Charles Fisher To Receive Lifetime Achievement Award By Music Producer & Engineers’ Guild

Legendary record producer Charles Fisher – also known by his well-earned nickname The Song Doctor – will be honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Music Producer and Engineers’ Guild (MPEG).

The news comes via Origin Music Publishing, who announced the monumental honour yesterday (February 22) on social media. The award will be handed to Fisher at the MPEG Awards night this Saturday (February 24), with the ceremony itself taking place as part of the 2024 MPEG Forum – presented in partnership with the Victorian Music Development Office (VMDO) at the Melbourne Music Market. Head here for more info on the event itself.

Rising up the ranks in the mid-‘70s peak of Australia’s rock and pop boom, Fisher put his magic touch on formative releases by the likes of Radio Birdman, Ray Burton and Moving Pictures. By the turn of the 2000s, he’d linked up with everyone from the Hoodoo Gurus, Mental As Anything, Skyhooks and Midnight Oil to The Police, INXS and Elvis Costello.

Perhaps his most iconic effort was Savage Garden’s eponymous debut album, which upon release in 1997, racked up an eye-watering ten ARIA Awards (including Fisher’s own gongs for Producer Of The Year and Engineer Of The Year, as well as a Special Achievement Award).

Fisher is still active as a producer even today, with his latest work being on last year’s posthumous Olivia Newton-John compilation Just The Two Of Us: The Duets Collection. He also worked with the Hoodoo Gurus on a cumulative 14 projects over the span of 2021 and 2022.