Dean's World

Yes, certainly, Elvis and the Beatles--and Buddy Holly and Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson and so on were huge influences--and none of them would have existed without Leo Fender and Les Paul, who gave us the electric guitar as we know it today. (There were other electric guitars before that, but none as practical, simple, affordable, and easy to play all at once).

No electric guitar, no Fab Four.

Nor would the Beatles in particular have been as influential as they were without the incredible range of recording techniques invented by Les Paul, the man who gave us multi-track recording, the echo chamber, and several other technologies besides.

Moog gave us the synthesizer, without which we would have had no Moody Blues, no Emerson Lake &Palmer, and almost none of the music of the '80s. Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles would have been completely different musicians without Robert Moog.

Most modern synthesizers owe their genesis to Moog. Most of Moog's specific techiques are no longer used, but then, most of Robert Goddard's designs are no longer in use either.

So umhh, where would (only) Les Paul be without Mary Ford ?

Vaya Con Dios would never have made it as an instrumental.

Now go ask a teenager who Moog is ?

Without Mary Ford, Les Paul would merely be a hit songwriter and influential jazz guitarist who had worked with people like Bing Crosby and Judy Garland and many well-known orchestra leaders before he ever met Mary. He'd also be the guy who invented one of the earliest and most important solidbody electric guitar designs, multi-track recording, the echo chamber, and 2/3rds of the techniques used by recording engineers for the last 50 years.

Meaning, without Mary Ford, he would have had a few fewer hit records to his name.

Mind you, she had a lovely voice, was a great singer. But Les Paul was and is the one and only. If only he'd finally patent and release the desgn of that Les Paulverizer.

As for Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles: You think of them only as singer/songwriters. But they were both early on adopters of and experimenters with the synthesizer. And multi-track recording come to think of it.

Moog basically defined the standard architecture for analog synthesis and his keyboards created the sound by which all others were judged in the '70s. If you heard a synth on a record in the '70s or early to mid '80s, there was a better than 50% chance it was one of his or else an ARP (a direct competitor that copied his instruments as closely as possible). Early Depeche Mode? Kraftwerk? Yaz? Herbie Hancock's Future Shock (the album with "Rockit")? The Moog synth bass sound was notoriously fat and lively and it was all over the place in early dance music. An early Moog synth appeared on Abbey Road. The Grateful Dead were also early adopters (their third album, Aoxomoxoa, includes Moog synth). And let's not forget Switched-On Bach.

Not until affordable digital synthesis came along in 1983 (with the Yamaha DX7) did the Moog sound really have serious competition. Other manufacturers copied the architecture but rarely nailed the sound thanks to Moog's foresight in patenting his filter (the only part of the synth he ever patented). Those other manufacturers made great second synths -- you know, if you already had a minimoog. Anyone who plays keyboards today, especially with analog making a resurgence, owes him a great debt.

He is also largely responsible for the resurgence of interest in the Theremin as a serious instrument in the latter part of the 20th century with his line of professional models and instructional videos.

I can't believe so many people haven't heard of him. Would there have been modern synthesizers without Moog? Sure -- Don Buchla was actually working on a modular analog synth design before Moog was, although Moog got to market first. But for better or worse, Moog was the guy who had the opportunity to shape the early history of the synthesizer in popular music. By all accounts he was a really nice guy too.

He told everyone his name rhymed with "vogue" (and this appears in more than one obit I read today). He later admitted that it was in fact originally pronounced just the way you'd think and that the change came after his wife, an elementary teacher, told him that her kids mooed at her when she told them her name. So it was "mogue" forever after.

Bye, Bob.

Holy crap, I almost forgot to mention the most famous Moog solo of all time: Keith Emerson at the end of "Lucky Man." Total Moog. And he did that on the first take. It set the standard for years of glorious prog-rock wanking. I remain quite fond of that period.

I remember when Switched-On Bach came out - the combination of that music played on that revolutionary technology really twisted my head around.

Switched-On Bach holds up remarkably well today - its just as entertaining as it was then.

The Hammond, especially played through a rotating Leslie, had that unbelievable vibration to it that you just couldn't beat. Indeed, I've never heard an effort to synthesize it that had quite the same power as the real thing. (I'm sure it could be done, I'm just saying I haven't heard it yet.)

Twinkie Clark, of the legendary Clark Sisters gospel group, has been called "The Queen of the B3" (Hammond B3 organ). That woman makes the B3 organ talk, sing, fly, jump, run, etc. She's a flat out living legend except she's in the Black Gospel niche. Wish she would branch out into jazz since she has the skills.

As for Dr. Moog, may your afterlife be filled with sine waves of beauty.