page_title: Record producer
section_title: Women in producing
hierarchical_section_title: Record producer / Women in producing
caption_attribution_description: 'Front of house' audio mixer at the Bull &amp; Gate pub in Kentish Town, north London.
context_page_description: A record producer or music producer was once the overseer or operator of a musical act's sound recording and its refinement—roles now typically an audio engineer's—whereas today's record producers, directing or creating the musical sound and song structure, are mainly music composers who arrange the vocal and instrumental contributions while often coaching the musical act.
  The producer may gather musical ideas or samples, help improve the song's lyrics or instrumentation, hire session musicians, play instruments, cowrite, or even publicly appear by name in the recording. Sometimes doubling as the engineer, the producer may supervise the entire process of creating a finished recording: preproduction, recording, mixing, and perhaps even mastering. For some projects, the producer also chooses all of the recording artists. Music producers are likened to film directors.
context_section_description: In a 2018 study, a sample of 300 popular songs' producers found one female for every 49 males. Yet in a 2013 appraisal, producer Wendy Page remarked, "The difficulties are usually very short-lived. Once people realize that you can do your job, sexism tends to lower its ugly head." For example, Wilma Cozart Fine produced hundreds of recordings for Mercury Records. In any case, during 2019, the Recording Academy launched an initiative to increase the numbers of women. Artists and producers agreeing, thereby, to consider at least two women for each producer or engineer position range from  Cardi B and Taylor Swift to Maroon 5 and Quincy Jones, among over 200 others.
  In classical music, Judith Sherman, nominated 12 times, has won five Grammy awards. Yet outside classical music, after Lauren Christy was nominated in 2004, the first woman nominated again was Linda Perry in 2019. On why no female had ever won in non-classical, Perry partly indicated women's comparative lack of interest in production. Many singer-songwriters female have produced their own albums. Yet there have been historically significant, specialist producers who were female. For instance, Sylvia Moy was Motown's first female. Gail Davies was the first female on Nashville's Music Row. Ethel Gabriel, with RCA, was the first with a major record label. And Lillian McMurry, owning a label, produced historically significant blues records. More recently, Missy Elliott produced in hip hop, and Sylvia Massy produced in rock.
caption: Mixing console
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