Lenny Waronker says his that receiving the Ahmet Ertegun Award at this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be “very nice” but also acknowledges that “it scares me a bit.”
“What they’re going to be doing certainly will take the pressure off of having to get up and make a speech, ’cause I’m not going to have to make a speech,” the longtime record executive tells Billboard. “There’s going to be a lot of video and things like that. But when you get right down to it, it’s nice. It’s an honor and it’s important and it feels good.”
Two of his five children have followed Waronker into the music business – singer-songwriter Anna Waronker, who founded the rock band that dog, and drummer Joey Waronker, who’s worked with everyone from Beck to R.E.M. and will be on the road playing with Oasis this summer.
The elder Waronker, 83, is being honored for more than six decades of groundbreaking work, as a producer as well as the former president of Warner Bros. Records and co-founder of DreamWorks Records, playing an instrumental role in the careers of artists such as Randy Newman, James Taylor, Rickie Lee Jones, Maria Muldaur, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Prince, John Fogerty, R.E.M., Rufus Wainwright and Elliott Smith. Since 2010 he’s been back at Warner working as a consultant or, as he puts it, “a senior A&R executive” who’s helped with projects by Jenny Lewis, Gary Clark Jr., Kimbra and more.
Being behind the scenes was part of Waronker’s DNA. Growing up in Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades with childhood friend Newman, his father Simon transitioned from playing violin in the 20th Century Fox Orchestra to a contractor, then founded Liberty Records in 1955. “I was exposed to music at a very young age,” says Waronker, who spent summers at Liberty while attending the USC Thornton School of Music. He joined the company full-time after graduating, working for the label’s publishing division, Metric Music, where he produced song demos.
“The door really opened when my father started (Liberty). I grew up watching a record company being built and being part of it. I knew what was going on; when he would sign an act that I was familiar with I’d be excited, and when he lost an act…I got to understand that kind of disappointment.”
Waronker subsequently became one of Warners’ most prolific in-house producers, bringing Newman and Van Dyke Parks to the label and helming albums by Jones, Muldaur, Harpers Bizarre, the Everly Brothers, Ry Cooder, Arlo Guthrie and Gordon Lightfoot. He also worked on specific tracks for Taylor (“Shower the People,” “Mexico,” “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)”), Michael McDonald (“I Keep Forgettin’”), Clapton (“Forever Man”) and Stewart (“Broken Arrow”). Mo Ostin — who received the Ertegun Award in 2003 — made Waronker head of A&R in 1970 and company president in 1982.
“I had two careers, in a way,” says Waronker, who brought producers such as Ted Templeman (formerly of Harpers Bizarre), Russ Titelman, Gary Katz, Michael Omartian and others into the Warner ranks. As a producer himself, he notes, “I was pretty judgmental — which of course is stupid, but there you go.”
Ultimately, Waronker says he realized “I was surrounded by great artists, so I had to keep reminding myself, ‘Don’t worry. Keep your mouth shut when something’s going good.’ If I had some idea that could make a record better, say something. I had an enormous amount of respect for the artists; a lot of time it’s staying the hell out of the way when you’re dealing with the kind of people I was dealing with and being as supportive as you can.”
Waronker says he applied that philosophy in his executive roles as well. “When you’re around somebody like (Ostin), if you’re paying attention and listening and asking questions, you’re gonna do OK,” he explains. “(Ostin) wanted a creative community as much as a record company. The relationship part of that was a big, big reason for my having any success as an executive.
“It was a time for experimentation and learning about what you could and couldn’t do. In those days it wasn’t just about the hits; at least in my mind, signing an artist was important because it gave the creative community a sense of what the company stood for. We really took advantage of that, big time. When I think about it now it’s like, ‘Jeez, how did that happen?’ But if you have a point of view and you have strong beliefs about what you’re doing, who you work with, what the company stands for, and you’re right, the rest sort of takes care of itself.”
Prince was, of course, one of those prestige acts on the Warner roster — and one who made Waronker realize the value of standing back and letting the artist follow his muse. “He was incredibly focused, very strong. He knew what we wanted. Every once in awhile he would open up, but mostly he knew what he was doing and wasn’t interested in (outside) ideas. So it was one of those things where he had it and he wasn’t cut out to sit and listen to somebody else talk about his music, which is good and bad because everybody can use help. But he was amazing, what can you say?”
Waronker and Ostin presided over what was considered a golden age for Warner until the early ‘90s, when a corporate reorganization after the death of Time Warner chairman Steve Ross in 1992 led to them leaving the company in 1994. With DreamWorks, Waronker steered the company to nearly five-dozen gold or better albums and more than two dozen Grammy Awards before he left.
“At the time I was starting to get antsy and (then-Warner chairman) Tom Whalley asked me to come in as a senior A&R executive who could help the younger A&R people and get involved, and that idea sounded good to me,” Waronker remembers. “So I went there and I found that it was fun. I like the young A&R (staffers); they were all very open and incredibly respectful, and that felt good. If someone is struggling, I know what that’s like and I know what to say to them.
“What was surprising to me was the amount of knowledge (current Warner staffers) had about what made us tick in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, early ‘90s, whatever. They tried to hold onto as much of that as they could. Again, you get the right people — that’s artists, too — and you’re gonna be in good shape.”
The upcoming Rock Hall honor does have Waronker reflecting on his career, of course. But he doesn’t expect that will turn into something more, like a memoir. “Nah, I don’t want to do that,” he says. “If you’re going to write you have to tell the truth, and I just didn’t want to do that. I’m not good with dishing stuff. Most of these books are a good attempt at telling the truth, but having to tell the real truth, then it becomes my truth, and I’m not interested in it.”
The Rock Hall induction ceremony takes place Nov. 8 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and will stream live on Disney+, moving to Hulu the next day and an ABC special later. Performer inductees are Bad Company, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper, Outkast, Soundgarden and the White Stripes. Salt-N-Pepa and Warren Zevon will receive the musical influence award, with Thom Bell, Nicky Hopkins and Wrecking Crew bassist Carol Kaye receiving the musical excellence award.
