Meet the Peterborough-born music producer who’s worked with Michael Bublé, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Quincy Jones and John Legend (to name a few)

Record producer Greg Wells said he wasn’t sure if he was the right person to work with Michael Bublé on his new album “Higher” until he saw him in a dentist’s chair.

That’s no exaggeration: after a 15-minute phone-call from the Grammy-and-Juno-Award-winning-Burnaby-born crooner pitching reasons why the Peterborough-born, Humber College attendee should be the primary producer of his 11th studio album, the 46-year-old Bublé Facetimed him the next day … while he was undergoing dental surgery.

“He was in the middle of a four-hour dental surgery and it looked like a Nine Inch Nails video of his mouth just, you know, flayed open with these contraptions attached,” Wells recalled last week over the phone from his L.A. residence. “And I just thought, any celebrity that calls me during dental surgery looking like that is someone I have to work with.”

Wells, who produced seven of the 13 tracks that comprise “Higher,” which was out March 25, (other producers include fellow Canuck Bob Rock, Alan Chang, Spicy G and some guy named Paul McCartney) and also served as the project’s executive producer, said his respect and admiration for Bublé increased considerably once he got to know him.

“He’s the coolest person I’ve ever met and there’s something about him that’s very genuine. And he’s an equally amazing music maker. Once I realized that his biggest hits were all written by him, that started my realization that he has a real sense of what works for him as an artist and what doesn’t work for him.

“He’s also a hell of a songwriter and he was just a fantastic creative force to partner up with in making a record. We spent most of last year making this record and I can’t wait for people to hear it. It’s the proudest I’ve ever been of anything I’ve been involved with.”

If you don’t think that this Canadian is being particularly discerning due to the 70-million-plus sales track record of Bublé, let it be known that over the past few decades as a producer, arranger, mixer, instrumentalist and songwriter, Wells has accumulated 130 million album sales on projects to which he contributed.

Some of his accomplishments? He co-wrote “The Reason” with his future mother-in-law Carole King (he was previously married to Louise Goffin) for a Sir George Martin-produced Céline Dion track on her 1997 “Let’s Talk About Love” album that sold 35 million copies worldwide; co-authored “One and Only” with Dan Wilson and Adele for the singer-songwriters 31-million-selling album “21” and has produced tracks on Katy Perry’s three most popular albums — “One of the Boys,” “Teenage Dream” and “Prism” — on which he also shares contributing writer credits to the accumulative tune of 17 million album sales.

Wells received his Grammy for producing and mixing the bestselling “The Greatest Showman: Original Soundtrack;” produced OneRepublic’s breakthrough chart-topper “Apologize,” and also the breakthrough project for Mika — “Life In Cartoon Motion” — which sold over six million albums worldwide, powered by the No. 1 U.K. hit “Grace Kelly.”

Taylor Swift, Rufus Wainwright, Burt Bacharach, Quincy Jones, Pink, Keith Urban and John Legend have all hired Wells in some capacity, and he’s worked on three acclaimed Lin-Manuel Miranda films, including “Tick,Tick….Boom!”

So, to claim that the multi-instrumentalist is one of the top go-to guys in L.A. for his skills is somewhat of an understatement.

“My discography is pretty nuts,” Wells admits. “It goes all over the place, just because I like all kinds of different music.

Wells’ eclectic reputation was clearly a reason that Bublé felt merited a delay in recording “Higher” in order to accommodate the producer’s schedule.

“I’m really sensitive to feeling like I’m the right person for the job and I’ll be the first person to put my hand in there and say that I’m probably not,” said Wells in terms of securing clients. “In fact, in this instance, I did say ‘no’ initially to Michael.

“After I’d spoken to him a few times, I realized how busy I was. I had just made three movies in a row with Lin-Manuel Miranda, and that’s a lot of work that takes a long time. I didn’t want to short change Michael: If I signed on to make most of his new album, I didn’t want him waiting around forever due to my schedule.

“And Michael said, ‘I’m going to get started on the record with one or two other producers, but I’m going to save a lot of it for you. I’m gonna wait until you’re free.’

“And he did — he waited three or four months!”

As with most accomplished individuals, success didn’t happen overnight.

The Greg Wells story began at his parents’ Peterborough home as the son of a United Church of Canada minister where he learned to play several instruments after being waylaid in a wheelchair for a couple of years with Perthes disease. (His brother Rob, based in Toronto, would also become an accomplished songwriter and producer after a detour into graphic design.)

Fully recovered — and at the insistence of high school pal and saxophone player Kira Payne — Wells eventually moved to Toronto at 17 to pursue music, attending the Humber College Jazz program as a piano major. Payne also recommended that Wells apply to the Canada Council for the Arts grant to further his studies in Los Angeles.

“I started thinking if I really want to get deeply involved in the record business, there’s only one place on Planet Earth where that happens: Los Angeles,” recalled Wells, who was also playing keyboards for Kim Mitchell at the time. “I was going to attend the Dick Grove School of Music in L.A. — which is kind of like Berklee — and I applied to the council for a grant and forgot about it.

“Nine or 10 months later, a letter showed up saying I was approved. So, I called Dick Grove and they said they were going bankrupt.”

After a bit of research, Wells convinced the Canada Council of the Arts to allow him private studies with piano teacher Terry Trotter (he composed the theme for “Everyone Loves Raymond” and has recorded with Frank Sinatra) and also Clare Fischer, best known for being Prince’s go-to guy for string arrangements.

“That’s what led me here,” Wells recalls. “I assumed when the grant money ran out, that I would be coming back to Toronto.”

But both Trotter and Fischer kept recommending Wells for small recording sessions in L.A. as a demo piano player.

Wells said that jobs arrived slowly.

“Months would go by and I’d find one brick and put that brick in front of me,” he recalls. “Then another few months would go by and I’d find another brick.”

His first U.S. recording session was with eventual James Taylor backing singer David Lasley, and slowly word-of-mouth built his reputation. Wells also toured with k.d. lang for part of her “Ingenue” jaunt, but things weren’t moving quickly enough and after being frustrated for over a decade, he considered quitting the business altogether.

“At one point in the mid-2000s, I actually did try to quit,” he recalls. “I was going to move my young family to Saltspring Island. I had my house on the market here in Los Angeles, but my manager at the time said, ‘Please give me one more year.’

“Ten months later, I got hired to produce this artist from London called Mika and we wound up selling six million records. It changed my career forever. That wouldn’t have happened had I unplugged from the business.”

Wells said perseverance will eventually pay off if you’re consistent.

“If you keep showing up and do the best work you can and be a nice person that’s easy to work with while still remaining confident, at some point that combination will lead to some sort of success,” he reasoned.

He recalls meeting Katy Perry in early 2000 after she made a record with producer Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill”) and had been dropped by her label before its release.

“Katy was obsessed with ‘Jagged Little Pill’ and she sought Glen out when she was 18 years old, making a full album that was gonna be her debut as Katy Perry, not Kate Hudson, her early Christian recording persona,” he recalls.

“At some point they decided, ‘why don’t we add one or two extra bonus tracks to this record?’ And I very luckily got called in as a young producer just starting out. I had a songwriting career up and running before I was getting asked to produce records.’

“We had recorded ‘Waking Up in Vegas,’ which wound up becoming a huge hit for her on her first (Capitol) album, but once it finally came out that she was without a deal, she asked if she could do a songwriting session with me regardless. And I’m like, ‘of course,; just come in — I don’t care that you don’t have a deal.’

“And people were asking, ‘why are you working with Katy Perry? She’s old news. She’s washed up. Nothing’s gonna happen with her.’”

“But I knew they were wrong, because when Katy would walk into a room — and like how people would describe Marilyn Monroe — she would just light it up. She was just full of personality: a fantastic singer, a great songwriter and very bright and funny, a blast to be around. I’m so proud of her.

“We connected and we’re still good friends. I’ve worked on her first four albums and encouraged her to really just dig in and be herself.”

Wells said there was a similar situation with OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder.

“I got asked to produce his band’s debut album and did, and he was just starting in Los Angeles as a songwriter and producer for hire for other people. Now, Ryan’s career has now completely eclipsed mine. He’s a lovely guy, but he’s a guy that I’m happy when I see someone like him and Katy win — just really good people who are super talented and who work really hard. I try to recognize that stuff and help people do it.”

Currently working on Dolby Atmos mixes for the 2013 Twenty-One Pilots album “Vessel” that he produced, Wells — who is married to songwriter Nina Woodford (Nelly Furtado, Idina Menzel) and lives with their six children in L.A. (two from a previous marriage to Louise Goffin) — has also been engaged in philanthropy: he offers his mixing services as a fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders; provides drum kits at his own expense to aspiring musicians and hands out Roland keyboards that are underwritten by the manufacturer.

“I just gave away my 19th drum kit to a kid in Philadelphia,” he said. “When I was a kid, we couldn’t afford to pay for one.

“So, now I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be fun to get drums into the hands of somebody — regardless of age or location — who wants drums but don’t have them in their lives for whatever reason.”