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Producer Series: Freddie Perren

He arranged "I Want You Back," produced "I Will Survive," and wrote "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday." Freddie Perren's twenty tracks are a decade of American pop.

The Corporation, and everything after

Freddie Perren was a member of The Corporation — the Motown songwriting and production team assembled by Berry Gordy alongside Fonce Mizell and Deke Richards, and the unit responsible for the Jackson 5's first four singles. Gordy deliberately kept the members anonymous, crediting the collective rather than the individuals, which is why one of the most important pop production teams of the era is not a household name.

Perren went on to a substantial independent career, producing across disco, soul and pop with a knack for the enormous, unstoppable chorus. He also arranged and produced much of the material that defined the late-1970s dancefloor without ever becoming a personality in the way Giorgio Moroder or Nile Rodgers did.

What to listen for

"I Want You Back" and "ABC" are the Corporation records, and "I Want You Back" in particular is one of the most perfectly constructed pop singles ever made — every element enters exactly when it should. Michael Jackson's "Ben" is the other Motown landmark.

Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" is the monument. Perren co-wrote and produced it, and it was released as a B-side. It has since become one of the most durable songs in popular music, sung at every wedding and every protest in the English-speaking world.

The Tavares tracks — "Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel" and "More Than A Woman" — are disco at its most joyful, and Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't Have You" comes from the same Saturday Night Fever orbit.

The Sylvers appear three times — "Hot Line" is the one — and Peaches & Herb's "Reunited" was a number one.

"It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday" appears twice: the G.C. Cameron original from the Cooley High soundtrack, and the Boyz II Men a cappella version that made it a standard for a second generation.

Go deeper

The Jackson 5's Diana Ross Presents and ABC are the Corporation albums, and the Motown production line generally is worth studying — Gordy ran it like an assembly plant, with quality control meetings and competing writing teams.

For the disco side: Tavares, Sylvester, and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, which remains one of the best-selling albums ever made and a much better record than its reputation.

And for what "I Will Survive" became, look up its history as an anthem — it is one of the few pop songs whose cultural meaning genuinely outgrew its author's intent.

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