dowd took a job at a classical music recording studio until he obtained employment at atlantic records. his first hit was eileen barton's "if i knew you were comin' i'd've baked a cake". he soon became a top recording engineer there and recorded popular artists such as ray charles, the drifters, the coasters, the spinners, ruth brown and bobby darin, including darin's famous rendition of kurt weill/bertolt brecht's "mack the knife". he captured jazz masterpieces by john coltrane, ornette coleman, thelonious monk and charlie parker. it was dowd's idea to cut ray charles' recording of "what'd i say" into two parts and release them as the a-side and b-side of the same single record.