61
Collins moved to Canada in 1985 to produce Rush’s Power Windows (1985) and Hold Your Fire (1987) albums—the first of four with the trio—and with their success, began to focus more on hard rock and metal, going on to produce the likes of Billy Squier, Gary Moore, Queensrÿche, Bon Jovi, Suicidal Tendencies and Alice Cooper over the next decade.
Shifting to the singer/songwriter revival of the later 1990s, he oversaw hit albums by Jewel, Shawn Mullins, Lisa Loeb, Indigo Girls, Nancy Griffith, Beth Nielsen Chapman and others. During this era, he also began a long association with The Brian Setzer Orchestra, ultimately producing four albums for the swing revival act—a move that paved the way for his last production credit, helming the Setzer-led Stray Cats reunion album 40, released in 2019.
Speaking with Mix in its December 1998 issue, Collins discussed his production methods over the years, noting, “I’m a huge fan of pre-production…. I try to catch the early performances. They don’t get better. They usually get worse. It’s important to catch the drummer while they’re fresh and not ‘ thinking.’ Then you just get a natural flow of performance.”
