Van Temple - guitar, vocals; Kyle Henderson - bass and vocals; Wayne Famous - keyboards, vocals; Bryan Holmes - drums
Featuring only four songs, this mini set from the Producers, an Atlanta-based new wave act, is part of a benefit concert for the American Cancer Society. "You Make The Heat," "What She Does To Me," "What's He Got," and "She Sheila" are enough to give you a pretty good idea of what this power-pop band was all about, but certainly doesn't help explain why they were not any bigger than they were.
The group was formed in Atlanta in the late-1970s as a Beatles cover band, and initially used the name Cartoon. Soon, their Beatles tribute show was packing clubs and the band had enough clout to start performing their own material. The popularity in the Southeast sector of the US grew quickly and in 1980, CBS/EPIC A&R/Producer Tom Werman signed them to special imprint, Portrait. Werman was riding high as the studio wiz behind popular albums by Cheap Trick, REO, and Mother's Finest.
Werman certainly helped shape their pristine power pop sound in the studio, and the band saw a couple of low charting Billboard hits from their first album (The Producers) in 1981, and their follow-up disc, You Make The Heat, in 1982. The band soon became a fairly regular staple on MTV, and four months after this show was recorded for King Biscuit, they were invited to be a guest performer on MTV's Rockin' New Year's Eve broadcast (which also featured a then up-and-coming act named Duran Duran).
After 1982's You Make The Heat, however, Portrait dropped the band, and Henderson left and became a Born Again Christian. The band carried on and made a few indie LPs before being signed by MCA. No sooner had MCA released the band's big comeback album than the label merged with A&M and dropped several acts, among them the Producers.
They broke up in 1991, but get together on semi-regular basis to play high profile shows mostly in the Southeast.