2020年经济学人 音乐制作人哈尔·维尔纳(2)（在线收听）

In 1974, just as his father was thinking of selling Hymie's to become a stockbroker, the 18-year-old record fiend started college in New York. He got a part-time job as assistant to Joel Dorn, who had produced popular albums for Bette Midler and Roberta Flack. The city then was bubbling with experimental comedy and the beginnings of punk.

1974年，就在哈尔父亲在考虑卖掉Hymie熟食店，要做一个股票经纪人时，这位18岁的唱片发烧友开始在纽约上大学。维尔纳找到了一份兼职工作，担任乔尔·多恩的助理。乔尔曾为贝特·米德勒和罗伯塔·弗莱克制作过流行专辑。当时，这座城市充满了实验喜剧和早期朋克。

This was just as it was heading towards financial crisis and before the beautiful people with their shiny teeth were being photographed every night at Studio 54. New York was rough, he liked to say. It had a smell about it. The block he lived on had a gay bathhouse and the small midtown recording studio he rented soon filled up with posters of Laurel and Hardy, Pop-Eye puppets, Holocaust memories and a music box that played Karlheinz Stockhausen, a gift from Frank Zappa.

同时，时代也正朝着金融危机发展，而在那个时候，还没有人每天晚上在54号摄影棚里给长着闪亮牙齿的美女拍照。维尔纳总是说，纽约很艰难。这里有一种特别的氛围。维尔纳住的街区有一个同性恋浴室，他在市中心区租的小录音棚很快就充满了劳莱与哈代的海报，人偶，大屠杀记忆，还有一个播放卡尔海因茨·斯托克豪森的音乐盒，那是弗兰克·扎帕送的礼物。

Mr Willner, who had a mind like a reliquary, revered the music of T Rex as much as he favoured Kurt Weill, Lou Reed and Thelonious Monk. Since the mid-20th century the music producer has become an iconic figure in the cultural world, as much impresario as director, bringing together singer and songwriter and conjuring up the character of an album as a living entity. The producer is the ship's captain, magician and masterchef all rolled into one. As one friend of his liked to say: "The producer is in charge of everything."

维尔纳先生的头脑就像圣骨盒，他对TRex乐队的音乐就像对库尔特·威尔、卢·里德和特洛尼斯·蒙克一样崇敬。自20世纪中期以来，这位音乐制作人已成为文化界的标志性人物，他既是导演又是经理人，把歌手和词曲作者集合在一起，把一张专辑的角色想象成一个活生生的实体。在这艘船上，制作人维尔纳集船长、魔术师和主厨于一身。就像他的一个朋友喜欢说的：“这个制作人负责一切。”