1923-2018
Bob Dorough
1923-2018
Bob Dorough
Bob Dorough was an American bebop and jazz vocalist, pianist, composer, songwriter, arranger, and producer, best known as the composer and performer of songs in the TV series Schoolhouse Rock!! Dorough was born Robert Lrod Dorough on December 12, 1923, in Cherry Hill, Arkansas, and grew up in Plainview, Texas. His childhood was filled with music from big band radio broadcasts and musicals. During his freshman year at Texas Tech in Lubbock, he became inspired by small-group jazz. Dorough was drafted into the army during World War II and participated in Army bands as a pianist, clarinetist, saxophonist, and arranger. He was discharged in 1945 and enrolled at North Texas State Teachers College where he majored in composition and minored in piano, earning a Bachelor of Music. Once Dorough graduated he moved to New York to continue his musical studies as a graduate student at Columbia University from 1949 to 1952. During this period Bob was also performing at local jazz clubs, he would hold jam sessions at his East 75th Street apartment that attracted Bill Evans, Tommy Flanagan, Pepper Adams, Kenny Burrell, and Thad and Elvin Jones. While playing piano at a Times Square tap dance school to earn some extra money, Dorough met professional boxer Sugar Ray Robinson who brought him to France as musical director of a touring revue, “The Champ.” It was here Dorough met jazz singer Blossom Dearie who invited him to join the Blue Seas, a vocal ensemble that produced the hit single, “Lullaby of Birdland.”
In 1955 Dorough returned to New York City and obtained a record deal with Bethlehem Records, but the jazz label folded shortly after the release of Dorough’s first album “Devil May Care” in 1956, which contained a version of Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite" with lyrics added by Dorough. Dorough moved to L.A. where he worked as a solo singer-pianist and as a part of a jazz quintet, including a job between sets by comedian Lenny Bruce. Shortly after the release of Dorough’s debut album, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis who enjoyed his work, contacted Dorough to provide lyrics and vocals for "Blue Xmas" which appeared on Davis’ Christmas album Jingle Bell Jazz in 1962. Dorough recorded another song for Davis, "Nothing Like You," which appeared a few years later on his Sorcerer album, making Dorough one of the few musicians with a vocal performance on a Miles Davis record. That same year, Dorough also co-wrote the Mel Tormé pop single “Comin’ Home Baby”, which earned the singer a Top 40 hit and two Grammy Award nominations. In 1960 composer Tommy Wolf brought Bob to St. Louis to play the lead in A Walk on the Wild Side film by Nelson Algren with lyrics by Fran Landesman. Landesman and Dorough began writing together shortly after and by 1966 Bob had recorded many of their songs in a TRO Workshop album in the words of FRAN LANDESMAN in the style of BOB DOROUGH.
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Dorough had a brief lag in his career during the mid-60s, gigs were hard to come by so he worked as musical co-director for folk singer Chad Mitchell and the pop group Spanky & Our Gang, producing two albums for the folk-pop band and adding jazz arrangements to their sound.
In 1969, he worked as an arranger, choir vocalist, and pianist for poet Allen Ginsberg's 1970 LP Songs of Innocence and Experience. But Dorough’s big break came in 1973 when he began working on the Schoolhouse Rock animation series which debuted on ABC-TV in 1973. As a musical director, composer, and performer for the show, he devised entertaining and fun methods of teaching math, grammar, history, and science to several generations of American kids. Dorough earned this career-making position when advertiser David McCall asked him to put the multiplication tables to music, with "Three Is a Magic Number" earning him the job as the series' musical director from 1972 to 1996. When performing in jazz clubs, he will often be questioned by someone who recognizes his voice from the cartoons. Many times, he'll use that opportunity to perform a song he wrote for the "Schoolhouse Rock" series.
During this period Dorough also resumed performing. He toured in a duo with bassist Bill Takas, in American and European clubs, and recorded more frequently. Dorough’s recorded work was a sporadic and wildly varied-a classical composition for recorder performed by the Kranis Consort and Ensemble, a jazz quintet version of the Broadway score Oliver!, and a limited-edition collection of songs by lyricist Fran Landesman. In 1997 Dorough released the album Right On My Way Home which opens and closes with standards: “Moon River,” and “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most” written by his friends Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf. Dorough kept working later into his life as well, in the ‘90s he recorded three CDs for Blue Note Records. His 2007 work Small Day Tomorrow featured twelve songs with Landesman lyrics. He also collaborated with Nellie McKay on her 2007 album Obligatory Villagers as well as her 2009 release Normal as Blueberry Pie – A Tribute to Doris Day. He continued to do occasional work for children, such as an illustrated book of Blue Xmas and three songs to accompany Maureen Sullivan's books about Carlos the French bulldog: Ankle Soup, Custard and Mustard, and Christmas Feet. Dorough continued to perform, often for children, in jazz clubs and schools until his death on April 23, 2018, at his home in Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania, at the age of 94.
Dorough earned many accolades throughout his career, in 1974 he received a Grammy nomination for Best Recording for Children. He was inducted into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame in 1998 and received the Artist of the Year in 2002 at the Pennsylvania Governor's Awards for the Arts. In December 2007, Dorough was honored by East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania with a Doctor of Fine Arts honorary degree. And in 2019, the Schoolhouse Rock! the soundtrack was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
