Wells will skip Grammy ceremony
Peterborough producer has accumulated 130 million album sales on projects to which he contributed
Peterborough-raised music producer Greg Wells is up for two Grammys during Sunday’s Grammy Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas but if he wins he won’t be accepting in person.
Now based in Los Angeles, Wells says he’s staying home out of an abundance of caution as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, David Friend of The Canadian Press reports.
The former Adam Scott Collegiate student is nominated along with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Nick Lloyd Weber for best musical theatre album for “Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella.”
Wells also mixed and co-produced the songs for the soundtrack for director Lin-Manuel Miranda’s movie musical “In The Heights,” which is nominated in the best compilation soundtrack for visual media category.
The 64th Grammy Awards will air Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS and Citytv.
Wells won his first Grammy in 2019 for best compilation soundtrack for visual media for the original motion picture soundtrack for the movie “The Greatest Showman.”
He also earned Grammy nominations for best dance recording in 2008 for Mika’s “Love Today” and album of the year for Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” album in 2011.
Wells has also worked with musicians John Legend, Adele, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Pink, OneRepublic, Aerosmith, Keith Urban, Pharrell Williams, Ariana Grande, Burt Bacharach and Celine Dion — and his latest project is with Canadian crooner Michael Bublé.
Wells said he wasn’t sure if he was the right person to work with Bublé on his new album “Higher” until he saw him in a dentist’s chair.
That’s no exaggeration: after a 15minute phone call from Grammy and Juno Award winner Bublé pitching reasons why London, Ont.-born Wells should be the primary producer of his 11th studio album, Bublé FaceTimed Wells the next day … while he was undergoing dental surgery.
“He was in the middle of a fourhour dental surgery and it looked like a Nine Inch Nails video of his mouth just, you know, flayed open with these contraptions attached,” Wells recalled over the phone from his L.A. residence. “And I just thought, any celebrity that calls me during dental surgery looking like that is someone I have to work with.”
Wells, who produced seven of the 13 tracks that comprise “Higher,” which was released March 25, said his respect and admiration for the Burnaby, B.C.-born Bublé increased considerably once he got to know him.
“He’s the coolest person I’ve ever met and there’s something about him that’s very genuine. And he’s an equally amazing music-maker. Once I realized that his biggest hits were all written by him, that started my realization that he has a real sense of what works for him as an artist and what doesn’t work for him.
“He’s also a hell of a songwriter and he was just a fantastic creative force to partner up with in making a record. We spent most of last year making this record and I can’t wait for people to hear it. It’s the proudest I’ve ever been of anything I’ve been involved with.”
If you don’t think that this Canadian is being particularly discerning due to the 70-million-plus sales track record of Bublé, let it be known that over his past few decades as a producer, arranger, mixer, instrumentalist and songwriter, Wells has accumulated 130 million album sales on projects to which he contributed.
Some of his accomplishments? He cowrote “The Reason” with his then future mother-in-law, Carole King (he was previously married to Louise Goffin) for a Sir George Martin-produced Céline Dion track on her 1997 “Let’s Talk About Love” album, which sold 35 million copies worldwide; co-authored “One and Only” with Dan Wilson and Adele for the singer-songwriter’s 31-million-selling album “21”; and has produced tracks on Katy Perry’s three most popular albums — “One of the Boys,” “Teenage Dream” and “Prism” — on which he also shares contributing writer credits to the accumulative tune of 17 million album sales.
Wells, who studied music at Humber College, received his Grammy for producing and mixing the bestselling “The Greatest Showman: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack”; produced OneRepublic’s breakthrough chart-topper “Apologize” and also the breakthrough project for Mika, “Life In Cartoon Motion,” which sold over six million albums worldwide, powered by the No. 1 U.K. hit “Grace Kelly.”
Taylor Swift, Rufus Wainwright,
Burt Bacharach, Quincy Jones, Pink, Keith Urban and John Legend have all hired Wells in some capacity, and he’s worked on three acclaimed Lin-Manuel Miranda films, including “tick, tick … Boom!”
So to claim that the multi-instrumentalist is one of the top go-to guys in L.A. for his skills is somewhat of an understatement.
“My discography is pretty nuts,” Wells said. “It goes all over the place, just because I like all kinds of different music.”
Wells’ eclectic reputation was clearly why Bublé felt a delay in recording “Higher” was merited to accommodate the producer’s schedule.
“I’m really sensitive to feeling like I’m the right person for the job and I’ll be the first person to put my hand in there and say that I’m probably not,” said Wells in terms of securing clients. “In fact, in this instance, I did say ‘no’ initially to Michael.
“After I’d spoken to him a few times, I realized how busy I was. I had just made three movies in a row with Lin-Manuel Miranda and that’s a lot of work that takes a long time. I didn’t want to shortchange Michael: if I signed on to make most of his new album, I didn’t want him waiting around forever due to my schedule.
“And Michael said, ‘I’m going to get started on the record with one
My discography is pretty nuts.