NEW YORK CITY — Record producer Jack Douglas died Monday in New York City at age 80. He died from complications of lymphoma, his daughter said, and passed peacefully with his family surrounding him, according to a statement.

A native of the Bronx, Douglas began his career as a folk musician in the early 1960s and worked on Robert F. Kennedy's 1964 senatorial campaign as a songwriter. In 1965, he traveled to Liverpool with friends via cargo ship without work permits or visas, was detained by U.K. immigration officials and was later deported after telling a local newspaper editor his story.

After attending the Institute of Audio Research, Douglas took a job at the just-opened Record Plant studio in midtown Manhattan as a janitor. He went on to work as an engineer on recordings by Miles Davis, the Who, the New York Dolls, Alice Cooper, Joe Walsh's James Gang and Mountain, and he worked on John Lennon's album Imagine. That work led to a friendship with Lennon that culminated in their collaboration on the album Double Fantasy in 1980.

Encouraged by Bob Ezrin to become a record producer, Douglas co-produced Aerosmith's second album Get Your Wings and Alice Cooper's Muscle of Love under Ezrin's tutelage. His 1975 album Toys in the Attic, which included the hits Sweet Emotion and Walk This Way, was certified nine-times platinum. He gave Steven Tyler the lyrical inspiration for Walk This Way by recreating a bit from Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein.

In 1976, Douglas produced Aerosmith's Rocks, Cheap Trick's debut album, Patti Smith's Radio Ethiopia and albums by Starz, Montrose and Bux. He later worked on Cheap Trick's At Budokan and Aerosmith's Live Bootleg, and received a songwriting credit on Aerosmith's 1977 song Kings and Queens.

Douglas helped assemble the backing band for Lennon and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy, which included drummer Andy Newmark, guitarist Earl Slick, bassist Tony Levin and guitarist Hugh McCracken. Lennon was murdered shortly after the release of the album. Douglas reassembled much of the band for Ono's album Season of Glass in 1981.

Over the ensuing decades, he worked with rock acts including Zebra, Supertramp, Slash's solo projects, Local H, Clutch and a reformed New York Dolls in the early 2000s. He sat for a long interview on Billy Corgan's podcast late last year.

Recalling his first encounter with Lennon at the Record Plant, Douglas said in a 2012 interview: "He got really excited to meet me. It was amazing." He added: "He invited me into the tracking rooms, he gave me a ride home in his limo. Pretty soon, I was working on the record as an assistant. We became friends."