As both a producer and a recording artist, Mitch Easter did as much as anyone to define the jangle-pop sound that came out of the South in the ‘80s and spread to the rest of the U.S. Easter was a member of power-pop band Sneakers in the late ‘70s with future dB’s frontman Chris Stamey, and fronted Let’s Active in the early-to-mid-’80s. As a producer, working out of his home studio in North Carolina, he helmed albums by R.E.M., Game Theory, Suzanne Vega, and many more. Easter kept himself so busy he didn’t even release his first real solo album until 2007.