SOUTH PASADENA, Calif. – In a life full of magical musical moments, few compare for Ted Templeman to the night he first saw Van Halen in a mostly empty Hollywood club.
The elite record-maker and Warner Bros. record executive who had spent the decade producing albums for The Doobie Brothers, Van Morrison, Carly Simon and many others had been invited to see the young rockers one night in 1977.
He hid amid the crowd so the band wouldn't know he was there and he could leave unnoticed if he wanted to. He wouldn't want to. “When Van Halen came on stage, it’s like they were shot out of a cannon,” Templeman said in his new memoir, “Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music," co-authored with Greg Renoff. “Right out of the gate I was just