Keith Harwood

Keith Harwood (1940 - September 1977), was a recording engineer, notable for his work with The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and David Bowie throughout the 1970s.

Harwood was based at Olympic Studios, in Barnes, London, employed often in collaboration with both Andy Johns and Glyn Johns. He is best remembered for The Rolling Stones albums It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (1974), Black and Blue (1976), plus the live album Love You Live (1977). Prior to the Stones, Harwood worked with Tucky Buzzard, Humble Pie, Wishbone Ash, and Mott the Hoople. He also recorded and mixed Bowie's Diamond Dogs album in 1974. With Led Zeppelin, Harwood engineered Houses of the Holy (1973), Physical Graffiti (1975), and Presence (1976). Harwood was a workaholic often spending many late hours mixing in the studio. Jimmy Page recalled working with him on the Presence sessions:

Ater the band [Led Zeppelin] finished recording all its parts, me and the engineer, Keith Harwood, just started mixing until we would fall asleep. Then whoever would wake up first would call the other and we'd go back in and continue to work until we passed out again.

Harwood was recording both a comeback solo album for John Phillips, formerly of the Mamas and the Papas, in the autumn of 1977, as well as the final mixdowns for the Rolling Stones' Love You Live release. He was on his way back home from a mixing session at Olympic Studio when he fell asleep at the steering wheel, due to a combination of exhaustion and heroin, causing his car to run off the South London road he was driving on fatally hitting into a tree. In a sad twist, singer Marc Bolan would later die at the same tree two weeks later.

The Rolling Stones honoured Harwood on the cover of Love You Live, which had been released only days after his death, with the epithet: "Those whom the gods love grow young".