I've created this site on behalf of my late father, Gary Kellgren, with the hope that the world might better understand the enormous contribution he made to music and the recording industry, and in hopes that he will eventually be considered and inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

In the late 60s world of music, he was considered a pioneer not only for his brilliant innovations in sound, such as phasing, but also for the changes he conceived of & brought about, décor wise, within the recording studios themselves. It is interesting to note that many of the legendary top selling albums of all time were recorded in the studios that he created, designed & built.

My father was a very well known and respected recording engineer and producer who worked with the likes of John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Mick Jagger, Ron Wood, Bill Wyman, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Bobby Goldsboro, The Animals, Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Frank Zappa, Sly and the Family Stone, Velvet Underground, CSNY, Rod Stewart, Ravi Shankar, Keith Moon, etc as well as well-known producers Wes Farrell, Tom Wilson, Chas Chandler, Jack Douglas, Bob Margouleff, Phil Spector, Bill Szymczyk, etc... He conceived of & was responsible for all the "Live at the Record Plant" recording sessions as well as the Jim Keltner Fan Club Hour; was sought out by George Harrison to record the Concert For Bangladesh which was recently ranked as being #9 of the 50 Greatest Moments at Madison Square Gardens; he also did the remote concert recording starring James Brown for the Muhammad Ali/George Forman fight, "Rumble in the Jungle," in Zaire, 1974; the list goes on.

When he first began his career at the Dick Charles demo recording studios in 1964 in the legendary Brill Building in Manhattan, studios were very plain vanilla with no décor to speak of. They were bland white walled rooms with mikes, wires and equipment strewn about and a simple coffee & soda machine. It was his concept to bring color, artistic design, hotel-like comforts & services to the world of recording studios. So, in 1967, he, along with his business partner, Chris Stone, built the first of the three world renowned Record Plant Recording Studios in Manhattan. "The day we opened, we were booked for three months" [Chris Stone]. The very first album to come out of there was the legendary "Electric Ladyland" by Jimi Hendrix. One of the last to record there being John Lennon, who left there to go home the night he was shot.

Two years after the launch of the New York Studio, they opened up the Los Angeles Record Plant. One of the first albums recorded there was the Eagles "Hotel California".

In 1972, Record Plant Sausalito opened, where another legendary album, "Rumours", was recorded by Fleetwood Mac as well as Bob Marley & the Wailer's "Talkin' Blues" which was recorded live in a closed session for an in-studio broadcast from San Francisco radio station KSAN.

I could easily go on and on, but I was too young to fully grasp his technological wizardry in the studio and so I leave that to some of the people who worked with him, admired him and the articles that were written about him that I've held onto over the years.

To close, I will just say that he was a huge force in the early years of rock n' roll until his untimely death in 1977. He was a pioneer of both innovative engineering sounds that he invented & created inside the control room, as well as being the innovator of the fabulous décor, designs, appearance & services that he initiated outside of the control room. He forever changed the future appearance & ambiance of all recording studios to how we now know them today.

For the brilliant recording engineer and producer that he was, and for the music business pioneer and innovator that he became... for all that and more, I feel that he deserves recognition & acknowledgement and is beyond worthy of induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.