After working with Mike Curb, Kim Fowley and others in the mid-to-late 1960s on musical projects including the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and Steven Spielberg's first short film, Amblin', he became a producer of such teen idol pop stars as the Osmonds, Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett in the 1970s.
During the 1980s, Lloyd supervised the music soundtrack for the film Dirty Dancing (1987)—including production of the hit "(I've Had) The Time of My Life"—and worked with Belinda Carlisle, Barry Manilow and many others.
By the age of 13, he had formed his own band at Beverly Hills High School, at the same time continuing to take lessons in music theory and composition.
Lloyd also recorded surf music as a member of the New Dimensions, a group that included Jimmy Greenspoon, later of Three Dog Night.
They recorded demos with Fowley, who then introduced the band to Bob Markley, a law graduate and aspiring performer who had already had his own TV show in Oklahoma.
Fowley also released some of the Laughing Wind's demos, with other tracks featuring Markley, as Volume One, credited to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.
[4] In 1967, Lloyd wrote songs and produced Fowley's solo album Love Is Alive And Well: Sounds & Scenes of the Flower Love Generation, with Fowley referring in the liner notes to Lloyd as an "..18 year old arranger and engineer who owns his own recording studio, plays 9 instruments and is lead singer and leader of The Laughing Wind, a Tower recording group."
Lloyd also provided the music for Steven Spielberg's first short film, Amblin',[6] and worked with Curb on other movie soundtracks, including The Devil's 8 (1969).
Among the artists Lloyd signed to the label was Lou Rawls, whose 1971 hit single and album, A Natural Man, he produced.
As Curb purged the label of artists associated with drug use, Lloyd moved into more mainstream pop music, initially as the producer of several of the Osmonds' hits, including "Down by the Lazy River" and "Crazy Horses" in 1972.
The same year, he was responsible as music supervisor for the soundtrack of the film Dirty Dancing, and for producing the tracks "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, and "She's Like the Wind", performed by Patrick Swayze.
Other musicians with whom Lloyd has worked include Dionne Warwick, the Monkees, the Bellamy Brothers, Susie Allanson, Sammy Davis Jr., Maureen McGovern and Frank Sinatra.
[9] In more recent years, Lloyd has worked as producer with Kimberley Locke, the first performer to have three consecutive #1 Christmas songs, "Up on the Housetop" (2005), "Jingle Bells" (2006) and "Frosty the Snowman" (2007).