Shelly Yakus is the kind of behind-the-glass wizard who makes a band sound like it means it. I first clocked him in New York: assistant engineer at Phil Ramone's A&R Recording (1967-1969), then a Record Plant fixture from 1970. In that stretch he captured Alice Cooper ("School's Out", 1972), Johnny Winter ("John Dawson Winter III", 1974), John Lennon ("Walls and Bridges", 1974) and Blue Oyster Cult ("Agents of Fortune", 1976) - then helped cut Patti Smith's "Because the Night" (1978) and engineered Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "Damn the Torpedoes" (1979). He later became chief engineer/VP at A&M, mixed U2's "Under a Blood Red Sky" (1983), was a Rock Hall nominee in 1999, and by 2014 co-founded AfterMaster Audio Labs.