(Editor’s Note: Since Popdose’s earliest days, we’ve been blessed with some of the smartest and most music-savvy readers on the Web — and so, when we unexpectedly made the acquaintance of producer Tom Werman last fall, we knew we were looking at a unique opportunity for a series. This post marks the start of an ongoing, occasional look back at the time spent behind the boards by some of our favorite producers — beginning, fittingly enough, with the first chapter in Mr. Werman’s career in music. Look for more of these stories in the months to come, from a variety of names — and enjoy!)

This is the first of an unknown, unscheduled number of installments.

Jeff invited me to write something, so I have decided to write a number of brief chapters in preparation for a more detailed book on the same subject — my career in the record biz during the height of the industry. For those of you interested in discovering why there is no more record biz to speak of, I suggest a good book called Appetite for Self-Destruction, about the implosion of the record industry in the digital age. Meanwhile, we will be talking about the good old days, when record sales grew every year, expense accounts were fat, and a growing number of labels were constantly hiring new people to find the next big thing.

Fresh out of Columbia Business School with an MBA in 1969, I turned down a $12,000 a year job offer (a very nice salary then) from Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, and instead accepted an offer from Grey Advertising in New York to work in the account group on Procter & Gamble products. An offer from Procter was reserved for the very best of graduate business students (which I was not), so my classmates considered me daft for rejecting it. I, on the other hand, was attracted to the hip world of advertising, and really wanted to stay in New York. I commuted from the upper west side, where as a newlywed I had scored a penthouse on the roof of a building at the corner of 98th and Riverside, overlooking the Hudson, for $180 a month.

During the year I worked at Grey, I discovered that working for Procter was as good as working at Procter, and I gradually grew less and less comfortable with my task of helping to formulate and execute marketing plans for Gain Detergent in its launch year, and then for Jif Peanut Butter. It was dull work. True, there were some interesting folks at the agency, and I befriended a couple of them, but after half a year or so when the novelty wore off, I was beginning to wake up each morning with a cloud of apprehension and depression over my head.

As the new guy, I had an interior office with no windows. All the offices on our half of the floor – the Procter & Gamble account group, which served seven Procter brands – were painted white, with little decoration. It was a no-nonsense vibe, far from what it was down on the hipper, more creative floors that housed the copywriters. One weekend I decided I would paint my little office pastel blue and pastel yellow – quite conservative, really — but for some reason I never bothered to ask permission from anyone. On Monday morning, the group head came in, passed my office, did a double-take, and came back to take a closer look. “Very nice,” he commented, returning to his spacious corner office down the hall.

The following Monday when I arrived at work, my office sported a clean fresh coat of flat white paint. Not a thing was out of place. It was as if I had actually stepped over the line into the Twilight Zone for a few seconds. At that point, I knew I had to get out of there and find more satisfying work. (more…)