In 1986, Grammy-winner Steve Hodge got a call from Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, asking him to fly from LA to help them with a very important album they were producing at their fledgling studio in Minneapolis. Jam subsequently said often that Hodge "saved us" on that project.

"I wouldn't say I 'saved' them," Hodge says in his typical low-key manner. "I just remixed what they had recorded and made sure everything hit hard."

"Hit hard" is right. The album was "Control," which established Janet Jackson as a pop diva, and was instrumental in Jam and Lewis winning the Grammy as Producers of the Year in 1987. It created an international reputation for their Flyte Tyme Productions and began an eighteen-year relationship with Hodge at the center of one of the greatest hit-making machines in the history of the international recording industry.

From then on, Hodge was pivotal to the evolution of the Flyte Tyme sound, a mix of unique hard-hitting rhythmic lines, lush multi-layered production and melodic vocals. This approach led to hits for a long list of artists - Janet and Michael Jackson, Sting, Rod Stewart, Boys II Men, Mary J. Blige, Maria Carey, TLC and on and on.

But Hodge had already built a powerful reputation as a mixer and engineer before that fateful phone call, collaborating with such diverse artists as Lou Rawls, Luther Vandross, Barry White, Shalamar, Natalie Cole, Professor Longhair, Little Feat and Boston.

The key to success is collaboration, Hodge says. "Hits come from a really good collection of characters, who work together well, a group of people who come together to the make the whole."

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Hodge was a musician himself, who studied music and drama in high school and college. But a summer job and a host of contacts led him "to stay on the other side of the glass."

In the summer of 1969, he got a job working construction on one of the dozens of new recording studios popping up in LA, working for producer Val Valentin. This led to work as a second engineer --- "That's a job where you get coffee and learn to stay out of the way," as Hodge describes it.

However after the construction job was finished, Hodge stayed on

and worked his way up the engineer ladder in a classic

apprenticeship, from second engineer to first engineer to staff

engineer. He worked in many of LA's top studios, from MGM

Records, and The Record Plant, to the legendary WestLake Audio.

Hodge took a two-year sabbatical to work in a new studio in Louisiana in the early 70s, where he did some work as producer/engineer that "I am still most proud of." There he worked on roots blues and unique musical genres with artists from Professor Longhair to the Wild Magnolias and Clifton Chenier.

Back in LA, Hodge worked on a series of major projects as engineer and mixer, most notably for Solar Records, with their stable of artists: Shalamar, Lakeside, The Whispers, Dynasty, Leon Sylvers and others. This work is what drew Jam and Lewis to him, and he then worked with them on their first hit, The SOS Band's "Just Be Good To Me."