Sound Engineer David Bryson Dies

David “Davey” Bryson, who was a monitor engineer for more than 30 years in the U.S. and in Europe, died Nov. 20 in Glasgow, Scotland, after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He had been visiting family and friends in his home country and was awaiting a flight back to the U.S. when he was stricken.

Photo: Courtesy Mick Whelan

During a long and colorful career, Bryson worked with many top artists, most notably Rod Stewart, for whom he mixed monitors for more than 20 years. He most recently had been an independent contractor, working for the last three years with Engelbert Humperdinck.

During his career he also worked with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Beach Boys, Heart, Supertramp, Diana Ross and many others. “Nobody but nobody got monitors louder or bigger than Davey,” Mick Whelan of Adamson Systems Engineering, told Pollstar.

Longtime friend and colleague Lars Brogaard worked with Bryson from 1978, and told Pollstar “he could get anything louder than any engineer in the world, and without distortion, which is very important. We did a show at Wembley Arena and I lost front of house power. I hardly noticed, because of those monitors.”

Bryson passed along his expertise to a new generation of engineers. Sound Image monitor engineer Marcus Douglas is a longtime family friend who was also mentored by Bryson, who worked for many years with his father, Jim Douglas. “He touched a lot of people and a lot of lives, in a very positive way,” Douglas said.

Bryson, 62, is survived by his wife, Lynn, of Long Beach, Calif. Memorial services in Scotland are pending and there are plans for a celebration in Los Angeles of Bryson’s life to be announced.