As a staff producer at RCA in the late 1960s, Jarrard oversaw some good-to-classic albums by the Jefferson Airplane, José Feliciano, and Harry Nilsson. His most significant achievement was producing Surrealistic Pillow, the Jefferson Airplane's second album, and the first to include Grace Slick in the lineup. Although the group were starting to get further out in their transition from folk-rock to psychedelic music, Jarrard helped give the record a sound that was also palatable to the pop market, particularly in his tasteful use of reverb and his talent at mixing vocal harmonies. In spite of the great music and the high sales -- the album made number three and spawned the Top Ten hits White Rabbit and Somebody to Love -- some members of the band felt that Jarrard was too much of an unimaginative company man. Therefore, they made sure he did not produce any more records for them, using Al Schmitt for the far less commercial follow-up, After Bathing at Baxter's. Schmitt told Grace Slick biographer Barbara Rowe that the band, except for Slick, "did not like the sound of Surrealistic Pillow because there was far too much echo on it. They made it clear that they had not been happy with Rick Jarrard."

Jarrard produced Nilsson's first two albums, Pandemonium Shadow Show and Aerial Ballet, and some of his third, Harry. Although not huge sellers (Nilsson had yet to have his first hit), they were fine pop/rock singer/songwriter productions with deft orchestral arrangements, and Aerial Ballet included his hit cover of Fred Neil's Everybody's Talkin' (which would not be a hit until it was plucked off the album for use as the theme of the movie #Midnight Cowboy. Nilsson must not have been entirely satisfied with the production, however, as in 1971 he took some cuts off each of his first two albums, remixed them, added new vocals to some tracks, and put it all together on the confusing package Aerial Pandemonium Ballet. Jarrard's other big commercial success, besides Surrealistic Pillow, was José Feliciano's number two album Feliciano!, which had his number three hit single cover of Light My Fire. ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi