Michael Bishop, recording engineer and producer for Five/Four Productions and formerly with Telarc, passed away unexpectedly on March 29, 2021. This one is personal for me, as I worked for several years as Michael’s assistant at Telarc. Below is my tribute to him from Facebook on the day I heard the news:

Rest in Peace, Mike. I cannot overstate the influence this man had in my life, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who is thinking that right now. He was my direct supervisor for four years at Telarc, and I learned so much from just watching him work. We got up to some real fun (see The Great Fantasy Adventure Album, final track) as well as worked together on some incredible recordings. I’ve known great classical engineers, and I’ve known great pop/rock engineers, but Michael could record or mix *anything* and it would sound great. I often said that he could record someone kicking over a trash can and it would sound wonderful. I really wanted to have him do that some time… Goodbye, my friend. I’ll kick over a trash can for ya.

This photo is of Michael and me at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. We were there to record sound effects for the Cincinnati Pops’ Symphonic Star Trek album. Because where else would you record sounds for that album? The photo is staged (see the headphone cables going into our pockets?), but we recorded all sorts of cool things in those two days.

For more remembrances from some of Michael’s other colleagues, visit this tribute. For a list of his credits on Discogs, click here.