MARK RONSON WINS PRODUCER GRAMMY FOR SELF AND WINEHOUSE

On the strength of Amy Winehouse’s hit album ‘Back to Black’ producer Mark Ronson took home the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year.

Mark Ronson, who was the producer behind Amy Winehouse’s hit album ‘Back to Black’ was awarded the prestigious 2008 Grammy Award for Producer of the Year. Ronson was commended for his work on his own album ‘Version’ as well as Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black.’ Mark’s producing skills working with Amy Winehouse also helped her pick up a stunning five awards including Record of the Year. Ronson, who was instrumental in the meteoric success of Amy’s album as well as producing British Pop singer Lily Allen, beat out fellow producers Timbaland (M.I.A.), Howard Benson (Daughtry), Joe Chiccarelli (Shins) and Mike Elizondo (Maroon 5) for the coveted 2007 Producer of the Year.

During the pre telecast, which wasn’t aired on the televised Grammy Awards, Ronson thanked those most responsible for helping him along the way.

“Does this go higher or shall I go lower? Ok, I’d like to first of all thank Amy Winehouse for being such an amazing inspiration and to have so much to do with the fact for me standing here accepting this award. To all the amazing engineers and arrangers that worked on the record, my management Rich and Mark, my family, my Mom who is sitting over there somewhere and all the great people at the label Columbia, RCA and Island in the U.K. that allowed us to make records that aren’t sort of straight up and down Pop records, so thank you everybody in the academy. I really can’t believe this, it’s surreal, bizarre. Have a good night.”

Back stage at The Grammy Awards, Ronson reflected back on being inspired by Amy Winehouse upon their very first meeting.

“I was really inspired when I first met Amy. I asked her what she wanted her record to sound like and she said ‘Well listen, all I listen to is 60’s jukebox pop music.’ Some of it I knew, like the Shangri La’s and some of it was really obscure. That was really just an interesting thing to embark on to start. Well you have the voice and the songs so let me go to town on the arrangements to make this kind of a record. And I guess we were just sitting in my little studio in New York, just demoing all this stuff and being excited because we liked it. There was never a high five moment like ‘Hey!’ I don’t think anyone does that who writes songs that come from a genuine place.”

Ronson even admitted he was a little surprised at the amount of success ‘Back to Black’ has achieved.

“And then I remember playing ‘Rehab’ the first time for our A&R guy, this guy Darkus. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen English A&R men but they can be a bit more animated then their American counter parts. I played ‘Rehab’ and about the first 15 seconds in he’s going ‘Oh, rewind, rewind!’ and he’s doing this whole thing and I’m like ‘Really?’ Not because I didn’t think it was good, but because I didn’t think it’d mean dollar signs lighting up. I guess the way the whole record has gone since it’s inception to the way it’s been received has been a surprise.”

Mark Ronson has received an impressive three nominations for 2008’s Brit Awards. The categories he’s up for are Best British Album for ‘Version,’ Best British Single with ‘Valerie’ and Best British Male Artist. The awards take place Wednesday 20th February in London. Mark Ronson is already back in the U.K. with live dates extending until Feb 23rd in London as well. Fans of Mark in the U.S. can look forward to seeing him perform live at this year’s Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California which takes place April 25th-27th.