Richard Podolor

American musician, record producer, and songwriter (1936–2022)

Richard Allen Podolor (January 7, 1936 – March 9, 2022) was an American musician, record producer and songwriter. His career started as a session musician in the 1950s, and he was best known as the producer of Three Dog Night.

Podolor was born in Los Angeles on January 7 1936, and learned guitar as a child. He became a session musician at the age of 16, and played on Bonnie Guitar's hit, "Dark Moon", in 1956. He made some recordings as Dickie Podolor in the late 1950s, and toured as a member of the Pets, a group that also included session musicians Plas Johnson and Earl Palmer. He played on the Pets' 1958 hit "Cha Hua Hua". His success as a musician enabled his family to open a recording studio, the American Recording Company, initially run by his brother Don Podolor. Together with drummer Sandy Nelson, Richie Podolor recorded a demo of "Teen Beat", but the song was then taken up and recorded by other musicians with Nelson, becoming a hit in 1959. Because Podolor was not given a co writing credit for "Teen Beat", Nelson later credited him with co writing some of his later recordings, including his 1961 hit "Let There Be Drums". His early 1960s albums as the leader of Richie Allen and the Pacific Surfers featured top Los Angeles session musicians including René Hall, Tommy Tedesco, Plas Johnson, Lincoln Mayorga, and Sandy Nelson. Two of these Imperial albums, The Rising Surf and Surfer's Slide, were later reissued on CD. and produced Three Dog Night's "Mama Told Me Not to Come" and "Joy to the World", leading to his work on all subsequent albums by Three Dog Night. Other acts with whom he worked as a producer included Alice Cooper, Iron Butterfly, the Dillards, Chris Hillman, and Black Oak Arkansas. Podolor passed in his sleep on March 9, 2022, at the age of 86.

In 1959, the Polodor family established the American Recording Co. recording studios in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The studio operated at this location until 1982, then reopened in Calabasas in 1984, where it is still in operation today.

Special Forces (1981) (Warner Bros.)