David Briggs (producer)

David Briggs (February 29, 1944 - November 26, 1995) was an American record producer best known for his work with Neil Young and his band Crazy Horse. He is noted for his eclectic imagination and style, which contributed to the Neil Young album After the Gold Rush.

David Briggs was born in Douglas, Wyoming. Briggs left Wyoming in 1962 to hitchhike his way to Los Angeles and Canada, then finally settled in California, the place he would call home for the rest of his life. In the mid-sixties, Briggs began producing in the music business working on Bill Cosby's label, Tetragrammaton Records. One of the first albums he produced was for comedian Murray Roman. According to Briggs, this was the first album ever released with the word "fuck" on it. Working on Cosby's label led Briggs into doing his own production work with people such as Alice Cooper, Quatrain, Spirit, Nils Lofgren and his band, Grin, and Jerry Lynn Williams.

In 1968, after picking up a hitchhiking Neil Young, Briggs went on to produce the singer/songwriter's first solo album, entitled Neil Young (1968). This led to a lifelong friendship between the two men, with Briggs co-producing over a dozen of Young's albums (see discography below). The most acclaimed work together being Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and After the Gold Rush. Young's Sleeps with Angels album (1994) is the last work that Briggs produced before his death in 1995. Other than producing with Young, Briggs worked on albums with many successful artists such as Spirit, Tom Rush, Nils Lofgren, Steve Young, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Royal Trux.

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