intellect." Kramer places Hendrix among Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Louis Armstrong. "He really is in that league, because his individuality was so strong and his message was so strong and his mastery of his instrument was so complete. He was a maverick. He broke a lot of barriers, musically and in every way." "Tastes and sounds may change", echoes Chris Talbott of Associated Press, "but Hendrix always remains close at hand". Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin II was the first of five albums which Kramer engineered for Led Zeppelin. It was mixed in a two-day marathon session. While working on the track "Whole Lotta Love", Kramer hit a spot where part of a previously-recorded vocal track kept bleeding through, in which a screaming Robert Plant intones "Woman. You need it!" Instinctively, Kramer added reverb to the passage, just as Jimmy Page had done. They glanced at each other and laughed. Page then said "Leave it in." Kiss In June 1973, a group of struggling rock musicians whose previous band, Wicked Lester, had flamed out, cut a five-song demo as Kiss with Kramer at Electric Lady Studios. Within two months they had a contract with Casablanca Records. By late 1975, Kiss had a reputation for exciting stagecraft but lackluster album sales. They asked Kramer to produce their daring release of a 2-disc live album, Alive!. It subsequently reached gold status, then platinum, and multi-platinum, and generated the group's first hit single, "Rock and Roll All Nite". This not only buoyed the group, it probably staved off a bankruptcy filing by their struggling label, and Kramer produced five more albums for the band that went platinum. The Rolling Stones Kramer was assistant engineer on Between the Buttons, Flowers, and Their Satanic Majesties Request. The work which he and producer Jimmy Miller had done with Traffic moved the Stones to book the pair for Beggars Banquet, their first album recorded without Andrew Loog Oldham, the group's former manager and producer. Beggars Banquet re-asserted the group's R&B roots. According to Kramer, Miller did much to position the Rolling Stones for the longevity which they have since enjoyed: "He went to the heart and soul of where they came from; he was so adept at evoking the psyche of the band, and so clever at production. I've always tried to model myself after Jimmy in terms of how to get a session going,