Steppenwolf, Three Dog Night, Iron Butterfly and Donovan all had records produced by Richard Podolor. An accomplished musician, engineer and producer, Richard Podolor runs the American Recording Studio in Woodland Hills, California, a venue started by his family when they sold their used-car business to encourage their sons’ musical talents.
Richard Podolor’s long and successful music-business career started as a session musician for Fabor Robison at Abbott, Fabor and Radio Records. There he played guitar on Bonnie Guitar’s international hit, “Dark Moon.” He soon recorded the vocals on his own ballad "She's My Baby" backed by rocker "I Love You Girl" (Radio 116).
He became a touring member of the Pets, the L.A. session musicians consisting of sax virtuoso Plas Johnson and later Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame drummer Earl Palmer whose instrumental Top 40 hit was "Cha-Hua-Hua."
An early American Recording Company product was the demo of "Teen Beat" featuring Sandy Nelson’s drums and Richie Podolor's guitar. “Teen Beat,” after considerable overdubbing, reached No. 4 in the pop charts in October 1959. Two years later, Nelson climbed the charts again with the Nelson-Podolor composition "Let There Be Drums", which was also recorded at the American Recording Company studio.
As Richie Allen, Dickie Podolor had 10 instrumental singles and 3 albums on Imperial Records, including "Stranger From Durango" (Imperial 5683), which got to No. 90 in Billboard in the early 60s.
In the 1960s Richie was an engineer or musician for the Grateful Dead, the Monkees, the Turtles, Donovan, and the Electric Prunes. Reverting to his real name, Podolor racked up production credits with Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, and Three Dog Night in the late '60s,
His first formal producer's job was for Steppenwolf and Three Dog Night in the early 70s. Taking over for Gabriel Mekler, Podolor produced Three Dog Night’s version of Randy Newman's song, "Mama Told Me Not To Come", which hit No. 1, followed by 2 more No. 1s and another 13 Top 20 singles.
