Bruce Earl Fairbairn (December 30, 1949 – May 17, 1999) was a Canadian record producer. He was active as a producer from 1976 to 1999, and is considered one of the best of his era. His most successful productions are Slippery When Wet and New Jersey by Bon Jovi, Permanent Vacation, Pump, and Get a Grip by Aerosmith, The Razors Edge by AC/DC, and Balance by Van Halen, each of which sold at least three million copies. He was originally a trumpet player, then started a career as a record producer for Canadian rock band Prism. Fairbairn won the Canadian music industry Producer of the Year Juno Award three times. He produced albums for many well-known international artists such as Loverboy, Blue Öyster Cult, Bon Jovi, Poison, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Scorpions, Van Halen, Chicago, The Cranberries, INXS, Kiss and Yes. His style was notable for introducing dynamic horn arrangements into rock music productions. Fairbairn died suddenly on May 17, 1999, due to unknown causes.
Fairbairn played the trumpet since the age of 5, as well as studying piano. Until the age of 16, he was a trumpetist in community groups. While in the 10th grade at Vancouver's Prince of Wales Secondary School, Fairbairn founded his first band The Spectres, managed by Bruce Allen, who would remain with Fairbairn through his career.
In the early 1970s, Fairbairn started producing while he was part of the Vancouver jazz-rock group Sunshyne, in which he played both trumpet and horn. There he met bandmate Jim Vallance, who would go on to become one of the most successful songwriters in the music industry and an important music associate. After Vallance left Sunshyne in 1973, Fairbairn changed Sunshyne's format to blues-rock-pop. Fairbairn recruited guitarist Lindsay Mitchell, from Vancouver band Seeds of Time, as singer-songwriter and frontman. Fairbairn worked through 1974 to land a recording contract for Sunshyne, using demos of two songs written by Mitchell. By mid-1975, when Fairbairn could not close a record deal for Sunshyne, he approached Vallance for assistance. Vallance reworked the arrangements on the Mitchell songs and supplied three of his own at Fairbairn's request. One of the Vallance songs, "Open Soul Surgery" impressed an executive at record label GRT, who signed Fairbairn's group to a recording contract in 1976.

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