Tony Bongiovi

Anthony Carmine Bongiovi Jr. (born September 7, 1947) is an American record producer and recording engineer. He is the cousin of musician Jon Bon Jovi.

Early life Anthony Carmine Bongiovi Jr. was born on September 7, 1947, in Raritan, New Jersey to Anthony Carmine Bongiovi Sr., an embalmer, and Frances Miriam Pellicane. He is of Italian descent.

Career Early career In 1964, at the age of 17, while a student attending Bridgewater-Raritan High School West, Bongiovi became interested in recording studios, and visited Bell Sound and Regent Sound in New York City, where he overheard engineers speculating about how Motown achieved the sound of their recordings. Determined to figure out what made the Motown recordings sound different, Bongiovi ended up determining that the reverb decay on Motown recordings was much shorter than recordings produced in other studios, and he was able to primitively apply this re-created effect to songs produced in New York to make them sound more Motown-like. Bongiovi attempted to present his findings to an engineer at Columbia's studio, but the engineer wasn't interested. With encouragement from Jim Czak at Bell Sound, Bongiovi called Motown's chief engineer, Mike McLean, who arranged for Bongiovi to meet Motown producer Lawrence Horn in New York City. Horn, upon hearing Bongiovi's findings, asked 17-year-old Bongiovi whether he wanted to come to Detroit and visit Motown. His initial 4-day visit to the label's Hitsville U.S.A. studios in Detroit was the first of many that gave Bongiovi the opportunity to work with such artists as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and The Supremes.

Bongiovi returned home with a temporary Hitsville, U.S.A. ID card, which he used to secure job offers from numerous New York recording studios, accepting a job at the newly-opened Apostolic Recording Studio, New York City's first 12-track recording facility. At Apostolic, Bongiovi worked with Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention and producer Shadow Morton. He also worked with Alan Douglas on some of Hendrix's posthumous releases. Later, he worked with the songwriting and production team Holland–Dozier–Holland for Chairmen of the Board's "Give Me Just a Little More Time" and Freda Payne's "Band of Gold", and received engineering credit on Vanilla Fudge's 1969 album, Near the Beginning, but the studio's co-founder Chris Stone fired him.

1992, the studio was put in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and sold to Chieko and Kirk Imamura, who re-named it Avatar Studios to ensure that Bongiovi could continue to receive Power Station production royalties.

Bongiovi moved to Florida, where he did sound design consulting for Universal Studios Florida before returning to New York, where he continued studio work.

In 2012, Bongiovi helped open Power Station Studios in Pompano Beach, Florida. He is also Managing Director and co-founder of Bongiovi Acoustic Labs, headquartered in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Here he has developed a suite of algorithms called Bongiovi Acoustic Labs DPS (Digital Power Station), enabling engineers to produce recordings with studio-like sound.

Personal life He is a second cousin of Jon Bon Jovi, who is the lead singer of the band Bon Jovi.

Production and engineering credits

1972: Hypnotized - Martha Veléz 1975: Never Can Say Goodbye - Gloria Gaynor 1975: Crash Landing - Jimi Hendrix 1975: Midnight Lightning - Jimi Hendrix 1975: Are You Ready For Freddy? - Freddy Fender 1975: Experience Gloria Gaynor - Gloria Gaynor 1976: I've Got You - Gloria Gaynor 1977: Leave Home - The Ramones

Others produced

Jodi Bongiovi Cidny Bullens Carlene Carter Rick Derringer Mike DeVille Buck Dharma Carol Douglas The Electriks Barry Goudreau Gus & The New Breed Millie Jackson The Rezillos Sylvain Sylvain Tuff Darts Samantha Sang Marlena Shaw