Producer of choice for The Kinks and The Who, Talmy was on the controls for hit after hit from the late 1960s to the mid-’70s and is credited on records that still influence musicians today.
Chicago-born Talmy got his start in Los Angeles, having bluffed his way into a recording studio job. In 1962 he went to Britain for a five-week holiday and the intention of earning a bit of money to pay his way.
Some production work at Decca earned him an immediate job offer and he ended up becoming a rare independent producer. The Kinks offered Talmy his big break and he followed that success by picking up The Who, The Easybeats, Manfred Mann, and the early songs of David Jones, later to become David Bowie.
He also hired the then little-known Jimmy Page as a session guitarist.
Talmy returned to the US permanently in 1979 and remained an in-demand producer, albeit without enjoying a reprise of his earlier successes.
He died on November 13, aged 87.
