Don Puluse contributed enormously to the sound of Sly & the Family Stone as he was recording engineer for many of the songs that appeared on their earlier recordings. He was the main engineer for all of Dance to the Music (1968), all of Life (1968), most of Stand! (1969), and part of Fresh (1973).

In his own words: "Sly produced but we didn't have anyone in the control room. Basically, I engineered and made all of the control room decisions until playback time. It worked very, very well. Those were dynamic sessions and there was never any letup." Don engineered for the recordings the group made at CBS Studios in New York City (such as "Everyday People" and "Dance to the Music,"); an engineer named Brian Ross-Myring would handle recordings made in Los Angeles, such as "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)." Don speaks more about his sessions with the group in an interview with Musician's Information magazine published in May of 1994.

Don was a main engineer for CBS Records beginning in 1968 (Dance to the Music was his first engineered record) and continuing through the 1970's. He engineered gold and platinum records for Chicago, Bob Dylan, La Belle, Ted Nugent, and Janis Joplin, as well as albums for Blood, Sweat, and Tears, Gary Burton, Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Laura Nyro, Cecil Taylor, Tony Williams, Jaco Pastorius, and the Grammy-nominated Bernstein Mass (Best Engineered Classical Recording).

Don is now the Dean of the Music Technology Division at Berklee College of Music. This division spans the Music Production and Engineering and the Music Synthesis programs at Berklee. The MPE program features accomplished faculty and state-of-the art facilities: Don gave me a tour of the studio complex and it was like an engineer's heaven! The ten recording studios are equipped with top of the line professional equipment. The consoles are SSL, Otari Concept, Sony and Yamaha 02Rs. The three principal music synthesis laboratories contain 34 digital audio workstations with over 250 of the latest MIDI-equipped synthesizers, drum machines, computers, and software and students receive hands-on instruction and project time in the art of producing, engineering and synthesizer programming, sound design and multimedia. All in all I would bet it is one of THE top programs in Music Technology in the country.

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(Thanks to Don Puluse and Mike Theiss)

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