Life Story
Albums
Life Story
Bob Thompson (1924-) was born Robert Lamar Thompson in San Jose California and is best known for his Space Age Pop records of the late 1950s.
Discovering Music
In the 30s and 40s Bob’s family moved him to Auburn, a higher elevation, because of his asthma. He happened upon a piano covered with a tarp as a boy and spent the entire day playing. He emerged a musician at heart. His father was musical also, playing trumpet and also was a bugler in world war one. The family was of very modest means and struggled through the Depression, with his father having employment on the railroads and as a cemetery grounds keeper in Auburn. Bob was also a rebel at heart. His music teacher said to him "I don’t know anyone alive that plays that fast!" The high school aged Bob replied: "Do you know anybody dead."
In high school, drumming on an ottoman.
Bob, like many people of the era, discover music from the radio. Duke Ellington entranced him, and he was able to literally sit under Duke’s piano at a Sacramento gig. He also discovered Ravel at this time. A very shy Bob moved to San Francisco after high school. He was sent to basic training in Mississippi but was soon 4F because of his lingering childhood asthma. He stayed in a room lent to him in the Marina after this, getting a job as a pageboy at KGO radio in San Francisco.
Education
Bob went to UC Berkeley for a year and was soon frustrated by what seemed to him a musical conservatism. He’d discovered be-bop emanating from a Telegraph avenue record store one day and this was another life-changing musical experience. Some harmonies in Bebop were taught as "wrong," such as a minor fourth, which reminded him of the limitations of his "square" high school music teacher. He left college and began a musical apprenticeship with Professor Denny of UC Berkeley, and was soon writing arrangements for KGO’s live orchestra that accompanied the musical programs of the day. These weekly tutoring sessions turned Bob into a formidable arranger of music.
At KGO
At Berkeley Bob also formed a life long friendships with Gordon Conell, a Broadway actor of some note, and Stanley Cavell, who went on to become a professor at Harvard with expertise in American Film. Bob and Stanley would go to movies and analyze film scores on place mats afterwards. This also influenced bob musically as he was exposed to the American Songbook, in particular Gershwin and Kern, his favorites. Stanley’s early interest in film led him to scholarship in the area and a well-known course on the subject at Harvard. Bob also was playing Jazz piano from his Auburn days, and was picked by Barney Bigard, Duke Ellington’s clarinet player, to play gigs in Sacramento. Hearing the boppers around town, he concluded "I could never be the best jazz player but I could be the best pop arranger."
Bob (r) with Barney Bigard of the Duke Ellington
Orchestra
First Professional Work
Bb went to Paris to work, and arranged for Jacqueline Francois and Gloria Lasso. But it was hard to make a living so he returned to California. He then drove his Model T to Los Angeles to seek out musical possibilities there. He met a musician at the Formosa bar in Hollywood who said: "Come on in, the water’s fine." This was the start of a forty year, wide-ranging musical career that included a series of Space Age Pop albums that made him famous as a cult figure beginning in the 1980s, when his professional career came to a close. Bob’s Los Angeles career started slowly, gigging in bands and playing in piano bars. It was at the bar in the legendary Taix restaurant that Bob met his wife, Paula, who was on a lunch break from the Proctor and Gamble factory. Bob was of modest means, living in a garage in Hollywood
. 
In the Ford Fairlaine
Soon Bob and Paula went on tour with Mae West, who was a racy, vampy singer and performer. Mae forbid Paula from backstage, etc. because she wanted to be the center of attention. Mae was a believer in the paranormal, and handed Bob a napkin with lyrics about the Hollywood psychic, Criswell. Criswell was a character in the film Ed Wood. Bob held his nose and wrote the music behind Crisewll Predicts, one of the strangest songs of the era.
Classic RCA Records
In his thirties, Bob began getting traction in the music business, starting a dazzling run at RCA. At the time bob was under contract with RCA along with Esquivel, Billy May, and Nelson Riddle.
Bob (right) conducting Rosmary Clooney
There he began a long friendship with Rosemary Clooney, for whom he arranged several albums including Clap Hands! Here Comes Rosie, Thanks for Nothing (later re-issued as Love). The pair had a sad brush with history as they were present when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel. Later Bob toured with her in Europe, but her romantic feelings for him were unrequited. "You don’t fuck stars."
It was at RCA that Esquivel was creating truly experimental pop records which later became known as Space Age Pop. RCA suits engaged Bob to make albums that sounded like Ray Coniff, whom Bob did not care for. In the records Bob made as a solo artist, Bob Thompson and his Orchestra, you can hear Bob’s rebellious spirit, sense of humor, willingness to improvise, and a fascination with percussion resulting from his early interest of playing drums.
The Sound of Speed
The genesis of The Sound of Speed (Dot, 1960) was different than the previous three records. Bob had been fascinated by flight since a ride in a biplane at a county fair. SoS is a Space Age Pop concept LP. Recorded at the dawn of the space age, each composition evokes a different mode of modern transport, from Vespa scooters to Le Mans racers to rocket ships.
The vehicular vignettes are book-ended by authentic sound effects, with vivid stereo motion. For example, the classic Starfire and its famous blast off sound. Nearly all of the tracks are original compositions, and reflect Space Age Pop’s fascination with stereo, a new technology, as sounds bounce from one side to the other. It was Esquivel that most fully explored the possibilities of stereo in his creations. Long out of print, long-sought, The Sound of Speed is an overlooked gem from a bygone era of orchestral sophistication. It was re-released in the 00s.
Commercials
It was during this time that Bob began composing for commercials, a job that would take up the bulk of the next thirty years of his career. The early commercials for Texaco, Banc Americard and others reflect the Space Age Pop sound. The all percussion Texaco theme song from 1960 was singular, and was commented on-air by newscaster, David Brinkley. Several of Bob’s commercials garnered Cleo and other awards. He was able to move out of the Garage.
Arranging Work
Bob also was an arranger and composer supporting a number of artists including Rosemary Clooney. Bob with his writing partner, Alan Alch penned a high-quality industrial musical, That Agency Thing.
1960s-1970s
As Professor Denny had done for him, Bob Thompson became a music mentor to Van Dyke Parks, famous for Smile, his collaboration with Brian Wilson. Bob arranged for several projects Parks was involved with, when classic, tender strings were called for.
Commercial date, United Studios, 1980
Resurgence and Recognition: 1980s to Present
Bob’s resurgence began in the early 80s. Irwin Chusid of the free-form independent radio station began spinning his records. On the west coast, Vale of RE/Search publications also became a fan and included Bob in his Incredibly Strange Music Book. Another early champion was, Byron Werner, who coined the term Space Age Bachelor Pad, which is an alternate name for Space Age Pop.
In fact the genre of Space Age Pop came to the fore on the talents of Esquivel, whose work epitomizes the movement and brought listeners to other Space Age Pop artists. In the 90s a Cocktail Music movement took hold, and record companies realized they were sitting on a gold mine. Bob’s music was reissued in US compilations, while MMM Nice, On the Rocks, and Just for Kicks were released in Japan. MMM Nice was reissued in Japan again in 2005.
The Cocktail Nation phenomenon has explained as a reaction against the minimalist and nihilist strains of punk rock, and also as a return to a simpler time when gender and courtship roles were more clearly defined (see the Salon article, Republican Ambient, for the later perspective). On the other hand, lounge music had also been an interest in the original LA Punk scene, as mentioned in Lexicon Devil, about Darby Crash. The 90s also saw the start of cocktail bands of quality including Combustible Edison and Italy’s Transistors.
Bob’s music also began appearing in commercials as ad agencies recognized a sound that epitomizes retro fun and sophistication. Old Navy and other brands used Bob’s music, along with the Late Show with David Letterman and Sex in the City for its campy appeal.
When the internet was popularized in the late 1990s, a few key websites emerged about Space Age Pop, including Wild‘s Scene and spaceagepop.com. Bob’s original work was also discovered by his son, who had, to that point, only knew him as a jazz player and commercial music maven, and who used the Internet to research a small but enthusiastic subculture. In 1998 bobthompsonmusic.com was launched by his son as a research tool and includes data from interviews with Bob and his contemporaries and fans of the genre.
RE/Search publications made him a part of their Incredibly Strange Music series. Feature articles on Bob have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Cool and Strange Music Magazine and Atomic Magazine. Recent Bob Thompson music appearances include: TV (Sex and the City, David Letterman, Queer Eye), Soundtracks (Six Ways to Sunday),and Compilations. Bob's concept album, The Sound of Speed, considered his finest work by Space Age Pop connoisseurs, was re-released and a compilation has recently landed on iTunes.
Bob is now in his 80s living in Los Angeles.
—Byron Werner
