COLUMBIA LANDS A BIG FISH

Along with scouting for talent, Lillywhite will provide a wide range of in-house production services, from production/mixing/engineering to a broader advisory role as creative consultant for certain projects.

"Steve Lillywhite has worked on a lot of the most important records of the past 30 years and has produced some of the best records of all time," Botwin enthused. "His adventurous musical spirit, his consistently high aesthetic standards, and his broad creative abilities have produced an unbroken string of artistic and commercial successes, from the earliest days of punk-rock to this year's hottest pop albums. He knows what a great record sounds like and he intuitively knows how to work with artists to bring out the very best they have to offer. I feel fortunate that Steve is on board to help write the next chapter in Columbia Records' rich history."

Said Lillywhite: "I'm looking to sign the best artists around and believe that Columbia is the place to make the best possible records. I thank Will and Donnie for this fantastic opportunity and am looking forward to working with Steve Greenberg in New York and Tim Devine on the West Coast in signing vital new artists. Every department at Columbia is so strong, and all the players are so ace at what they do, that when you do discover great artists, you can do them justice, make great records and take them right to the very top."

After starting as a tape op in 1972, Lillywhite became a staff producer at Island Records before coming into prominence during the punk explosion through producing Johnny Thunders, Siouxsie & the Banshees, the Psychedelic Furs, Eddie & the Hot Rods, XTC and Peter Gabriel. But it was his production work on U2’s Boy, October, War and The Joshua Tree that cemented his rep. Now, with the press celebrating the revitalization of the Rolling Stones, people are rediscovering the band’s Lillywhite-produced 1985 album, Dirty Work. Reviewing the Stones' new A Bigger Bang this week in his Village Voice Consumer Guide, Robert Christgau wrote about Dirty Work, "I still loved its booming Steve Lillywhite Charlie, its studious chicken-scratch Keith, its bitterness and cynicism and spiritual desperation."

In recent years, he’s produced big albums by the Dave Matthews Band and U2—winning consecutive Record of the Year Grammys for "Beautiful Day" (2000) and "Walk On" (2001).