Chattanooga Times Free Press entertainment reporter Casey Phillips spoke with jazz singer/composer and "Schoolhouse Rock!" mastermind Bob Dorough about serving as musical director to a tap dancing boxing champion, recording with Miles Davis and his worst subject in school.
CP: How did you become interested in music?
BD: It's kind of a long story. I had some fundamental, rudimental things like violin lessons in Texarkana, Kan., when I was 8, I guess. I didn't like it because all the kids were playing the same thing. It wasn't like a string quartet or an orchestra. It was all a bunch of kids playing simple tunes in unison. I thought, "OK, I can do that." We had a violin in the family, so I took one year of lessons and just sort of played around a little bit.
I was a natural singer, and I got in the high school band in Plainview, Texas, after we moved there. I did all my high school years there. There, when I got in the band playing clarinet, I suddenly was smitten with the magic of ensemble music, which I'd missed in the violin lessons. Everyone was playing different stuff, and it fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. Before that, I thought I was going to be a cowboy or a football player, but after the first week of band, I went home and said, "I'm going to be a musician," and they didn't resist. My dad said, "Well, if you're good at it, it ought to work," and my mom said, "Sounds nice." (Laughs.) I didn't quite know what I was getting into.
I also had some piano lessons when I was in Texarkana also. I had six lessons from a lady who owed my dad money. He was a bread salesman, and she had a store, and she said she taught piano lessons in the back of her store, so my dad said, "Oh, we'll just trade out. I'll bring my boy. He likes music."
So I had six lessons, and it was just the very rudimentary beginning, five-finger exercises, but she loaned me some popular music sheet music. I'd take them home and fool around. I think that was the beginning of my jazz career because instead of actually reading every note on the sheet music, I sort of made up my own arrangements. (Laughs.) It was instant arranging and improvisation - elementary of course.
When I got in the band, the band master was a talented gentleman who moved down from Chicago because of the dry weather. He was a professional musician who suddenly became a high school band leader. He gave me private clarinet lessons and, in my last year, gave me lessons in harmony. Now we have so much jazz education in schools, but he gave me a jazz harmony course.
Then, I went to Texas Tech for three semesters, and then I was drafted in the army. At Tech, I was majoring in band music. That was all I knew, but I was doing lots of arranging and composing for the band, the concert band. There, I also experienced some great jazz musicians playing in a combo, like Jack Teagarden and Louis Armstrong. That was turning me on.
When I got in the army, after about five months of basic hell on the coast, the band master at Texas Tech somehow knew the warrant officer in that camp and called him up and said, "You've got a talented clarinet player in the army. Maybe you can get him in the band." Sure enough, they said, "Private Durough, grab your gear," so I gathered all my gear, which included my clarinet deep in the duffel bag. He said, "You're joining to the band, get in that jeep," like he was disgusted with me.
This was during World War II, and I had a punctured ear drum, so I wasn't fit for battle. Eventually, I was transferred to an even better band in California. We were playing entertainment for the troops. My army career lasted about three years. I was getting lots of education and professional experience.
After that, I went to North Texas State Teacher's College, which is now known as the University of North Texas. That's in Denton, Texas, near Forth Worth and Dallas. I took a degree in composition with a minor in piano and sort of gave up clarinet playing.
But my love of singing had been nurtured during my army career because we played dances and afternoon teas and things like that, and I'd do a little singing. At North Texas, I did a stint in the grand chorus singing legitimate music, the choral works of the great composers like Bach and Handel.
I got my degree and matriculated to New York City hoping to get a masters degree, but my G.I. Bill ran out. In 1952, I dropped out of Columbia University, where I'd done mostly undergraduate work.
The reason I went to New York of course was not to go to school but to dig be-bop. 52nd street was in its last year of activity, but of course, other jazz clubs opened up around the corner. Whenever I could scrape up enough money, I'd go to the Royal Roost or down in the Village to hear music. That was my education. (Laughs.)
I didn't become much of a composer, but I began to do a lot of songwriting because I wanted to have something to fit my style of singing. Since that day in 1950 when I began to write songs, I've had a lot of luck with songwriting. (Laughs.)
CP: What was the first song you wrote? Do you remember it?
BD: Well, I wrote one in Plainview, Texas, when I was a high school boy working on the farm. I began to write it, and it was pretty bad. Then, I wrote a couple in the army and several at Texas Tech. It began there, but they were songs that probably never saw the light of day.
In New York City, I wrote "Devil May Care." I don't think it was my first, but it was my first to be recorded. I wrote one called "Love Came On Stealthy Fingers," which was unknown to anyone but myself for a number of years until Irene Kral, who was a great singer and a Chicago girl. She was always wanting to hear my songs and recorded a number of them, but she dug out "Love Came on Stealthy Fingers," and it was so mysterious that I'd never shown it to anyone, but she made a bit of a hit out of it.
CP: I read that while you were in New York, you ended up as the music director for a dance revue with the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. How did come about?
BD: That happened to me in 1952, right after I dropped out of Columbia. Things weren't too good for me - I couldn't find much work - but I used to earn a little money accompanying singers who wanted to try out for Broadway show. Then, there was a tap dance studio run by Henry LeTang. He's quite famous. He choreographed the movie "The Cotton Club." I used to go to his studio occasionally, and he would let me play for a class, and I would make $3 or $4.
I met kids there who wanted to go to the Catskills and do shows, and I would right charts for them - some of them sang as well as danced. I also met the Hines brothers (Gregory and Maurice) when they were just high school kids. They became quite famous. I wrote arrangements for them so they could go out on the road.
One day Henry LeTang said, "Go down to the big studio. They pay $5." So I went down, and when I walked in, it was mostly black people, and Henry said, "Bob Durough, this is Sugar Ray Robinson," and I nearly fell on the floor. (Laughs.) He said, "Play a tune for Sugar." Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Scott were learning their routines. They tap danced together and told jokes. Joe Scott was a very funny, old, bald-headed, brown-skinned cat with big lips. He was a comedian and hoofer.
First, I played a song for them while they tap danced, and when it was over, Sugar was mopping his brow from the sweat, and he pointed at me and said, "You're going on the road with us, Bob." (Laughs.) Well, I needed a job, so that's how it happened.
I worked for him two years, during which I shared the stage with Louis Armstrong and Count Basie and his orchestra and Earl Hines. We traveled all over the states.
When we did a tour that included Count Basie, Sugar said, "Bob, you're going to ride in that bus." I looked over - we were just mustering up in Washington D.C. - and it said The Count Basie Orchestra, and I said, "Really? Are you sure?" and he said, "Get on the bus, we're leaving." There was Bill (the count) Basie in the first seat, and I said "I'm Bob Durough; I'm with Sugar," and he said, "Find a seat. I'm Bill Basie; find a seat, Bob."
I had the pleasure of traveling with the gang, and we used to jam a little and write arrangements and play before the show started because there's a lot of dull time in show business. Count Basie would do his set just before Ray, and when Ray and Joe would come, I would sit right there in his hot piano bench seat. My butt wasn't as big as his. (Laughs.)
CP: Younger people tend to associate you with "Schoolhouse Rock!" but you've done some really interesting things like that. You were also one of the only vocalists to be featured on a Miles Davis album. How did that come about?
BD: We played the Apollo and I eventually went to Paris with Sugar Ray. There, I cut loose from him and played a long time in The Mars Club, where I met Maya Angelou and a lot of other people.
I lived in L.A. for three years after Paris. I came home in '55, and I recorded my first album as a leader called "Devil May Care." Then, I still couldn't get work, so I moved to L.A. because I got a job in a night club and had an idea to record another album for a different label.
While I was in L.A., Miles played with his sextet, including three horns and himself and a rhythm section. I knew everyone but Miles. It was hard to meet him. I'd been all those years in New York, and Miles was the kind of guy where when he came off the stand, you'd say, "That was great" or "I dig your music" or whatever you wanted to say, and he might glance at you, but he'd just keep walking because who were you? Just another fan? He'd rather keep walking.
In L.A. I had a friend named Terry Morel, a girl singing from Philadelphia. She was past her career when she was living in L.A., but she was a buddy of mine. In her life, she'd met just about everybody, and she just happened to know Miles, who would come over and visit with her sometimes. He was there for two or three weeks at this club, and I probably wouldn't have gone to hear him because I'd heard it all in New York and I didn't have much money. (Laughs.)
He came over to hear her, and she always kept my LP "Devil May Care" very prominently on her shelf. Miles was there one day and asked, "What's that?" and she said, "Oh that's my pal. He writes songs and plays piano and sings. Bobby Durough." He said, "Put it on. I want to hear a little." I had a pretty damn good trumpet player on it.
She said he came over the second day and heard the whole album. (Laughs.) When she told me that, I said, "We're going to the gig then." So we went down to the club, and sure enough, he was walking around the audience like he did. After he blew his chorus, Miles would leave and leave the other cats blowing until it was time to take it out.
She caught him right away and said, "Miles, this is my friend Bob Durough I was telling you about." Well you know, instead of saying, "I like your album," or "Nice to meet you, Bob," he grabbed me by the wrist and whispered in my ear, "Bob, go up and sing 'Baltimore Oriel.'" (Laughs.) That's a Hoagy Carmichael song I'd recorded on "Devil May Care."
I didn't know what to do. He sort of drug me up to the band stand. The boys had just finished a tune, and he said, "Take a break. Bob's going to sing us a tune." I was left there with the rhythm section, just the drums and the bass. (Laughs.) I knew (bassist) Paul Chambers, so I said, "It's in F-minor. Just follow me." (Laughs.)
I sang it and I didn't know what else to do. No one said, "Sing another," and in fact, I would say I didn't go over too well, but Miles was out there digging me. So I sang it and it ended, but we became kind of buddies. He gave me his number in New York. I moved back to New York pretty soon after that incident.
He tried to help me. Once I opened for him at the Vanguard when he said, "I want the Bob Durough Trio to open for me." He did things like that. I used to hang out a little bit with him.
Then I took a job out in the country, where I live now, in a hotel band. One summer in 1962, he called me up. I was very surprised to get a call from Miles. He said, "I want you to write me a Christmas song." (Laughs.) I did. I wrote "Blue Xmas." I called him up in a couple of weeks and said, "I got the song. Wanna hear it?" He said, "Come on down tomorrow night." I was in his home in New York City.
Gil Evans was there. I knew Gil Evans from when we both played piano in the village across the street on 7th Ave. We'd cross the street to hear each other's band. He was a great pal of mine. He liked my singing even. (Laughs.)
Gil arranged them, and we recorded the next day. We did "Nothing Like You" and "Blue Xmas." I thought "Nothing Like You" would be an experiment, but he issued it. Of course, "Blue Xmas" came out on "Jingle Bell Jazz" on Columbia Records in 1962, but for some reason, he tacked "Nothing Like You" onto "The Sorcerer," which was his new band with the young cats. It had a lot of Wayne Shorter tunes and all that modern stuff.
It sounded pretty weird to me, but he kind of made the tune famous because everyone all over the world buys Miles records.
CP: You'll turn 87 this December yet you're still out on the road and sounding surprisingly upbeat. What keeps you going?
BD: (Laughs.) That's two different questions, I guess. What keeps me going is that I don't feel like I've really made it as a performer. I can charm an audience, but I don't get many gigs. The agents in the hierarchy of jazz - the big guys in the business of jazz and festivals and all that stuff - have never quite known where I belong. (Laughs.) The agents in the old days didn't quite know how to categorize me. So I just feel like I'm still hungry to entertain people. That keeps me going, as far as that goes.
But as far as the old body goes, I've always been quite a moderate consumer of the various things that cause aging. I've always tried to keep a happy outlook and be healthy. It's not the same legs, and even the fingers are a little slower than they used to be, but when I get the gig, I can get there and do it.
I mean, why would a guy my age go to Chattanooga for three sets? Because I want to do it. It's a new challenge.
CP: What do you plan to perform? I know the gig in the park is a "Schoolhouse Rock!" concert.
BD: That's it. I probably just stick to that. I have a lot of songs, so I can probably do as much time as they want. At JJs' on Friday, I play alone. In that, I'll do lots of different things than I'll do on Saturday because I have to rehearse the band, which is Bob Stagner and Kenny Palmer and Joe Lance. There's a limited rehearsal time. I'm sending them some music in advance. The repertoire on Saturday will be from two CDs I'm going to try and peddle. They're my latest, the ones that are available. They may not be my best, but my latest ones that are available.
I did three for Blue Note that I did in the '90s when I got signed to them. They fell into hard times and dropped me, but I did three CDs for them. They destroyed them all. Consequently, I'll do some of that material, and I have material going way back. I don't know how many albums I've done, but quite a few. I'll be doing those kinds of things on Friday, where I don't need a band and don't have to pass out the music.
I played for many years with Bill Takas, the bass player who was on "Devil May Care" and "Beginning to See the Light" and several others. He was a great musical brain. He memorized the music like I do. We could go anywhere and play anything. I didn't have to announce it. I'd hit one note, and he'd jump in.
Since he died, I have to bear up with the fact that the other guys might not know what I'm going to do, especially with vocals. You need to have the music support you without getting in the way of the music.
Those two albums are "Sunday at Iridium" which was live and used a guitar quartet. I'll do several of those songs. The other is the one I made in London with a rhythm section and saxophonist, "Small Day Tomorrow." That was all the songs of Fran Landesman, the great lyric writer. I met her in St. Louis when I was in one of her musical plays. Since that time, I've written a great number of songs with her, one of which is "Nothing Like You," which was recorded by Miles Davis with me singing. I'll do a few from that album. Of course, from Friday night, I'll do a lot more of her songs that I've written.
CP: How did you originally become involved with "Schoolhouse Rock!"?
BD: Because of the lean '60s, I got a little bit into commercial music. I accompanied Chad Mitchell and I co-produced "Spanky and Our Gang." I was just trying to make a living because I had a family back then and was trying to buy a house here in Pennsylvania. I was making a living, so I was kind of on the edge of everything and not getting many jazz jobs until 1975.
My performance career kind of came back when I got a job at Bradley's, which was a famous piano house in Manhattan. (Bassist) Bill Takas worked there a lot, and he asked me if I wanted to work there, too. So I said, "Yeah," but he didn't let you sing. Then, we began to travel as a duo, me and Takas.
Because of the advertising connection and a friend of mine who is a bassist, Ben Tucker, I met an advertising executive who was also a musician and a lover of jazz. He used to come to hear Ben with Billy Taylor and Mary Anne McPartland at the Hickory House in New York City. One night, he said to Ben Tucker, "My boss is looking for some guy to put the multiplication tables to music," and Ben said, "Ah man, are you kidding? Bob, my partner, can put anything to music."
So I had a meeting with the president of a small ad agency, McCaffrey and McCall, David D. McCall. He was a rich man, and he ran a really nice advertising company. He said, "My little boys can't multiply, but they sing along with The Rolling Stones. They get their words, so what if we put the multiplication tables to music? We'll call it 'Multiplication Rock.' What do you think, huh?" That was the way it happened.
CP: And you did so many songs for "Schoolhouse Rock!" about such a wide range of topics, from the legislative process to how electricity works. Those don't seem like obvious song material. What was your process for distilling lyrics from those subjects?
BD: (Laughs.) I'd gotten the idea from a comedian who said, "Oh, you can make songs out of this stuff," and he gave me a bunch of "found lyrics," he called them. I'd already done all that. It became an album called, "This is a Recording." All the lyrics came from traffic tickets you get on your windshield, something you have in your wallet, an apple pie recipe, and Webster's definition of love.
Ben Tucker gave them a copy of that, and they became intrigued with my work. When I delivered the first multiplication song, they went ape. (Laughs.) It was "Three is a Magic Number." I had a flare for math all my life. I'd actually studied the new math at Columbia University before I dropped out.
So I did a little thinking, and I looked into some books. I thought, "This is serious business. If I do this right, it will be a chance to communicate with children." I'd always liked that idea.
First, I recorded and wrote all the multiplication songs. After that point, we hadn't intended to be on TV; it was only a phonograph record for affluent parents, libraries and maybe schools - whatever they could sell. The president of the agency, David McCall, thought he had a lot of connections that he could get something with Random House. It wasn't working out, but in the meantime, he tested it out at a college where they taught teachers. The multiplication songs were deemed to be informative, accurate and educational for children. They tested it in actual elementary classes.
Suddenly, the art director at the agency, Tom Yohe, went and started doodling around with "Three is a magic number." One of their attorneys said, "You know, they're looking for good stuff over at ABC." Suddenly, there was a meeting and - boom - overnight, we were on TV.
At that point, I had to do a lot of scrambling on the multiplication songs because they were diverse blinks of time. When you make an album, you don't worry about how long each song runs; it runs as long as it runs. But they wanted everything to be three minutes. I was doing editing and re-recording and adding and subtracting to get the right length.
They started in on grammar rock, and we found a very talented lady named Lynn Ahrens, who wrote the lyrics and libretto for "Ragtime" on Broadway in later years.
At the time, she was just a nobody, guitar playing, folk singer at the ad agency. She played us some of her songs, and I had to admit she was talented. They assigned her the first grammar song. Then other writers, even George Newell, the music-loving advertising executive, wrote several in grammar. Eventually, I got my pal Dave Fishberg to write some.
At that point, I became less the exclusive composer, but I was their musical director. When Lynn Ahrens would write a song, she knew nothing about the theory of music. She would just make a demo on her guitar, and I would take it home and arrange it for the studio production. So I was getting a lot of experience in the studio and getting to hire my friends to play.
It went on from one subject to another. (Laughs.) As the subjects multiplied, I became less and less successful as a writer. I was often busy just doing the session. It takes a lot of work to plan the recording session. We always record the audio first, to a specific time, to the three-minute limit, and then the animators would go to work.
CP: Was there a subject you found especially difficult to compose for?
BD: Science was tough for me. I always hated science and chemistry and physics and all that when I was in high school. I just wasn't a natural. In science, I don't have many songs. I have "Electricity," and I'll probably be singing that at the show. I use it a lot in night clubs, because I can have the audience sing "Electricity" and they get a kick out of a little participation. I even do it with the kids. I don't even know if I wrote another science one or not, but that was my most difficult, and I had to write it and rewrite it.
Another thing that happened in "Schoolhouse Rock!" general production was that, once we had passed multiplication, we had to have the gurus - the grammar guru and history guru and science guru - to pass on the accuracy and so forth. Of course, once you're on TV, you have people overwriting to make sure its suitable and nothing is politically incorrect and all that.
I had a completely free hand with multiplication. They didn't know what I was going to do. When I wrote "Zero to Hero" they were completely dumbfounded, but I'd already worked it out. I thought, "One and 10 are so easy to multiply by. I'll drop them and do zero instead."
CP: Were you a good student in school?
BD: Yes, except in physics and chemistry. (Laughs.)
CP: So did you have to do a lot of research to remember things you'd forgotten or had most of the material you learned stuck with you?
BD: I had the guru to help me with the science one, which is why I had to rewrite it a couple of times to get that part right. All the rest is sort of mine. It's a rather simple song, just one little four-bar melody with the talking in the middle.
I had to review grammar quite a bit because I had all the English that I had to take. We discovered that there were no Grammar gurus. It was difficult for all of us.
But I'm proudest of "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly (Get Your Adverbs Here)." First I was singing that little refrain, and I thought, "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly? What if it was a store and their names were Lolly - father, son and Lolly?"
George Newell gave me the title for "Conjunction Junction." That's my big hit. (Laughs.) Jack Sheldon, who is a jazz trumpeter, sings "I'm Just a Bill" and "Conjunction Junction." Those are the only two we didn't record in New York except a grammar song we recorded in San Francisco with Jack Sheldon because he was up there working. That song was "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla." The other two we did in L.A. in one session, "I'm Just a Bill" and "Conjunction Junction."
CP: Why does music work as an educational tool?
BD: Well, it gives you something to pin the words to, and if you like the melody or fall in love with it, you know how musical melodies get stuck in your head sometimes. That's why it works.
Our secret was the reiteration because, every Saturday morning, there it was. They repeated the songs, especially in the beginning when we didn't have many. The kids would hear it over and over, and then they would get attached and make sure they tuned in the next Saturday. I've had thousands of letters from kids saying things like, "I couldn't have passed my civics exam" or "I couldn't have recited the preamble" or "I know how a bill becomes a law" or "I know what nine times seven is." (Laughs.)
CP: That's got to be rewarding to you, since you mentioned earlier that communicating with children was something you set out to do from the onset of "Schoolhouse Rock!"
BD: Well there you have it. You asked what keeps you going and why are you young? I get all this feedback. I'm getting love from all over the world.
CP: The show ran from 1973-1999. Does it surprise you it had such longevity?
BD: It came back. First, we were on 13 years and then off a while, and then it came back for a couple of years. I knew it was going to last because I played in some elementary schools at the end of the first year. I thought, "This is TV. I'm singing my heart out, but is anyone out there?" So I went to some elementary schools in New York City, and the teachers would say, "Well, we've never heard of it but the kids are all excited about it." I'd go out and sing "Three is a Magic Number," and they'd be nudging each other saying, "That's him. That's the same guy." They knew it was me. I thought, "These kids are going to grow up and be jazz fans." (Laughs.)
CP: Has that proven to be the case? Has there been a lot of crossover between fans of "Schoolhouse Rock!" and your jazz music?
BD: Absolutely. One day, I was doing a live show in Los Angeles with Jack Sheldon. First, it was at The Troubadour, a very famous rock club in L.A. We opened with a jazz set, and then we'd take an intermission, and I'd say, "Alright, a little intermission, and we'll be right back with 'Schoolhouse Rock!'" and they'd be like, "Yay!" The place was packed.
After the show, three or four of them on this and other occasions would say, "I'm crazy about 'Schoolhouse Rock!' That stuff was great. But you know that stuff you played first? That stuff was pretty nice, too."
There's a little bit of proselytizing. A couple of my friends accuse me of writing multiplication jazz instead of multiplication rock. I always strived for some interesting, varied styles. It isn't really rock'n'roll. There are a few that are rocky, but you have everything, including swing tunes. "Five, 10, 15, 20" is pretty swinging.
CP: Would you resent "Schoolhouse Rock!" being your legacy instead of your jazz music?
BD: I'm OK with it. Of course, I'm OK with anything. (Laughs.) They can't stop me now. There have been times when I sort of felt resentful that I'm stuck with it. But my pal Bill Takas once told me, "Never record anything you're not ready to play again because once you record it, it's there, and they're going to want to hear it." (Laughs.)
When my jazz career did become active again in 1975-1980, I'd be singing one of my tunes, and suddenly, the waiters - these young people working their way through college - would come over to me and say, "Man, your voice sounds familiar. Did you ever do any of that 'Schoolhouse Rock!'?" They heard the quality of my voice and pinned me down. They'd ask, "Can we do one? Can we do one?" And pretty soon, I'm doing "Conjunction Junction" and "Three is a Magic Number."
Nowadays, I can hardly play a gig without having to do some "Schoolhouse Rock!" Of course, I'll do a little bit at JJ's, in spite of the Coolidge Park show.
CP: You'd have some disappointed fans, if you didn't.
BD: I played a club in New Orleans a couple of years ago, and the room was suddenly packed with young people. The owner couldn't believe it, and I said, "Oh, they're probably schoolhouse rockers." (Laughs.) They were.