Legendary recording engineer, producer, mixer and all around great person Al Schmitt died last week at 91. He was still working at the end of his life. The multiple Grammy winner engineered albums for Bob Dylan, The Jefferson Airplane, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Diana Krall, Sam Cooke, and on and on in an illustrious career that began as a child in his uncle Harry's New York City recording studio where he did odd jobs including cable cleaning.

His uncle got him a studio apprentice job after his stint in the Navy and a successful trial by fire in which after three months on the job due to a scheduling error of some sort he ended up being surprised in the studio by Duke Ellington and group who had showed up for a session. Schmitt set up the microphones and successfully recorded four songs.

He moved wes five years later for a job at famed Radio Recorders in Hollywood and thus began his incredible career. In this video AnalogPlanet editor Michael Fremer shows some of Al's greatest records and talks about his encounter with Al while he mixed Bob Dylan's Sinatra album.

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