Hey, Mr. Space Man
Catherine
"[a] World War I veteran who liked to pass the time playing the bugle or banging on a
drum"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/26/PKG02DC5IH1.DTL&feed=rss.
entertainment
HEY, MR. SPACE MAN
Delfin Vigil
Sunday, June 26, 2005
It's not as if Spenser Thompson ever thought his father was a murderer or a thief.
But he feared something worse.
"I was terrified," Thompson says, recalling the first time, about five years ago,
that he found the courage to discover the truth about his dad -- "Space Age Pop King"
Bob Thompson. "My biggest fear was that my father's music career was ... hokey."
But as he flipped over record after record with titles such as "MMM Nice, " "Just for
Kicks," and "On the Rocks," Spenser Thompson breathed a big sigh of relief.
"I was afraid that what I'd hear would be ironic Gen-X bull -- ," says Thompson, who
had purposely avoided listening to his father's music until that night at his home in
San Francisco, when he was almost 30. "But instead, I heard sophisticated jazz. I
heard French Impressionism. I heard Gershwin. I heard the singular voice of a
musical genius."
When you find out your father is a genius, there is only one logical thing to do:
Start a Web site (www.bobthompsonmusic.com). Five years later, with the diligent
help of his son-turned-manager/marketer, Bob Thompson -- whose musical career
included four albums; arranging hits for Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Judy
Garland; and winning Cleo awards for some of his more than 3,000 television
commercial scores -- is back on the map.
In the past year, the nearly forgotten Hollywood hipster has seen the reissue of one
of his classic albums and had his songs played on "Sex and the City," "Queer Eye for
the Straight Guy" and Old Navy commercials. Being classified once again in the same
category as Henry Mancini and Juan Garcia Esquivel, the counterparts he broke into
the business with nearly 50 years ago, Thompson may feel as if he's reached a happy
full-circle ending. But for the 79-year-old composer, who is now showing symptoms of
Alzheimer's disease, that will be a long time coming.
Thompson has always been a glass-is-half-full kind of guy -- even when he was a
child, living with his parents under a bridge in Auburn (Placer County) with their
stomachs half empty. Born in San Jose during the Great Depression, Thompson
remembers feeling anything but depressed as a youngster, probably because of his
father, an often out-of-work railroad worker and World War I veteran who liked to
pass the time playing the bugle or banging on a drum. Even though it took some time
before the family found a proper home to live in, Thompson always felt his childhood
was rich.
"It was rich in music," the silver-bearded Thompson says, sitting on a classic Eames
chair in his Auburn home. Thompson, whose Alzheimer's symptoms appeared only
recently, looks as if he hasn't smiled in a while, but as he reminisces about
sneaking into Sacramento ballroom clubs on Saturday nights to catch Duke Ellington or
Count Basie, that changes. Days after graduating from high school, like lots of
Sacramento kids in the 1930s, Thompson left for San Francisco. He landed a gig at
KGO radio as a gofer, and before long was hanging out with and learning tips from
some of the city's hippest musicians. He quickly learned enough to earn a promotion
as a composer and arranger for the station's staff band. In his off hours, he could
be found cutting his teeth on the piano-bar circuit from San Francisco to Sacramento,
studying classical music privately with a UC Berkeley professor, or air-mailing his
work to KGO from Paris.
"He was one of the most ambitious persons I'd ever met," remembers his former wife,
Paula Thompson, still his closest friend. Paula first laid eyes on Bob while he was
playing at a piano bar near City College in Los Angeles. "I wanted to make my
boyfriend at the time jealous, so I sat next to Bob." He was happy to help.
That was in 1951, while Bob was recording demos, living in a garage and giving
Hollywood a go. A year later, the two married, and the adventure began. Although
Paula came from a large Jewish Italian family and Bob was an only child, both had
grown up destitute.
"He was mountain-family poor and I was city poor, which is basically the same thing,"
says Paula, who grew up in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn and moved to
Los Angeles for a chance at a college education.
During the next few years, Bob toured with Mae West and her entourage of musclemen.
Impressed by Bob, West demanded that he be her piano teacher, although they never
even shook hands.
"Mae West believed when you shook hands with someone, their spiritual forces could
take over your being," says Paula, who went on tours across the globe with Bob. "She
did everything else with everyone. But she didn't shake hands."
After building a musical reputation playing with a big name like West, Thompson got
his big break in 1958 with a record deal from RCA. Signed alongside Esquivel, Billy
May, Nelson Riddle and a crop of other musicians destined to be Hollywood stars,
Thompson was asked to be the answer to Ray Conniff, on rival label Columbia. There
was just one problem.
"Bob hated Ray Conniff," says Spenser Thompson. "My father thought Ray Conniff was a
total square. You see, Bob was hip. Bob had soul."
Thrilled just to be playing music, Bob Thompson kept quiet and started making his
records. It was the beginning of what was a somewhat badly marketed and mismanaged
career. While Esquivel and Mancini easily carved niches in movies and on
bachelor-pad record players, Thompson's music went largely misunderstood and
underappreciated by RCA.
"Bob will tell you that they just didn't sell," says Spenser, who for years also took
the LPs for granted, like an overlooked decoration in the family home. "But a lot of
it had to do with Bob not having a management, no agent and no marketing, to direct
his career."
Clearly ahead of his time, Bob Thompson brought new sophistication to studio
technology, and the right people took note, says Van Dyke Parks, who produced Brian
Wilson's classic album "Smile."
"Bob's records always had that snap, crackle and pop," says Parks, who befriended
Thompson in 1969. " He was one of the first to create sounds in true stereo, like
having a train sound as if it were traveling from your left to your right. This was
new to the ear. And it was exciting."
For his final LP, "The Sound of Speed," and in a sort of orchestral punkish act of
rebellion, Thompson made an album entirely based on the noises of modern
transportation. But it would be many years before the album, filled with jazz
harmonies and swing arrangements, would be fully appreciated and understood.
Thompson's most successful music was heard by millions of people every day, even
though most of them never knew who he was. From 1961 to 1978, Thompson recorded the
scores to more than 3,000 television commercials, from "Get That Great GM Feeling"
and "Go-Go Goodyear" to "King Cobra -- Silver!"
It was the most anonymous and most successful point of his career. But while clients
like Bank of America, Paisano wine and Pontiac took all the credit for Thompson's
90-second orchestral arrangements, Bob and Paula were living it up in Hollywood.
The rags-to-riches couple were suddenly taking spontaneous trips to Europe, buying
Porsches and hosting weekend celebrity parties at their half- acre estate in the
Hollywood Hills. At one point, Bob even won a London taxi in poker game.
But by the late '70s, the bottom fell out.
"There were new, younger (artist and repertoire) reps, new advertising agents, new
engineers, and they all brought their friends and showed Bob the door," Paula says.
"It was definitely a dark period," says Spenser, who was about 8 at the time. "I
remember moving from the Hollywood hills to North Hollywood, which seemed like a very
long way away."
For most of the next 20 years, Bob Thompson was a frustrated unemployed musician.
Clio awards and old vinyl records with kinky covers collected dust. It wasn't until
1992, when a Japanese company reissued three of his records, that Thompson re-entered
a spotlight. And thanks to both Spenser and the 2004 reissue of "The Sound of
Speed," he has enjoyed a renaissance.
A caretaker watches over Bob at his home in Auburn. He still has an office set up
with a grand piano between shelves of records, cassettes and eight-track tapes. A
metronome and two stop watches are on his desk.
Frustrated by the limitations of his illness, Bob rarely plays music anymore. But
knowing that it's the only thing that cheers him, his caretaker gently tries to
persuade the reluctant Thompson to play a tune.
"Please, Mr. B," she asks sweetly several times, until he finally gives in with an
"Oh, Christ, all right. But I know I'm not up to par today."
Without hesitation, he plays a perfect rendition of Harold Arlen's "Last Night When
We Were Young."
"Henry Mancini once told me his whole thing was pure luck," Thompson says, closing
the piano. "I wanted to believe it was because of his talent. I never did figure
out the real answer."
E-mail Delfin Vigil at dvi...@sfchronicle.com.