2008 – Gilmour’s tribute to Floyd star Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Syd Barrett and Richard Wright
Gilmour said Wright (right) was “gentle, unassuming and private”.
Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has praised late bandmate Richard Wright for his “vitality, spark and humour”.
Writing on his website, Gilmour said he had “never played with anyone quite like” the keyboardist, who has died from cancer at the age of 65.
“In my view, all the greatest Pink Floyd moments are the ones where he is in full flow,” Gilmour added.
He hailed Wright for his songwriting talent, including on two tracks from 1973′s Dark Side of the Moon album.
Gilmour joined the band in 1968 – a year after the group’s first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick’s enormous input was frequently forgotten
David Gilmour
“No-one can replace Richard Wright – he was my musical partner and my friend,” Gilmour said.
“In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick’s enormous input was frequently forgotten.
“He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound.”
Gilmour said the blend of his and Wright’s voices, together with their “musical telepathy, reached their first major flowering” on 1971 track Echoes, which took up the whole of the second side of album Meddle.
Gilmour, Waters, Mason and Wright in 2005
The band performed together at Live 8 in 2005 for the first time in 24 years
Released in 1973, The Dark Side of the Moon went on to become one of the best-selling and most influential albums in rock history.
Wright helped write much of the album, but was responsible for two songs in particular, Gilmour said.
He added: “After all, without Us and Them, and The Great Gig in the Sky – both of which he wrote – what would The Dark Side Of The Moon have been?”
Gilmour has now pulled out of the premiere of a concert film, David Gilmour Live In Gdansk, in London on Tuesday.
But the guitarist has asked for the event to go ahead without him in memory of Wright, his spokesman said.
Joe Boyd, who produced the band’s early records, said Wright’s keyboards were “an integral part of the Pink Floyd sound”.
“He was a very nice and easy going person,” he said. “It’s very sad to hear of his untimely passing.”
‘Influential musician’
Neil Portnow, president of The Recording Academy, which organises the Grammy Awards in the US, added his tribute.
“Richard Wright was an exceptional instrumentalist, whose distinctive keyboard style was essential to the musicality of this world-renowned band,” he said.
“He also scored films and recorded his own instrumental compositions and solo albums.
“Our deepest sympathies go out to his family and fans at this difficult time, as we remember this influential musician.”
The group played at the Live 8 event in Hyde Park in London in 2005, when Roger Waters rejoined his bandmates for a one-off, more than two decades after they fell out.
The four musicians all also played at a tribute concert for Syd Barrett in 2007, with Waters playing a solo set and Wright, Gilmour and Nick Mason making a separate appearance.
Wright’s death was announced in a statement by his spokesman on Monday.
The spokesman said Wright died after “a short struggle with cancer” but declined to give further details.
While the writers’ strike put a damper on the Golden Globes, the Writers Guild of America announced Tuesday (January 22) that the striking union will not protest the upcoming Grammy Awards, as had been expected.
The unresolved writers’ strike already resulted in a scaled-back Golden Globes and was looming over the Grammy telecast, which is scheduled to air live February 10 from Los Angeles.
Beyoncé and the Foo Fighters had been the only acts to commit to perform at the event so far. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, more artists should begin to announce their intentions to attend the Grammy Awards as well.
“We are pleased with the decision made by the WGA today,” said Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Science, which organizes the Grammy telecast. “In light of this, we are gratified that the 50th Annual Grammy Awards will focus solely on the great music, artists and charitable work resulting from our show. We look forward to unveiling the exciting lineup of artists who will give our worldwide audience one of the most memorable Grammy shows ever.”
The production of the show, however, is still fraught with concerns — particularly over writers’ participation. The Recording Academy is still working on securing a deal with the WGA to permit its staff writers to contribute to the production of the show.
According to a spokesman for the WGA, a decision to grant an interim agreement has not been reached yet. Billboard is reporting that a meeting between the WGA board of directors and the Recording Academy is set for Tuesday night to discuss finer details of the proposal.
Last week Beyoncé’s father, Mathew Knowles, and Foo Fighters manager John Silva made statements that were optimistic that an agreement would be reached to ensure the telecast. Both men also expressed support for the writers.
“The work of the Recording Academy is vital to the music industry, and we have every intention of being with the entire music community to celebrate the Grammys,” Knowles said.
Silva echoed Knowles’ sentiments. “We are hopeful that we will see a resolution to the current situation affecting our entire industry,” he said. “[The] Foo Fighters have always had nothing short of amazing experiences with the writers, producers, fellow artists and audiences at the Grammys and every television show the band has ever played.”
2006 – Gospel singer Helen Berhane is released after spending two years in a metal shipping container. Berhane was arrested and put into detention in Eritrea for belonging to the banned Rema Church.
Helen Berhane (born c. 1975) is a Christian Gospel singer who was a prisoner in Eritrea.
Berhane is a member of the Rema church, one of several minority Evangelical Christian churches not officially recognized by the state of Eritrea and heavily persecuted. She was arrested on 13 May 2004, shortly after she released an album of Christian music, after refusing to sign a document pledging to end all participation in Evangelical activities, effectively forcing her to abandon her prohibited evangelical faith and music. She was detained at Mai Serwa military camp, north of the capital Asmara. Berhane reported that she spent most of her day locked inside a metal shipping container, in unsanitary and inhumane conditions; she had no possibility of contact with her family and was denied legal representation or medical care.
On Eritrean Independence Day, 24 May 2006, Amnesty International renewed their appeal to Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki to ensure the improvement of human rights standards in the country. Five of the six female prisoners Amnesty International appealed for the release of last year on this date, including Berhane, were still held at the time. They had not been charged with anything nor brought to any court.
Berhane’s 2003 album, T’ Kebaeku (I Am Anointed), was re-released in Europe in June 2006.
Release
On 2 November 2006 it was reported that Berhane was released from prison in late October 2006.
2006 – Co-founder of Mercury Records Irving Green dies in Palm Springs, Calif. at the age of 90.
RIP – Irving Green
July 4, 2006
What do Sarah Vaughn, The Platters, Brook Benton, Patti Page,
The Diamonds, Del Vikings, James Brown, Dinah Washington,
Roger Miller, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Laine, The Troggs,
Wayne Fontana, the Mindbenders, the Troggs, Leslie Gore, Blue
Cheer, Manfred Mann, Steam, Freddie and the Dreamers, Dusty
Springfield, Keith, Paul Mauriat, Jay and the Techniques,
David Bowie, The Blues Magoos, Spanky and Our Gang, Crispian
St. Peters, Jerry Butler, Bobby Hebb, Louie Armstrong. and
Rod Stewart all have in common?
They all recoraded for Irving Green, who owned Mercury Records,
a little indie who could… and did… become a major label!
He also owned Smash and distributed Phillips records and all
of their subsidiaries. He was one of the first champions of
Rock and Roll and Mercury was the first major company to
promote Black artists to crossover into the Pop mainstream.
It also was the first to have an African-American as Vice-
President of A+R, Quincy Jones.
Although he repeatedly asked me to call him Irv, I always
called him Mr. Green, out of respect for his daughter Kelli
Ross, who was my partner in Allouette Productions. Not many
people knew that Mr. Green was a silent partner in our
publishing and administration firm.
He was one of the few CEOS I’ve ever known who an artist
could talk to. Although he wasn’t a producer, I remember
when James Brown recorded briefly for Smash, he wouldn’t go
into the recording studio without Mr. Green being there.
From time to time he’d ask me to go “undercover” for him. In
the last days of Cameo-Parkway records, he asked me to
introduce him to my friends Neil Bogart, who was running the
label and Bob Reno, who was with the publishing company. He
wanted to get them to come over to Mercury, but Neil and Bob
wound up going to Buddah Records instead. A few years later,
Bob Reno did have a successful stint at Mercury, as head of
MRC publishing and later as head of A+R.
When the Lovin’Spoonful were about to re-sign with Kama-Sutra,
Mr.Green sent me to Wilkes-Barre to meet up with my old pals
and offer them a check for a million dollars to defect to
Mercury! When I mentioned to him that he hadn’t signed it, he
said, “When they sign a contract…I’ll sign the check!”
The last time I saw him it was 35 years ago hanging out at
Quincy’s house. He said he would leave the music buisness
when it stopped being fun. I guess it stopped being fun when
a big conglomorate bought him out. A few years later he went
into semi-retirement and moved to Palm Springs.
Although I’d heard he had become a top land developer, I will
always remember him as one of the greatest developers of pop
music and the human potential. Thank you for believing in me
and helping me to believe in myself.
2005 – During NBC’s A Concert for Hurricane Relief, rapper Kanye West attacks President George W. Bush for not responding quickly enough to New Orleans’ flooding. “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” he declares.
2005 – Folk singer Joan Baez joins anti-war protestors camped outside George W. Bush’s compound in Crawford, Texas. Activist Cindy Seehan is demanding to meet with the president to discuss the war in Iraq.
2005 – Bob Moog, inventor of his namesake range of synthesizers and one of the most significant figures in the evolution of electronic music, dies at his home in Asheville, N.C. He is 71. A native of N.Y., Moog was diagnosed with brain cancer in late April and had since undergone radiation treatment and chemotherapy.
Dr. Robert Arthur Moog (pronounced /ˈmoʊɡ/ to rhyme with “rogue”) (May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.
Life
A native of New York City, Robert Moog attended the Bronx High School of Science, graduating in 1952. Moog earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Queens College, New York in 1957, another in electrical engineering from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in engineering physics from Cornell University. Moog’s awards include honorary doctorates from Polytechnic University (New York City) and Lycoming College (Williamsport, Pennsylvania)
During his lifetime, Moog founded two companies for manufacturing electronic musical instruments. Moog also worked as a consultant and vice president for new product research at Kurzweil Music Systems from 1984 to 1988, helping to develop the Kurzweil K2000. He spent the early 1990s as a research professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Moog received a Grammy Trustees Award for lifetime achievement in 1970. In 2002, Moog was honored with a Grammy Tech Award, and an honorary doctorate degree from Berklee College of Music.
He gave an enthusiastically-received lecture at the 2004 New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME-04), held in Hamamatsu, Japan’s “City of Musical Instruments”, in June, 2004. Moog was the inspiration behind the 2004 film Moog.
Moog’s first wife was Shirleigh Moog (née Shirley May Leigh) a grammar school teacher whom he married in 1958. The couple had 3 daughters (Laura Moog Lanier, Michelle Moog-Koussa, Renee Moog) and one son (Matthew Moog) before their divorce. Moog was married to his second wife Ileana Grams, a philosophy professor, for nine years until his death. Moog’s stepdaughter, Miranda Richmond, is Grams’ daughter from a previous marriage. Moog also had five grandchildren.
Robert Moog was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor on April 28, 2005. Nearly four months later, Moog died at the age of 71 in Asheville, North Carolina on August 21, 2005. His end of life journey was captured using CaringBridge. The Bob Moog Foundation was created as a memorial, with the aim of continuing his life’s work of developing electronic music.
Development of the Moog synthesizer
Main article: Moog synthesizer
The Moog synthesizer was one of the first widely used electronic musical instruments. Early developmental work on the components of the synthesizer occurred at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, now the Computer Music Center. While there, Moog developed the voltage controlled oscillators, ADSR envelope generators, and other synthesizer modules with composer Herbert Deutsch.
Moog created the first subtractive synthesizer to utilize a keyboard as a controller and demonstrated it at the AES convention in 1964. In 1966, Moog filed a patent application for his unique low-pass filter U.S. Patent 3,475,623 , which issued in October 1969. He holds several dozen patents.
Robert Moog employed his theremin company (R. A. Moog Co., which would later become Moog Music) to manufacture and market his synthesizers. Unlike the few other 1960s synthesizer manufacturers, Moog shipped a piano-style keyboard as the standard user interface to his synthesizers. Moog also established standards for analog synthesizer control interfacing, with a logarithmic one volt-per-octave pitch control and a separate pulse triggering signal.
The first Moog instruments were modular synthesizers. In 1971 Moog Music began production of the Minimoog Model D which was among the first widely available, portable and relatively affordable synthesizers.
One of Moog’s earliest musical customers was Wendy Carlos whom he credits with providing feedback that was valuable to the further development of Moog synthesizers. Through his involvement in electronic music, Moog developed close professional relationships with artists such as Don Buchla, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, John Cage, Gershon Kingsley, Clara Rockmore, and Pamelia Kurstin. In a 2000 interview, Moog said “I’m an engineer. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my customers. They use my tools.”
R.A. Moog Co. and Moog Music
The Moog Music logo
The Moog Music logo
Main article: Moog Music
In 1953 at age 19, Robert Moog founded his first company, R.A. Moog Co., to manufacture theremin kits. During the 1960s, the company was employed to build modular synthesizers based on Moog’s designs.
In 1972 Moog changed the company’s name to Moog Music. Throughout the 1970s, Moog Music went through various changes of ownership, eventually being bought out by musical instrument manufacturer Norlin. Poor management and marketing led to Moog’s departure from his own company in 1977.
In 1978 after leaving his namesake firm, Moog started making electronic musical instruments again with a new company, Big Briar. Their first specialty was theremins, but by 1999 the company expanded to produce a line of analog effects pedals called moogerfoogers. In 1999, Moog partnered with Bomb Factory to co-develop the first digital effects based on Moog technology in the form of plugins for Pro Tools software.
Despite Moog Music’s closing in 1993, Robert Moog did not have the rights to market products using his own name throughout the 1990s. Big Briar acquired the rights to use the Moog Music name in 2002 after a legal battle with Don Martin who had previously bought the rights to the name Moog Music. At the same time, Moog designed a new version of the Minimoog called the Minimoog Voyager. The Voyager includes nearly all of the features of the original Model D in addition to numerous modern features.
Theremin
Robert Moog constructed his own theremin as early as 1949. Later he described a theremin in the hobbyist magazine Electronics World and offered a kit of parts for the construction of the Electronic World’s Theremin, which became very successful. In the late 1980s Moog repaired the original theremin of Clara Rockmore, an accomplishment which he considered a high point of his professional career. He also produced, in collaboration with first wife Shirleigh Moog, Mrs. Rockmore’s album, The Art of the Theremin. Dr. Moog was a principal interview subject in the award-winning documentary film, THEREMIN- An Electronic Odyssey, the success of which led to a revival of interest in the theremin. Moog Music went back to its roots and once again began manufacturing theremins. Thousands have been sold to date and are used by both professional and amateur musicians around the globe. In 1996 he published another do-it-yourself theremin guide. Today, Moog Music is the leading manufacturer of performance-quality theremins.
Pronunciation
The surname Moog is one of the most divergently pronounced names in popular culture. The following interview excerpt reveals Robert Moog’s preferred pronunciation:
— Reviewer: First off: Does your name rhyme with “vogue” or is like a cow’s “moo” plus a “G” at the end?
— Dr. Robert Moog: It rhymes with vogue. That is the usual German pronunciation. My father’s grandfather came from Marburg, Germany. I like the way that pronunciation sounds better than the way the cow’s “moo-g” sounds.
(Note that the English , which has a monophthong and devoiced final consonant.)
In a deleted scene from the DVD version of the documentary Moog, Moog describes the three pronunciations of the name Moog: the original, Dutch pronunciation . Moog reveals that some of his family members prefer the English pronunciation, while others, including himself (and his wife) prefer the Anglo-German pronunciation.
2005 – U2 frontman Bono urges the European Union to step up efforts to support the disadvantaged in Africa. Speaking in Brussels after meeting European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, Bono says the EU is facing a crisis of confidence because its citizens do not share the ideas promoted by political leaders.
2004 – In the midst of the Halloween season when the 1960s novelty hit “Monster Mash” is annually revived, the song’s singer and co-author rewrites its lyrics to protest President George W. Bush’s environmental policies. Bobby “Boris” Pickett reprises his infamous Boris Karloff imitation on “Monster Slash.”
2004 – Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry cancels two fundraising concerts featuring supporters like Jon Bon Jovi, James Taylor, John Mellencamp, Wyclef Jean, Barbra Streisand and Willie Nelson, out of respect for the recent passing of President Ronald Reagan.
2004 – Arista Records president and CEO Antonio “L.A.” Reid steps down from his post. The former drummer and Grammy-winning producer helped guide album successes by OutKast, Avril Lavigne, Pink and Dido.
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