Over the years, producer Tony Bongiovi has worked with some of rock's biggest names – touching upon a variety of genres in the process (heavy metal, punk, new wave, disco, soul, arena rock, etc.), and even inadvertently helped the career of his second cousin, Jon Bon Jovi. Bongiovi got his start in the early ‘70s, when he engineered recordings for Millie Jackson, the Last Poets, and the posthumous Jimi Hendrix odds and ends collection, Crash Landing. Bongiovi also founded one of New York's best known recording studios, the Power Station (now called Avatar Studios), as he turned his attention to producing acts by the later part of the decade. While many established engineers/producers thumbed their noses at the burgeoning punk movement, Bongiovi worked on classic early releases by two of the genre's biggest names – the Ramones (1977's Leave Home and Rocket to Russia) and the Talking Heads (1977's Talking Heads: 77). In 1980, Bongiovi gave a job to his cousin Jon (who would soon change the spelling of last name to Bon Jovi), who was trying to launch a music career himself – in exchange for sweeping the recording studio floors, the singer could record demos. A few years later, one such demo recorded during this time (for the song "Runaway") would land Bon Jovi a recording contract. Bongiovi worked mostly with heavy metal/hard rock acts during the early to mid ‘80s – including Aerosmith (Rock in a Hard Place, Classics Live, and Classics Live 2), Helix (No Rest for the Wicked), Meat Loaf (Dead Ringer), Ozzy Osbourne Bark at the Moon), and the self-titled debuts by Aldo Nova and even Bon Jovi. By the ‘90s, it appeared as though Bongiovi had taken a break from producing, although an archival release of the tracks Bongiovi engineered for Bon Jovi back in the early ‘80s was issued - 1997's Power Station Years: 1980-1983. By the 21st century, Bongiovi had launched his own management company, Bongiovi Entertainment Inc. ~ Greg Prato, Rovi