Metallica producer Bob Rock sells rights to 'Black Album'

Legendary music producer Bob Rock, who's worked on some of the biggest-selling rock albums ever, has sold his share of rights on 43 songs to Hipgnosis Songs Fund.

The deal is the latest multi-million dollar music publishing acquisition by Hipgnosis, which also recently struck deals with Neil Young and Lindsey Buckingham.

Rock has producer credits on hundreds of albums, including everything from Metallica to Cher. He is best-known to rockers for working on Mötley Crüe's Dr. Feelgood and every Metallica LP from 1991's self-titled black album to 2003's St. Anger.

Rock features prominently in the Some Kind of Monster documentary and even served as the Metallica's bassist between the departure of Jason Newsted and the hiring of Robert Trujillo.

"The breadth of Bob Rock's enormous successes are almost impossible to match by any creator in the history of music," Hipgnosis Songs founder Merck Mercuriadis said in a statement. "From Metallica's most famous Black Album to Michael Bublé's Christmas, he has produced some of the biggest albums of all time that continue to be evergreen, year in and year out.

"Everyone who has worked with Bob knows he is a difference maker, which is why the artists he has produced end up making multiple albums with him which are almost always their biggest successes."

For his part, Rock said he's proud of the "heart and soul" evident in his work and that he felt comfortable partnering with Mercuriadis, adding that "it was an easy deal to put together."

This article was first published on iheart.com and is republished here with permission