As a young musician and budding producer, as your "ears" develop, everything you hear is "food for thought", and not only that, but the old adage "you are what you eat .." might also be appropriate from a sonic perspective as well. As producers, engineers, sound designers, and recording artists, so much of our education comes from mimicking and emulating what others before us have created.
As I was reflecting on some influential recordings of my late teens and early 20's, the name of Producer Arif Mardin came up ...