Thomas Dolby
Thomas Morgan Robertson (born 14 October 1958), known by the stage name Thomas Dolby, is an English musician, producer, composer, entrepreneur and teacher.
This article is about the musician. For the American filmmaker, see Tom Dolby. For the inventor of the noise reduction system, see Ray Dolby.
Thomas Dolby
Thomas Morgan Robertson
14 October 1958
London, England
- Singer-songwriter
- musician
- record producer
- composer
- entrepreneur
- teacher
- musical director
Keyboards, vocals
1979–present
Dolby came to prominence in the 1980s, releasing hit singles including "She Blinded Me with Science" (1982) and "Hyperactive!" (1984). He has also worked as a producer and as a session musician.
In the 1990s, Dolby founded Beatnik, a Silicon Valley software company whose technology was used to play internet audio and later ringtones, including the Nokia tune. He was also the music director for TED Conferences. On the faculty at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University since 2014, Dolby leads Peabody's Music for New Media program, which enrolled its first students in the fall of 2018.
Stage name[edit]
The stage name Thomas Dolby originated from a nickname "Dolby" that he picked up in the early 1970s, when he was "always messing around with keyboards and tapes".[7] The name derives from the name of the audio noise-reduction process of Dolby Laboratories used for audio recording and playback. He adopted the stage name "Thomas Dolby" to avoid confusion with British singer Tom Robinson, who was popular when he began his career. Early publicity implied that "Dolby" was a middle name, and that Dolby's full name was Thomas Morgan Dolby Robertson;[8] this is legally incorrect, but he does sometimes informally go by the initials TMDR.[4]
After Dolby released "She Blinded Me with Science" in 1982, Dolby Laboratories expressed concern regarding the stage name. Dolby's record label refused to make him change his name, and Dolby Labs did not raise the issue again until later. After a lengthy legal battle, the court decided that Dolby Labs had no right to restrict the musician from using the name. It was agreed that he would not release any electronic equipment using the name.[9] Dolby is therefore unrelated to Thomas "Tom" Dolby, who is a novelist, filmmaker, and son of the Dolby Laboratories founder Ray Dolby.[4]
Session and production work[edit]
Early in his career, Dolby played keyboards with Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club and is credited on their debut album. The instrumental track "WW9" in the album English Garden is the first recorded example of Thomas' writing. He also wrote Lene Lovich's hit single "New Toy" and played keyboard as part of the backing band for her tour.[22] Dolby played some synthesizer parts on the Thompson Twins album Set and co-wrote "Magic's Wand" with Whodini, and played keyboards on one track ("Love") on Robyn Hitchcock's first solo album, 1981's Black Snake Diamond Role. Dolby played synthesizer on two tracks on the album Pleasure by the band Girls at Our Best! Around this time, he also formed a short-lived band called the Fallout Club.
By far the most significant session relationship for Thomas in the early days was when he contributed the signature synthesizer sound on the track "Urgent" on Foreigner's 1981 album 4. On the same album he played the atmospheric synthesizer intro to the mega-hit "Waiting for a Girl Like You." The fees from this work, including tour dates, bankrolled the studio time for the recording of the 1980s benchmark album The Golden Age of Wireless from which his solo career began.
In October 1981 Dolby made an appearance in the video for the Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin British number one cover of "It's My Party", playing the part of Johnny in the "Judy and Johnny just walked through the door" section of the song. The video made its first Top of the Pops appearance on 29 October 1981.
Dolby also worked as session keyboard player on Def Leppard's 1983 Pyromania album. Dolby appeared on Pyromania using the alias Booker T. Boffin,[23] as his affiliation with another record label restricted the use of his real name.
In 1985, Dolby was a member of David Bowie's band for his performance at Live Aid.[24] He also provided production on Joni Mitchell's album Dog Eat Dog.[25] He had previously covered the Mitchell song "The Jungle Line" in 1981 after being inspired by her 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns.[26] He and Mitchell clashed in the studio, with Dolby's precise working methods proving incompatible with Mitchell's more freeform approach. Dolby wrote in his memoir that he was "probably too much of a brat, with my own blinkered way of working".[25]
Dolby produced two albums for the English sophisti-pop band Prefab Sprout: 1985's Steve McQueen and 1990's Jordan: The Comeback. He also produced four tracks from 1988's From Langley Park to Memphis, including the hit single "The King of Rock 'n' Roll".[27][28]
In 1987, Dolby played synthesizer on Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is a Place on Earth", which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States that December.[29]
Other endeavours[edit]
1985 Grammy Awards[edit]
In 1985, Dolby, along with Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, and Howard Jones, appeared at the Grammy Awards, which were televised. All four musicians were successful in the mid-1980s music scene, and they were also all keyboard and synthesizer experts.
Virtual reality[edit]
Dolby's first experiment with virtual reality took place in the fall of 1992, when he was invited by the Guggenheim Museum, New York,[37] to design and install a sonic VR experience. This led to The Virtual String Quartet programmed by Eric Gullichsen, and sponsored by Intel Corp. The experience ran on an IBM 386 processor with a Convolvatron 4-channel audio card. Users wore a head-mounted display and found themselves in the midst of a computer-generated string quartet playing Mozart. The sound was fully spatialized as the user moved around the physical space. Tickling a player with the joystick resulted in that musician switching to improvisation in a 'hot jazz' or Appalachian bluegrass style.
In the Fall of 2018, Dolby created a New Media workshop at The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University[38] with VR equipment donated by HTC Vive. Students in his course are learning to compose music for VR and AR.
On 4 October 2018, Dolby performed a live score for the High Fidelity VR event 'Escape from Zombie Island.'[39] He appeared 'in-world' as his own avatar, where he triggered and played real-time horror film music. He also performed his first ever full VR concert at the Futvrelands Festival[40] on 17 November 2018, in front of over 250 other avatars.
Dolby said he became interested in electronic music because "I'm not a very proficient keyboard player, so the computer became my musical instrument ... None of the equipment is essential, though. In a way, I was happier when I just had one monophonic synthesizer and a two-track tape deck".[46] His first instrument, found in EMS's garbage dumpster at 277 Putney Bridge Road,[4][47][48] was the Powertran Transcendent 2000[49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57] synthesiser.
The following is a list of notable instruments and the electronic equipment that Dolby has used on his recordings:
Personal life[edit]
Dolby married actress Kathleen Beller in 1988; they have three children.[4] His brother is information retrieval researcher Stephen Robertson.[59]
Awards and nominations[edit]
In July 1998, Dolby received a "Lifetime Achievement in Internet Music" award from Yahoo! Internet Life. In 2012 he performed at Moogfest and was the recipient of The Moog Innovation Award, which celebrates "pioneering artists whose genre-defying work exemplifies the bold, innovative spirit of Bob Moog".[60] In February 2018, Dolby was awarded the Roland Lifetime Achievement Award.[61] Dolby has received four Grammy nominations, two each in 1984 and 1988.[62]