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Hugh Charles Padgham is an English record producer. He has won many awards, including four Grammys, with Producer of the Year and Engineer of the Year. A 1992 poll in Mix magazine voted him one of the world's Top Ten Most Influential Producers. Padgham co-produced some of the biggest and most enduring songs of the 1980s, including many hits by Phil Collins, Genesis, The Human League, Sting and The Police.
Padgham became interested in record production after listening to Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection. He started out as a tape operator at Advision Studios, working in recording sessions for Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. From there he went to Lansdowne Studios and moved from tape-operator/assistant engineer to head engineer. In 1978, Padgham got a job at The Townhouse, where he engineered and/or produced acts including XTC, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins.
Padgham's previous work with Gabriel and Collins led to a long and enormously successful collaboration with Genesis in the 1980s, which produced a string of hit albums and singles including Genesis and Invisible Touch. In addition to his work with Genesis and XTC, Padgham co-produced two albums with The Police: Ghost in the Machine and Synchronicity, as well as Paul McCartney's Press to Play and The Human League's Hysteria. Iconic New Zealand band Split Enz have honoured his contributions to their work by including a tongue-in-cheek reference to live performances of their biggest hit "I Got You": instead of "look at you / you're a pageant" they sing "look at you / you're Hugh Padgham".
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