James Stroud is an American musician and record producer who works in pop, rock, R&B, soul, disco, and country music. He played with the Malaco Rhythm Section for Malaco Records. In the 1990s, he was the president of Giant Records (a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records) and held several credits as a session drummer. He later worked for DreamWorks Records Nashville and in 2008 founded his own label, Stroudavarious Records.

Biography

Stroud began playing drums at local bar bands in Texas and Louisiana. Stroud worked with musicians such as Paul Davis in the 1960s. He and Davis also took on songwriting duties for Jackson, Mississippi-based Malaco Records. He played with and produced many acts throughout the 1960s and 1970s. While involved at Malaco, he worked with R&B artists, including Dorothy Moore, King Floyd, Frederick Knight, Jackie Moore, The Controllers, Fern Kinney, and Anita Ward. He co-produced and played on Dorothy Moore's "Misty Blue", which was a major US and UK hit, going on to sell over four million copies. He was also a session musician working with the band, Sparks which he provided guitar, drums and keyboards. He also started playing drums and synthesizer with Paul Davis, taking influences from rock and R&B artists. In the early-1980s, he began playing for Eddie Rabbitt. From there, Stroud had become a prolific session drummer in Nashville, Tennessee, backing Ronnie Milsap, K.T. Oslin and others. He was also a member of the Marshall Tucker Band. He is noted for discovering Taylor Swift. In the late-1980s, Stroud founded The Writers' Group, a publishing company. He also took up producing, and in 1989 was named by the Academy of Country Music as Producer of the Year. When Warner Bros. Records founded the Giant Records branch, Stroud became president of the new label and produced several of its acts, including Carlene Carter, Dennis Robbins, Tracy Lawrence, Daryle Singletary, Daron Norwood and Clay Walker. At the same time, he produced acts not signed to the label. Between 1993 and 1994, twenty-one singles produced by Stroud reached the top of the country charts. After Giant Records closed in 2000, Stroud moved to DreamWorks Records Nashville, where he worked as a producer for several artists including Darryl Worley. After the label closed down in 2005, Stroud joined Universal Music Group (DreamWorks' parent company) and served as co-CEO alongside Luke Lewis until 2007. In July 2008 he founded a new label, Stroudavarious Records, to which he signed Worley as the flagship artist.

Collaborations

With Alabama With Joan Baez With Glen Campbell With Joe Cocker With Mark Collie With Crystal Gayle With Patrick Hernandez With High Inergy With Nick Kamen With Toby Keith With Gladys Knight & the Pips With Nicolette Larson With Tracy Lawrence With Melissa Manchester With Mac McAnally With Neal McCoy With Tim McGraw With Bill Medley With Ronnie Milsap With Jackie Moore With Michael Martin Murphey With Anne Murray With Wayne Newton With The Oak Ridge Boys With Nigel Olsson With Eddie Rabbitt With Dennis Robbins With Bruce Roberts With Kenny Rogers With Dan Seals With Paul Simon With Tanya Tucker With Dionne Warwick With Carl Wilson