WESTSIDE / VALLEY : Record Producer Nick Martinelli Under Pressure but on Right Track

Nick Martinelli doesn’t often spend his Sundays like this, here among the knobs and switches of a recording studio. That’s for the rest of the week. But the man’s got a deadline to meet, and for Diana Ross, no less.

He has come again to this small Santa Monica studio to continue work on three new tracks for a boxed retrospective celebrating Ross’ three decades as a singer. And soon this independent record producer will be recording strings for these ballads with the self-explanatory titles: “The Best Years of My Life,” “Let’s Make Every Moment Count” and “Your Love.”

Martinelli needs to be finished with everything here in time for the collection’s fast-approaching release later this year. Yet he appears relaxed under all this pressure. This has been, after all, a chance to work with one of the musical inspirations of his youth in Philadelphia, back when Diana Ross and the Supremes regularly topped the charts.

“The first time I got to meet her, even in the studio, I was kind of in awe,” says Martinelli, 42. “Here you were with a legend. I just felt like she had been through a part of my life, or phases of it. Her music was there for me.”

This project is one result of Martinelli’s move from the East Coast to Los Angeles about six months ago. Beyond the Ross sessions, the producer’s central concern these days is the new Watchout Records label he has created with partner Herb Moelis, which will be distributed through Mercury Records.

Moelis will maintain a Watchout office in New York, and Martinelli plans to build a studio in Santa Monica, where he and a group of other producers and writers will develop new musical talent.

Martinelli says he was inspired to create the label partly to find some continuity in his career. In spite of producing chart-topping R&B; singles, the producer says it’s sometimes difficult to maintain a working relationship as an independent producer.

Watchout recently signed Long Island R&B; act Shabazz, which will release an album in early 1994. He expects the label to release two albums a year initially.

Martinelli is also looking for one or more female artists, a category that has provided some of his greatest commercial successes.

“The first step is the song,” he says. “If you hear a song for the first time and you walk away from it singing it, that’s a good sign.”

Growing up, Martinelli was always drawn more toward the emotion of soul music than the aggression of rock.

Soon after high school he took a job in the warehouse of Motown’s distributor in Philadelphia. In 1971, he began working on the side as a DJ at local clubs, and later won a position promoting dance music for Motown in the East.

After a friend brought him along to a disco remix session in 1978, Martinelli understood where he wanted to take his career. He and a partner created a small record production company.

That company went under in 1982, but Martinelli’s work there ultimately earned him some work as a producer for Virgin Records. Since then he’s worked regularly in music production, helping create singles, remixes and albums, and earning a platinum record award for Five Star’s “Luxury of Life” album. He was also awarded gold records for Teddy Pendergrass’ “Joy” and Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “All Our Love” albums.

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