Tom Wilson

A black, conservative Republican from Waco, Texas, Wilson moved to Nashville after high school and attended one year at Fisk University. He then attended Harvard and was head of the Young Republicans on campus there. Although he graduated in 1954 with an honors degree in economics, Wilson was more interested in jazz music, joining the Harvard New Jazz Society and working at WHRB, the college radio station, where he set up jam sessions and got involved in the local jazz scene. After graduation, he soon began producing jazz records, including the debut album of Sun Ra. He joined Columbia Records in 1963, replacing Quincy Jones in the Artists & Repertoire department there. Wilson then became the first black producer to be hired at Columbia. However, they wanted him to work with a fairly new artist they had recently signed, Bob Dylan. Wilson produced Dylan's albums Bringing It All Back Home, The Times They Are A-Changin', Another Side of Bob Dylan, and Highway 61 Revisited, from which he produced "Like A Rolling Stone" before being replaced by Bob Johnston after a falling-out with Dylan. While at Columbia, Wilson also produced Simon and Garfunkel's initial effort, the 1964 acoustic folk album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. Although it sold very poorly and led to the duo breaking up, by early 1965, the song "Sound of Silence" began to get increased radio play requests, especially from college students. After the success of "Like A Rolling Stone" in summer of 1965, Wilson had heard the Byrds' electric version of Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn" and got the idea to record a similar rock backing track for "Sound of Silence" with drums, bass, and electric guitars. He overdubbed the track onto the original acoustic track of "Sound of Silence" without the duo's knowledge, creating the duo's first hit song, released in late 1965, after which they reunited and quickly recorded a second album featuring the new electric version of the song. Around this time, Wilson left Columbia for a higher-paying position at MGM subsidiary Verve Records, where he produced Freak Out, the 1966 debut album from Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. He also produced most of the 1967 debut album from The Velvet Underground and Nico, although production credit went to Andy Warhol. In 1968, he quit MGM and founded the Record Plant studio in New York City. He worked with Motown in the 1970's and lived in London for a time. Wilson and his business partner, producer Larry Fallon, were working with Danny Sims, the manager of singer Johnny Nash. Wilson and Fallon had written an R&B opera called Mind Flyers of Gondwana that, according to a 1976 article in Melody Maker, "weaves together the legend of Atlantis and the story of the black man in America from his roots in Africa." It was to star Nash, Gladys Knight, Gil Scott-Heron, and the Righteous Brothers, but it was never made. In 1978, Wilson died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, secondary to Marfan Syndrome, a connective tissue disease. He was buried in Doris Miller Memorial Park in Waco. For some reason, his tombstone incorrectly shows his year of death as 1975. Show less «