john-fry

Ardent Studios/Records founder John Fry, RIP

John Fry

Producer and engineer John Fry, who founded Memphis’ Ardent Studios and Ardent Records and worked on all three Big Star albums, died yesterday (12/18). Fry had been diagnosed with cancer earlier this year and suffered a “cardiac event.” He was 69:

It was Fry who once said that, “Your moods are affected by your surroundings. I think there is something that operates in Memphis…and at Ardent. I can’t explain what it is. You come record here, something good happens to you.”

That indeed happened for scores of artists over the 40-plus years since Fry — who died on Thursday in Memphis — opened his doors. Ardent hosted sessions by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, ZZ Top, R.E.M., Stevie Ray Vaughan, Al Green, the Allman Brothers Band, B.B. King, the White Stripes, the Replacements, Three 6 Mafia, scores of Stax Records artists, Cat Power, M.I.A. and, of course, Big Star, who Fry mentored and made three albums with, and whose members used Ardent “kind of like a school” according to the group’s drummer Jody Stephens, who’s now general manager of Ardent Music LLC. -[Billboard]

Rest in peace, John.