David Axelrod (born April 17, 1936, Los Angeles) is an American composer, arranger and producer, working in several musical genres. His fa...
His father was active in radical labour union politics, and Axelrod was raised in South Central Los Angeles, where he grew up listening to R&B and jazz. After a stint as a boxer, he found studio work in the film and television industry, and was soon in demand as a drummer, producer and arranger. He produced his first album in 1959, saxophonist Harold Land’s The Fox, which was seen as a landmark record.
In late 1963, he joined Capitol Records as a producer and A&R man, and encouraged the label to develop their black artists. He began working with Lou Rawls, producing his successful Live album and a succession of gold albums and hit singles including "Love Is A Hurting Thing", "Your Good Thing Is About To End" and "Dead End Street", which Axelrod wrote and produced. He also began working with Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, one of the most successful jazz crossover artists of the 1960s. Axelrod produced Adderley’s 1967 album Live At the Club, which spawned one of the biggest jazz hits of all time, the funky "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”, written by the band’s pianist Joe Zawinul (who would later, along with Wayne Shorter, create Weather Report, one of the most influential bands in jazz fusion), which reached #11 in the US pop charts.
Dr. Dre used a David McCallum cut ('The Edge') for "The Next Episode" from 1999's 2001.
