Author: The Washington Post / Source: AL.com
Anyone whose childhood began in or after the early 1970s probably knows at least one or two “Schoolhouse Rock!” songs, the ones that taught children multiplication tables, civics lessons and basic grammar.
In fact, reading that sentence probably has you humming one right now, maybe “Conjunction Junction” or “Electricity, Electricity,” and it now will be stuck in your head all day.Sorry about that.
But even “Schoolhouse Rock!” devotees might not know of Bob Dorough, the accomplished musician and composer behind most of those tunes. Dorough died Monday at his home in Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania.
His 94 years of life were packed with a Forrest Gump-esque career that brought him in contact with several historical icons and eventually launched him into writing educational earworms for ABC in between experimental jazz records.
His life began in Arkansas and he was mostly raised in Texas, but his life eventually brought him through Paris, New York and Los Angeles. He played between sets for Lenny Bruce. He was the musical director for Sugar Ray Robinson, when the boxer – considered one of the sport’s all-time bests – decided to give music a go. He played with Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. He worked with beat poet Allen Ginsberg on an album of poems by Ginsberg and William Blake set to music.
He was a successful if under-heard jazz musician. But his commercial break came in 1971, when he was first asked to “set the multiplication tables to music.”
David McCall, a New York advertising executive, had noticed his young son remembered all the lyrics of pop songs – but not his multiplication tables. Mixing the two was a fresh idea, and after trying out a few jingle writers, McCall settled on Dorough to pen the first song: “Three is a Magic Number,” which teaches a little bit of everything about the number three, incorporating geometry, reproduction, multiplication and time.
The song, along with the many more that Dorough and other musicians wrote, was set to animation for “Schoohouse Rock!” a show that originally aired on ABC from 1973 to 1985. Sometimes, the musicians would perform their own tunes. Sometimes, guests were called in to sing them.
Dorough proved exceedingly adept at composing these…
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