Starting in 1956 with Sam Phillips at Sun Studios, this is a rich, eccentric, and definitive history of great record producers throughout the years. From Lee Scratch Perry to Nigel Godrich, Qunicy Jones to Phil Spector, King Tubby to Steve Albini, legendary music journalist and pop cultural commentator Paul Morley has crafted a unique and catholic survey of the magicians behind the music. He examines their unconventional methods in the studio, revealing how producers silently shaped the sounds that were made and committed to vinyl. Brimming with mad, brilliant anecdotes of wildly eccentric behaviour, Morley's hidden history of modern music reveals how these offstage characters forged the musical landscape of the twentieth century.