ELLIOT MAZER,
1941-2021

Elliot Mazer, the prolific engineer and producer best known for his work with Neil Young in the 1970s, died at his San Francisco home Sunday after suffering a heart attack. He was 79.

Mazer’s daughter Allison told Rolling Stone that her father had been battling dementia for years.

Mazer got his start in the 1960s producing jazz and folk artists such as Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Dave Pike and Clark Terry. At the end of the decade he started producing singer-songwriters such as Gordon Lightfoot and Richie Havens. In 1970, he produced Linda Ronstadt’s second album, Silk Purse.

He began his association with Young as producer of 1972’s Harvest, having met the artist in 1971 when he was a guest on The Johnny Cash Show in Nashville. Mazer assembled a band for Young to record with there.

“A master in the studio, Elliot was a really good guy,” Young wrote on his website. “He had a great way about him and I wish we had gotten to do more together... Harvest is one of my most recognized recordings and it all happened because of Elliot Mazer.”

Mazer produced many of Young's albums over the succeeding years: Time Fades Away (1973), Tonight’s the Night (1975), American Stars ‘n’ Bars (1977), Hawks and Doves (1980), Everybody’s Rockin’ (1983) and Old Ways (1985).

Among his other claims to fame: engineering The Last Waltz for The Band.

Mazer produced a wide range of artists—Willie Nelson, Dead Kennedys, The Dream Syndicate, Emmylou Harris—in addition to archival recordings by Janis Joplin, The Byrds and others.

He also designed the world's first all-digital recording studio and as President of Artificial Intelligence Resources Inc. in the late 1980s, developed the AirCheck Monitoring system that identified songs being played on radio and television.