Glen Ballard became the 2,374th recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today (July 11) with a little help from the members of Wilson Phillips, whose self-titled 1990 debut album—produced by and co-written with Ballard—went on to sell 10 million copies worldwide and cemented the friendship between the producer and the trio.
The love the “Hold On” performers still shared with Ballard, also well known for his work with acts like Alanis Morissette and Michael Jackson, was evident and the emotional high point of Ballard’s ceremony.
Carnie Wilson who called Ballard “the most humble human being I’ve ever met” and the “fourth member” of Wilson Phillips, gave a little history lesson, taking the audience back to the trio and Ballard sitting in a his studio in Encino, Calif., “eating our chopped salads and pasta from Emilio’s five days a week for two years,” while they crafted the album. “You understood our need to sing harmony, our blend. We heard and spoke the same language.”
Her younger sister Wendy, who was only 16 when they entered the studio in 1987, called their years together “a blissful time we will always cherish,” as she talked about feeling safe under Ballard’s wing as he helped them develop their sound.
But it was Chynna Phillips, who made the attendees understand just how vital a role Ballard played in their lives that stretched far beyond his musical tutelage and brought herself, Ballard and many in the audience to tears.
“We were three girls who really needed a father figure,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. Carnie and Wendy are, of course, the daughters of Beach Boy Brian Wilson, while Phillips’ father was The Mamas and the Papas’ John Phillips. All three have had, at times, complicated and fractured relationships with their fathers. “The three of us were desperate for a man in our lives who would speak into us, and who would nurture us and love us and show us that we mattered and had something to say and we had it in us… You reflected that in us and you really showed us that we could do what we wanted to do with our lives… It was a very personal, very influential, very moving time in our lives, transformative. And if it weren’t for you Glen, I don’t know where I would be today. I just love you with all my heart.”
Phillips then shared one of her most personal memories of Ballard, reflecting his own father-daughter connection with his child Bannon, who died as an infant many years ago. “When I went to your house that you had built in the ocean Malibu area, the very top of your house, you had a wind directional. You told me you had put it there for Bannon and that you just wanted her always to be able to find you. I just want you to know her spirit is here today and always with you, and I love her and know that she is so proud of you too.”
Ballard, whose two adult sons and many members of his extended family were in attendance, graciously gave credit to his many collaborators, which also include Annie Lennox, Barbra Streisand, Aerosmith and Dave Matthews Band, for his success, but shared a valuable lesson he learned from working with Wilson Phillips.
“One of my greatest joys is being involved in artists from the beginning, from the downbeat as they say in music. When I met Wilson Phillips, they hadn’t made a record, and it was up to us to create the initial sound. Luminous, three-part harmony in an era of grunge music was a bold and unusual choice,” he said, which received a laugh from the audience. “Creatively courageous. But when we won the Tokyo Music Festival in 1990 and that week our record [“Hold On”] went No. 1 across the world. We realized that the counter program worked. And it’s a lesson that I’ve taken with me from that moment. Five years later, I met a young singer-songwriter, and we wrote 20 songs and they became Jagged Little Pill that was Alanis Morissette. We weren’t chasing the marketplace, we were chasing her muse. And it turned out well. And then five years after that, Katy Perry was knocking on my studio door and after we spent a year in Paris, well, you know the rest, it worked out very well.”
Ballard has also had a number of theatrical successes, including Back to the Future, which is running on Broadway and London’s West End. Tony winner Roger Bart, who plays Doc Brown in the Broadway version, also feted Ballard, praising his collaborative spirit.
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