Nathan “Mick” Guzauski is a multi Grammy®-winning mixing engineer and sound engineer who has been personally hand-selected by numerous artists to mix their songs and albums — including Michael Jackson, Prince, Daft Punk, Eric Clapton, Marc Anthony, Pharrell Williams, and Janelle Monáe.
His work spans a wide range of styles, including jazz, R&B, Latin, rock, pop, easy listening, funk, and hip hop. He has mixed 27 no. 1 hit singles and numerous albums, for which he has won Grammy® Awards for Best Engineered Album as well as Latin Grammys®. In 2005, he earned an Emmy® nomination for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Variety or Music Series for his work on Eric Clapton: Crossroads Guitar Festival (Great Performances).
Guzauski grew up in Rochester, and when in high school created a recording studio in his parents’ basement — as there were no local commercial studios where he could work. In his studio he used equipment that he built, borrowed, repaired, and modified. He did pickup engineer work with fellow Hall of Famers Steve Gadd, Tony Levin, and Lou Gramm.
Around the same time, he met fellow Hall of Famer Chuck Mangione, an up-and-coming composer in Rochester, and engineered his recordings as well as mixed his live sound. When Mangione signed with A&M Records in 1975, he invited Guzauski to relocate to Los Angeles to engineer his new album — a recording with a 45-piece orchestra, with a rhythm section and soloists, at A&M studios. Guzauski engineered several albums for Mangione over the next few years.
During his five decades at the mixing board, he has worked with dozens of artists, including Earth, Wind and Fire, Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick, Madonna, Talking Heads, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini, Patti LaBelle, Stanley Clarke, Backstreet Boys, Quincy Jones, Kenny G, George Benson, Henry Mancini, Michael Bolton, Mariah Carey, Celene Dion, Cher, Barry Gibb, and Whitney Houston.
Performance at the ceremony: Artists will be announced soon for the musical tribute honoring Guzauski’s legacy.