Performers

Bob Dorough

Bob Dorough was born in Arkansas in 1923 and grew up in Texas. He played in an Army band during World War II, then went to North Texas State University, where he majored in composition and minored in piano. He moved to New York City around 1950 and was playing piano in a Times Square tap dance studio when he was introduced to the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, who had temporarily left boxing and was putting together a song and dance revue. Dorough was hired and later became the show's music director; the revue traveled to various U.S. cities and then to Europe.

Dorough left Robinson in Paris and lived there from 1954 to 1955, recording with singer Blossom Dearie during that time. He returned to the United States and moved to Los Angeles, where he played various gigs, including a job between sets by comedian Lenny Bruce. Dorough released his first album, Devil May Care, in 1956. It contained a version of "Yardbird Suite" with lyrics by Dorough over the famous Charlie Parker song. Miles Davis liked the album, so when Columbia asked Davis to record a Christmas song in 1962, Davis turned to Dorough for lyrics and singing duties. The result was a downbeat tune called "Blue Xmas," released on Columbia's Jingle Bell Jazz compilation. During that session Dorough recorded another song for Davis, "Nothing Like You," which appeared a few years later at the end of the Sorcerer album, making Dorough one of the few musicians with a vocal performance on a Miles Davis record.

Among Dorough's other illustrious songwriting collaborators over the years have been Fran Landesman and Dave Frishberg. His tunes now appear on albums recorded by dozens of other vocalists - and many have found special favor as instrumentals, too.

Gen-Xers know his voice - if not his name - because they love the "Schoolhouse Rock" videos that entertained them on ABC-TV during the 70s, 80s and 90s. Bob handled the music for about fifty of these timeless little classics. In the fall of 2002 (the same year that Pennsylvania's governor honored him as the state's Artist of the Year), Bob took his current trio on a State Department-sponsored tour of Latin America that involved over twenty concerts and workshops in seven countries. Along the way, he somehow found time to also serve as a professor in the music department at East Stroudsburg University.

These days, Dorough - a proud inductee into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame - does a bit of organic gardening at his Pennsylvania farmette. He's still writing great songs, too. Most important, though, he continues to delight audiences in clubs and concert halls on several continents. As throngs of admirers worldwide can testify, at the age of 93, Bob Dorough is only now reaching his prime.