HUFFINGTON
10.06.13
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MUSIC
CLARA ROCKMORE
JOE MEEK
THOMAS DOLBY
Genius thereminist Clara Rockmore
(née Reisenberg) was born in
Lithuania’s capital in 1911. Her
family settled in New York City in
the early ’20s. Young Clara was a
violin prodigy, eventually picking
up and mastering the theremin,
which she said gave her “terrific
freedom,” and by the mid-’20s,
she became a driving force in the
electronic-music movement. Soviet
musician/inventor and alleged spy
Léon Theremin personally taught
the very beautiful Clara and fell
madly in love, proposing marriage
several times. Providentially, she
declined (marrying lawyer Robert
Rockmore instead), as Mr. Theremin
disappeared (either kidnapped or
hightailed it) behind the Iron Curtain
in 1938. Rockmore’s version of
Gershwin’s “Summertime,” from
Clara Rockmore’s Lost Theremin
Album, recorded in 1975 with sister
Nadia Reisenberg on piano, is a
sublime and mystifying introduction
to an extraordinary artist.
Producer, engineer, composer and
eccentric sound innovator Joe
Meek was born in 1929 in South
West England. His childhood was
fraught, with his mum raising him as
a girl until the age of 4, setting the
stage for a lifelong identity crisis.
By the age of 7, he fell in love with
his first gramophone and became
an eminent tinkerer, burrowing into
the safety of sound. Working out of
a gadget-packed home studio and
using a raft of newfangled recording
techniques, Meek produced and
wrote the U.S. No. 1 hit “Telstar”
for British pop band The Tornados
in 1962. He continued to push the
technological envelope with tracks
for Les Paul and Mary Ford, David
Bowie, Tom Jones, The Honeycombs,
Screaming Lord Sutch, actor/singer
John Leyton, Heinz, Glenda Collins,
and Ritchie Blackmore, among many
others. Emotional and financial
turmoil, including an obsession with
the occult and drug abuse, pushed
Meek beyond the edge in 1967,
when he killed his landlady and then
himself at the age of 38 — notably
on the anniversary of the day his
hero Buddy Holly had died. The Ivor
Novello Award winner leaves behind
a catalog of groundbreaking sonic
renown. Remember Joe Meek with “I
Hear a New World.”
Synth-pop icon and producer/artist/
film composer/inventor Thomas
Dolby was born Thomas Morgan
Robertson in Egypt, when his
parents, British academics, were
on an archeological dig in 1958.
Initially a student of meteorology at
college, Thomas turned his interests
to electronics and music gear. By
18, Dolby started to design and
construct his own synthesizers,
program computers, and learn
guitar and piano. Some of his
collaborations include Lene Lovich,
Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder,
George Clinton, Dusty Springfield,
Joni Mitchell and Ofra Haza. Dolby,
founder of web-music software
outfits Headspace and Beatnik, Inc.,
was recognized for his efforts with a
Yahoo Lifetime Achievement Award
in 1998. He’s also received several
Grammy nominations and exhibited
his work at the Guggenheim Soho.
“Screen Kiss,” from Thomas Dolby’s
1984 release The Flat Earth, still
sounds like magic.
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