Thomas Dolby Essay Research Paper Overview

Thomas Dolby Essay, Research Paper

Overview

In the early 1980s, Thomas Dolby’s

driving techno-pop rhythms helped define the musical zeitgeist of an era.

Achieving global fame with his 1983 hit "She Blinded Me with Science,"

Dolby personified the eccentric fringe energy of rock music’s New Wave.

An adept and innovative video producer, Dolby’s efforts for MTV helped

established the look and format of the burgeoning medium. Likewise, his

multimedia stage shows created the template for a generation of new performers.

By 1984 it seemed that Thomas Dolby was poised to shape the dominant sound

of the decade. Yet just as suddenly as he stormed onto the charts, Dolby

withdrew. By stepping out of the pop limelight he could, as he put it,

"stretch out musically."

Far from vanishing into obscurity,

Dolby worked as a producer for artists as diverse as Joni Mitchell, George

Clinton, and Little Richard. He composed movie soundtracks and lent his

talents as a keyboard player to efforts by rock legends like David Bowie

and Roger Waters.

After a decade of innovative musical

and video production, sound system design, and inspired electronic tinkering,

it was inevitable that Dolby would meld his talents in a unique creative

endeavor. In 1992 he founded Headspace, a multi-media company that produces

interactive music scores for video games, feature film soundtracks, and

audio systems for theme parks.

Jazz at Half Speed: Beginnings

Born to English parents in Cairo, Egypt in 1958, Thomas Dolby Robertson

grew up in transit. His father, an archaeologist specializing in Greek

and Etruscan pottery, kept Dolby and his five older siblings trotting

the globe. Dolby recalls "a dreamlike childhood skipping from one

place to another."

Though his mother was a teacher – or perhaps because of it – Dolby despaired

of study. His happiest hours were spent listening to jazz recordings by

Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk, and Oscar Peterson. He taught himself piano

by slowing the tape player to half speed, and picking out the melodies

by ear. Such primitive manipulation of sound sparked Dolby’s passion for

electronics. His interest deepened through his teens. At fifteen his London

classmates shortened his surname to Dolby, an honorarium to Thomas Dolby,

inventor of the famous noise reduction system for recording. Thomas’s

fate was sealed. At 16 he dropped out of school to pursue a career as

a rock musician.

Paris Streets and London Punks

Dolby worked part-time in a fruit and vegetable shop by day, and prowled

London’s thriving punk scene at night. The clubs shook with the thrashing

guitars and guttural vocals of bands like the Sex Pistols and the Clash.

There seemed to be little room for the more expansive, cerebral sounds

that circuited Dolby’s imagination. The composer recalls that it wasn’t

until he heard New Wave groups like the Talking Heads and XTC that he

realized the possibilities for his kind of music.

During this period, Dolby frequently trekked across the Channel, playing

guitar on the streets of Paris and piano in London cocktail bars.

"I felt it was an important part of an artist’s life to struggle

for a time in Paris," Dolby has said.

Composing songs and trying them out before fickle street audiences gave

him a sense of what worked and what didn’t. Meanwhile, Dolby honed his

electronic skills by building synthesizers and sound systems of his own

design. His first paying music job – sound technician for a touring Jamaican

r-&-b band – was an education in spontaneity and on-the-spot innovation.

His knowledge was soon in demand by British New Wave bands, notably the

Members and The Fall. He traveled extensively with the groups, creating

custom sound systems and experimenting with computer technology.

In 1979 he began playing keyboards with Bruce Wooley and the Camera Club.

Around this time Dolby rigged a PPG Wave computer to coordinate synthesizers

and drum pads with lighting effects for Tangerine Dream’s stage shows.

Setups were so complex that there were huge lags between songs. Dolby

recalls that "the audience could nip out for curry in between numbers."

However cumbersome, these shows were his first tentative steps toward

the high-tech spectacles that defined his own stage shows in the 80s.

The Golden Age

Dolby’s first big break came in 1980 when his song "New Toy"

scored singer Lene Lovich a hit single. Impressed with his electronic

acumen, the band Foreigner asked him to play keyboards on their Foreigner

4 record (1980). His synthesizer work on "Urgent" (a global

hit for Foreigner) helped legitimize the instrument’s place in mainstream

rock n’ roll. The following year he played on Joan Armatrading’s Walk

Under Ladders (198

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