Rupert Hine
Musician and producer who worked with Tina Turner, Stevie Nicks, Bob Geldof and Suzanne Vega
RUPERT HINE, who has died aged 72, was a record producer, recording artist, studio owner, songwriter and video director. He launched himself in the 1960s as one half of the folk rock duo Rupert & David and later went solo, cutting six albums under his name and three under the guise of Thinkman, essentially a solo project but presented as a group, with actors hired to play band members for live and television performances.
But Hine became better known, in the 1980s and 1990s, as a producer for artists including Rush, with whom he worked on the 1984 album Grace Under Pressure, Presto (1989) and Roll the Bones (1991).
For Tina Turner he produced Private Dancer, the 1984 album which marked her comeback after her divorce from Ike, and her albums Break Every Rule (1986), for which he wrote the title track and the closer, I’ll Be Thunder (giving it what he called the “Phil Spector treatment”) and Foreign Affair (1989). He produced the star’s Grammy award-winning single Better Be Good to Me and co-wrote I Might Have Been Queen.
Hine was the go-to producer for performers wishing to carve out a new niche. For the former Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof, who became a friend, he produced three solo albums, Deep In The Heart of Nowhere (1986), The Vegetarians of Love (1992) and The Happy Club (1992).
For the Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks, with whom he was reported to have had a “brief but intense” affair, he produced the 1989 platinum-selling The Other Side of the Mirror. Its lead single Rooms on Fire was, according to the liner notes of inspired by their relationship.
Hine specialised in lushly orchestrated sonics, billowing with rich textures. Though his effects were sometimes considered overblown he made vital contributions to the careers of many big names. Among his discoveries was the New Wave band the Fixx, whom he signed up before they had a label deal and recorded with his own money before helping them to land a contract with MCA and producing their first four studio albums.
Rupert Neville Hine was born in Wimbledon on September 21 1947 and emerged on to the pop scene in the early 1960s, with David Maciver, as Rupert & David. They released a cover
of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence, featuring the future Led Zeppelin star Jimmy Page on guitar, before breaking up in 1965. Hine continued to record, both as a solo artist and as a member of the bands Quantum Jump and Spin 1ne 2wo. As a producer, his other clients included the Thompson Twins, Underworld, Saga, Chris De Burgh and Howard Jones.
For Suzanne Vega he produced and co-wrote the lyrics of Songs in Red and Gray (2001), an album on which, in numbers such as (I’ll Never Be) Your Maggie May, she expressed the pain of her divorce from her former producer, Mitchell Froom. One critic described the album as “a gorgeous, reflective record that successfully walks the tightrope between Vega’s tendency toward understatement and Hine’s toward hyperbole”.
He produced three compilation benefit albums, beginning in 1990 with One World One Voice, which was designed to raise awareness of environmental issues. This was followed by Songs for Tibet – The Art of Peace, in 2008, and Songs for Tibet – The Art of Peace II.
Hine’s compositions appeared on film soundtracks including the 1985 John Cusack comedy Better Off Dead, as well as television series.
Hine served on many music industry boards, chaired the Songwriters Committee of the British Association of Songwriters, Composers and Arrangers, and served on the Ivor Novello awards committee. His leisure interests included flying and classic cars.
Rupert Hine’s first marriage, to Natasha Barrault, was dissolved, and he married, secondly, Fay Morgan. She survives him with a son from his first marriage and a stepdaughter and stepson.
Rupert Hine, born September 21 1947, died June 5 2020