Moogy Klingman, Songwriter and Original Utopia Member, Has Died
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/arts/music/moogy-klingman-songwriter-and-original-member-o...
-
-
- EthicalVegan
- added this
The New York Times...
Moogy Klingman, Songwriter and Original Member of Utopia, Dies at 61
.
November 21, 2011
Moogy Klingman, Songwriter and Original Member of Utopia, Dies at 61
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
.
If pop music, at its best, can be called a series of evanescent but magically eternal moments, Moogy Klingman lived the concept. He jammed with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, produced a rare album featuring Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and other superstars, and helped write the song that Bette Midler made her theme, “Friends.”
He was best known for his association with Todd Rundgren, the singer, songwriter and producer. It was Mr. Rundgren who announced that Mr. Klingman, an original member of his band Utopia, died on Nov. 15 in Manhattan. He was 61.
Mr. Klingman lived most of his life out of the limelight, though he and his groups, most recently the Peaceniks, had long been part of the New York music scene.
As Mr. Klingman’s health declined, starting with bladder cancer, Mr. Rundgren summoned him and the other original members of Utopia to play a series of concerts. They had not played together in more than 30 years. They are continuing their tour to help pay Mr. Klingman’s medical expenses. Information on survivors was not available.
Mr. Klingman produced and played keyboards on “Buckets of Rain,” Ms. Midler’s duet with Bob Dylan of the Dylan song for her 1976 Atlantic album, “Songs for the New Depression.” “Friends,” also known as “(You Got to Have) Friends,” a song Mr. Klingman wrote with Buzzy Linhart, was a hit for Ms. Midler in 1973.
Original compositions included on Mr. Klingman’s own first album, “Moogy” (Capitol, 1972), were later recorded by Carly Simon, Johnny Winter, James Cotton and Thelma Houston.
Mark Klingman was born on Sept. 7, 1950; sources differ on whether he was born in New York City or Great Neck, N.Y. His nickname from childhood, Moogy, had nothing to do with the Moog synthesizers he played.
As a youth Mr. Klingman developed a distinctive style of piano playing informed by boogie-woogie and jazz, and by the time he was 16 he was spending more time in Greenwich Village than in high school. He formed a rock group and sat in with top musicians, including Hendrix.
In 1968 he played on the soundtrack for the Jane Fonda science fiction film “Barbarella.” He met Mr. Rundgren outside the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village that same year.
Mr. Rundgren and Mr. Klingman built a recording studio, Secret Sound, in Mr. Rundgren’s Manhattan loft. When Mr. Rundgren formed Utopia in 1973, he used members of Mr. Klingman’s band, Moogy and the Rhythm Kings, as the core.
Mr. Rundgren was scheduled to produce a “super session” in 1969 involving Mr. Clapton, Mr. Beck, Dr. John, Linda Ronstadt and other musicians. But after Mr. Rundgren’s manager refused the payment offered, Mr. Klingman, at 18, took on the project and found himself supervising his musical idols. The effort led to a single album, “Summit Meeting,” and a double album, “Music From Free Creek,” both released in England in the 1970s. The musicians used pseudonyms on the album. Mr. Clapton was “King Cool” and Mr. Beck “A. N. Other.”
In a 2001 interview with the magazine Heavy Metal Mayhem, Mr. Klingman said he had approached the sessions dreading that someone would say, “Who are you, Sonny, to tell us what to do?” No one did. “I knew when to back off,” he said.
.
-
- groups:
- Community, Entertainment, Music, Random, 7 more
-
- recommended by:
- pjacobs51,
- EthicalVegan
-
-
pjacobs51
-

-
The Last Ride . . . pic from Moogy Klingman Benefit Concert 1/16/11.
RIP Moogy
- 6 months ago
-
pjacobs51
-
-
EthicalVegan
-
pjacobs51:
Thank you for adding this delightful picture. Moogy's the one in front, and looking almost nothing like he used to. And the rest of the guys... wow, time sure has changed us all.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
pjacobs51
-
-
EthicalVegan:
Here's some video from that show . . . brings back some great memories!
- 6 months ago
-
pjacobs51
-
-
EthicalVegan
-
pjacobs51:
Tears and more tears... couldn't take my eyes off of my friend Moogy...
Were you at this gig?
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
pjacobs51
-
EthicalVegan:
Unfortunately I was not, this clip and others were sent from a friend in NYC.
- 6 months ago
-
pjacobs51
-
-
warman1138
-
Moogy may be gone but the music lives on. Far out man, far out. R.I.P. Moogy.
- 6 months ago
-
warman1138
-
-
EthicalVegan
-
http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww38/moogyking/rhythmkingsfolder.jpg..
.
Moogy & The Rhythm Kings
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-

-
.
Moogy, 1973
[Phyllis Lane Sciborowski]
.
Now this photo is EXACTLY how I remember Moogy... !
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJrzhfmfTtg&feature=youtu.be
.
Last interview with Moogy
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-
http://www.spinner.com/2011/11/16/mark-moogy-klingman-utopia-keyboardist-dies/
.
Spinner...
.
Mark 'Moogy' Klingman, Keyboardist for Todd Rundgren's Utopia, Dead At 61
Posted on Nov 16th 2011 6:52PM
by Jason MacNeil
.
Mark "Moogy" Klingman -– best known as keyboardist and a founding member of Todd Rundgren's group Utopia -– died last night (Nov. 15) following a battle with cancer. He was 61.
News of Klingman's passing was announced on Todd Rundgren's management Twitter account this afternoon as well as the RundgrenRadio Twitter account. "I have some sorrowful news this morning," read a brief statement Rundgren's Facebook page. "Last night Moogy Klingman, longtime friend and Utopian passed away after a difficult battle with cancer. He will be greatly missed. RIP Moogy."
Earlier this year, Rundgren reformed Utopian for a special one-off show in New York City. The show was a benefit concert to offset Klingman's mounting medical bills. This summer the musician had also played some shows with the Peaceniks. "As I continue to struggle with my intense health challenge, fighting the big C, I find doing music with my best friends (as the Peaceniks are) extremely healing," Klingman wrote on his site prior to the Peaceniks shows. "And as the music heals me, I promise the music will heal you as well."
Having grown up in Long Island, New York, Klingman played in a few groups early on before his relationship with Rundgren began in 1969. Getting the nickname from using the Moog synthesizers during performances, Klingman was the original keyboardist for Utopia and would perform on several Rundgren and Utopia records.
The musician is also remembered for co-writing '(You've Got to Have) Friends,' which became a signature song for Bette Midler when it appeared on her debut album 'The Divine Miss M.' Klingman would perform on Midler's 1976 album 'Songs for the New Depression.'
Rundgren is currently on tour with Utopia, a trek that was intended to include Klingman, though his illness prevented him from joining.
"I have to play a lot because I don't know how long I have left in this world," Klingman said in an interview that appeared on his site. "Ultimately, if I can hang around for a few more years it would be amazing. But if I go soon, I have to say that it was a miracle that I could do these shows, and every show will be a miracle."
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan:
.
Todd Rundgren and Utopia:
Just One Victory
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/former-todd-rundgren-keyboardist-mark-moogy-kling...
.
Ultimate Classic Rock...
.
Former Todd Rundgren Keyboardist Mark ‘Moogy’ Klingman Loses Battle With Cancer
by: Matt Wardlaw
Mark 'Moogy' Klingman.
Keyboardist Mark ‘Moogy’ Klingman, known for his work with Todd Rundgren and Bette Midler, and also a founding member of Rundgren’s Utopia band, passed away on Tuesday evening (Nov. 15) at the age of 61. Klingman had been fighting an extended battle with cancer.
His music was a key element of Rundgren’s early solo work, particularly the progressive sound that informed Utopia. Klingman also played a big part in rock history by making the very important introduction between Meat Loaf, composer Jim Steinman and Rundgren. That trio went on to produce what would become the multi-platinum ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ album in 1977.
Klingman and Rundgren were initially supposed to produce the album together, but Klingman eventually was edged out of the picture when the team became more interested in working with Rundgren directly. The events would cause a rift between Klingman and and Rundgren that would take many years to heal.
Rundgren reformed Utopia for a pair of shows earlier this year (which included Moogy) to help benefit Klingman’s mounting medical bills. The reunion continued this fall with additional dates that Klingman was originally set to be a part of, but unfortunately he ultimately was unable to participate as his health got worse.
Todd mourned the “sorrowful” passing of his “longtime friend and Utopian” with a post on his Facebook page that said “he will be missed, RIP Moogy.”
Rundgren biographer Paul Myers paid tribute to Klingman with a lengthy post, calling him “a unique character, part foil, part Salieri, but a true original.”
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-
http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/moogy-klingman-on-fighting-cancer-with-music/...
.
Keyboard Magazine...
.
Moogy Klingman, On Fighting Cancer with Music
.
By Fernando Perdomo
.
Mark “Moogy” Klingman has been a part of rock ’n’ roll history for more than four decades. As a loyal sideman to Todd Rundgren on some of his most celebrated albums, Moogy tackled a wide variety of piano, organ, and synth parts on classics like “Hello It’s Me,” “Sometimes I Don’t Know What To Feel,” “Utopia Theme,” and “The Ikon.” As a founding member of Utopia, he was at the forefront of progressive rock, with a style deeply rooted in funk, boogie-woogie, and jazz. He co-wrote Bette Midler’s signature song “Friends” and produced her album Songs for the New Depression, which featured her duet with Bob Dylan, “Buckets of Rain.”Klingman has never stopped playing all over New York City, but a recent diagnosis of an aggressive form of cancer has given him a new outlook on life and a supercharge of energy. In February, the original lineup of Utopia reunited for two sold-out shows at the Highline Ballroom in New York to raise funds for his treatments. Klingman was overwhelmed with emotion, playing with musicians he had not seen in 30 years. He credits music as a major part of his recovery.
How did you get the nickname “Moogy?”
My real name is Mark, and my original nickname was Marky. My little sister used to mispronounce it, and that’s how I ended up with Moogy. It’s coincidental that I ended up playing the Moog synthesizer in Utopia.
What made you decide to play piano?
I saw the movie Rhapsody in Blue, and of course, the opening music was George Gershwin’s composition of the same name. The next day I started playing piano. Utopia’s song “Freak Parade” was based on Rhapsody in Blue. Two of my biggest influences are Gershwin and Aaron Copland.
There are similarities in the way you and Todd write on the piano. How did that happen?
We were both listening to a lot of Laura Nyro when we were 18 and 19; specifically, we both learned a lot from listening to her album Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. We went on to influence each other greatly.
Who are some of your piano influences?
Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, Bill Evans, Art Tatum, Bud Powell, and Keith Jarrett, who I studied with.
What were some of the classic keyboards you used in Utopia?
The Fender Rhodes, Minimoog, Univox Mini-Korg, a Hammond L-100 organ, Sound City Piano, an RMI Keyboard Computer and Rock-Si- Chord, a Clavinet, and a Yamaha Grand in the studio.
How did you prepare for the Utopia reunion shows?
We rehearsed ten times without Todd and three hours with Todd. I think it came out rather well.
How did it feel playing the long sets?
Music eliminates all the pain from the battle with “the big C.” Music is a real pain reliever. Music is magical. I’ve been going through operations and treatments, and I felt no pain onstage. It was a real rebirth, but it’s a shame that it had to take the form of a fundraiser for me.
What’s next for you?
More Utopia shows, I hope. I have a band called the Peacenicks that plays a few times a month, and now I’ll be doing some shows with the Utopia Brothers, which includes John Seigler and Kevin Ellman. I have to play a lot because I don’t know how long I have left in this world. Ultimately, if I can hang around for a few more years it would be amazing. But if I go soon, I have to say that it was a miracle that I could do these shows, and every show will be a miracle.
Find tour dates, live photos, and more, at moogymusic.com.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-

-
.
Todd Rundgren smiling at Moogy during the Utopia reunion, 2011.
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-

-
.
Moogy with reunited Utopia, 2011
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-

-
.
CONTINUED…
PART FIVE…
.
The Wheel:
Some people say life’s like a merry-go-round
I think it’s more like a ferris wheel
’cause sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down
Sometimes you just don’t know what to feel
And just when you think you’ve got the game figured out
And you say you’ve had enough
The mysterious mad man with his hand on the lever
Don’t seem to never ever want to let you off
You can’t get off this wheel of karma
You can’t stop the hands of time
.
We’ll leave you now with a live version of Utopia’s The Wheel, featuring Moogy, from the reunion show at the Highline Ballroom, NY, January 30th 2011.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-

-
.
CONTINUED…
PART FOUR…
.
Klingman also worked with Bette Midler, producing her Songs For The New Depression album an co-writing her signature song, “You Got To Have) Friends”
Klingman was also instrumental in bringing Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf to Rundgren. It would become one of Rundgren’s most successful ventures.
MK: “Yeah what happened was Todd, right after I left the band I would still try to procure productions for Secret Sound. I had the Bette Midler album out and I wanted to do more production and I was getting certain calls to produce things but not any major albums. And then I would be listening to the acts and I went and I heard Meat Loaf sing at Reno Sweeney’s with Jimmy Steinman on piano, and they did the whole Bat Out Of Hell album with just Jim Steinman on piano and Meat Loaf and I thought it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard I told them I wanted to produce. They said they already had a record deal they were looking for a producer, told them I had just done Bette Midler and I was playing with Todd and they said oh Todd Rundgren we love Todd Rundgren they said look if you can get Todd involved in the project we’ll do the album with you.”
Sadly, Steinman became more interested in working with Todd directly, and Klingman was quietly dismissed, a fact which hurt him for years. His relationship with Rundgren was chillier for a while after that, as business arrangements clouded their friendship. But they did work together around this time.
MK: “I left the album and then it took a year or two for that record to come out and it came out and it was starting to sell somewhat and Todd called me and invited me to do the Back to the Bars tour with them so I had toured with them with Back to the Bars. He let me do one of my songs on the show and then he was doing a song of mine called ‘Lady Face’ which was supposed to be on the album and I thought the song I was doing was gonna be on the album too and it turned out when the album came out neither of those songs were on the album. So that was that.”
It took many years for he and Rundgren to thaw out their relationship. Perhaps it took Klingman’s illness to expedite their peace treaty, but over the last year, he and Rundgren, and various members of the original Utopia began doing reunion shows, primarily in the Eastern States. Some of Klingman’s last gigs, onstage with a clearly energized Rundgren, were among his greatest moments. Playing may have even prolonged his life just long enough to squeeze out a little more music.
Todd smiles at Moogy, photo © by Chuck Madden.
So goodbye to Moogy, the Wizard’s apprentice. You were and remain a unique character, part foil, part Salieri, but a true original. The wheel of life keeps turning and we can’t stop the hands of time…
.
CONTINUED…
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-

-
.
CONTINUED...
PART THREE...
.
MK: “So one day Todd said ‘Okay I’m gonna start recording. He was in the room by himself with the bass and he laid down the bass part to “International Feel” and then he started adding on to it and the first part was very noisy sounding you know I said wow he’s making some really weird noisy sound, he’d been wiring for months he had like a top three record, he spent his whole time just wiring making this really weird sounds which was the opening for “International Feel” and then he was overdubbing and it started to sound like something and he said okay Moogy I want you to bring your band in Moogy and the Rhythm Kings. And were gonna do the track, some of the albums gonna be me, and they came in the first track we, one of the first tracks we did was “Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye” but he’d changed it to “Da Da Dali” and it was about Salvador Dali. We spent the next month or so recording A Wizard, A True Star with Todd as the sole engineer. We didn’t even have an assist to just watch the levels and bring things down a bit, but that’s how he liked to work he was a solo guy, he was a hermit nerd.”
Since Todd was now using Moogy & The Rhythm Kings on a lot of the band tracks for his solo albums and productions for other clients, it seemed logical that they would become the core of his progressive/near jazz rock concept, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia. When I interviewed Moogy in 2008, I made the suggestion that Utopia were Rundgren’s version of Phil Spector’s backing group, The Wrecking Crew. Klingman shrugged it off though, because the analogy fails to consider that Utopia didn’t just make the records, they went out on the road as well.
MK: “Phil Spector never toured, he didn’t have his own band called Spector’s Utopia you know?
Throughout the early months of 1974, Klingman and Todd Rundgren’s Utopia composed and recorded the selections that would appear on their debut album. Rundgren recalls that the band’s flexible and informal schedule was attributable to the fact that he and Klingman owned the studio. “We could get together whenever we wanted,” he says. “For the most part, our routine was to go out in the evenings and do stuff, to Max’s or some other musical venue, and then next afternoon we’d show up at Secret Sound and work out something and probably record it. It was like ‘Hey, anybody got anything?’ Somebody would have just a little idea they’d been working on, or somebody else would have a whole song, and we’d figure out if one part could fit into the middle of another.”
According to bassist John Siegler, Rundgren had built, in Utopia, “a playground for himself, where he could explore his musical ideas and go wherever he needed to.” To which drummer Kevin Ellman adds “While it was definitely Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, it wasn’t just the Todd Rundgren Show, either.”
Their all-hands approach culminated in the 30-minute opus ‘The Ikon,’ which, Rundgren recalls, presented unique organizational challenges: “The hardest part was figuring out how these fragments were supposed to segue together, and each of them had some internal things that were challenging enough to play. Once we’d learned them, we could start thinking about how they went into a larger context.”
“All those musical pieces were recorded separately,” says Klingman, “it was five or six different pieces we had developed by jamming. I had this piece called ‘The Conquering Of The West,’ then Ralph and John started writing material for it. Eventually Todd named the whole thing ‘The Ikon.’” (Excerpt below)
“There wasn’t a whole lot of actual jamming on the final record,” says Rundgren, “but in concert, that 30-minute piece was like an hour and a half. By the time all the keyboard players and I had our turns soloing, the songs would start to seem just endless!”
Klingman and Siegler worked up the music for the ten-minute long ‘Freak Parade,’ over which Rundgren added his Zappa-like call to all the freaks among us to “get off the sidewalk” and join in the parade. “It was extremely clever stuff,” says Klingman, “and he had encouraged us to write some weird, wild music. So I had some musical ideas and John wrote the middle section, which is the funky section that has the vocals over it. Todd helped us arrange the pieces, and then he put the vocals by himself.”
“When we came back and heard Todd’s vocals and words,” says Siegler, “I just couldn’t believe how great they were. At that point, Utopia was a real band. Anyone who had music they could think of could bring it in. Todd was totally up for it.”
Keyboardist Ralph Schuckett categorizes the band at this time as a benevolent dictatorship: “Todd had really good judgment, though, so I’m not complaining. It’s just that you couldn’t really call it democratic because he had the final word. But he’d let the band record our compositions, which was generous of him both artistically and monetarily.”
.
CONTINUED…
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-

-
.
.
CONTINUED...
PART TWO...
.
MK: “On Runt, I helped with “I’m in the Clique” I’m on one cut and he brought in the bass player and he hired this drummer Bobby Moses, who was playing with Keith Jarrett at the time, so he knew that Keith Jarrett was my absolute idol I had taken some piano lessons from Keith Jarrett and he booked Keith Jarrett’s drummer. And on “I’m in the Clique” with Bobby Moses, I think he did it as a favor to me because he knew I loved….
Around the time of Rundgren’s second Runt album, The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren, he enlisted Klingman, along with Tommy Cosgrove, Stu Woods and Norman Smart, to back him on tour.
MK: “The second album didn’t sell, The Ballad of Todd Rundgren. There were no gigs to be had, so the thing broke after. We were all living in his house for a while which he liked that stuff. He liked his whole thing in his house, somewhere in the Hollywood hills and he was a horrendous driver, he would drive really fast, it was the round corners, up these you know in the hills where you turn corners really quickly it was just scary to be in the car with the guy. He drove really fast.”
After recording three sides of Something/Anything?, in Los Angeles, Rundgren booked himself into The Record Plant, in New York, for a Sunday marathon ‘live in the studio’ session to work on a live-ish “side four.” Once again, Rundgren contracted Moogy to pack the studio with the best players he could find on short notice. “Moogy would play organ on the sessions,” says Rundgren, “because I was playing the piano on that day. We did three songs in a row, over one 16-hour session; it was a busy day.”
Klingman recalls getting the call from Rundgren on the previous Friday night, to rope everyone in for Sunday. “He needed to get a full band by Sunday morning. He wanted horns, singers, everything, so I made a ton of phone calls. I got Rick Derringer on guitar, but he couldn’t come for the first song so I also called a guitarist friend I knew from high school, Robbie Kogale. Stu Woods played the bass but also couldn’t make it for the first song so I got my friend John Siegler. We had John Siomos on drums, and I brought in a great horn section – Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, and Barry Rogers – and any singers I could find.”
Klingman’s singers included Richard Corey, Cecelia Norfleet, Dennis Cooley, Hope Ruff and Vicki Sue Robinson (who later recorded the disco hit, ‘Turn the Beat Around’). The three songs recorded that day were ‘Dust In The Wind,’ a Klingman composition which, in light of his passing, takes on an a kind of a sort-of self-eulogizing quality:
That day, Klingman also helped Rundgren with ‘You Left Me Sore,’ a light-hearted paean to sexual transmitted diseases, and a radically updated arrangement of his Nazz near-hit, ‘Hello It’s Me.’”
“I was hearing the song in my head a different way,” says Rundgren, “more up-tempo with a different feel, so I thought I’d give it a try with this new arrangement. It was the first song I ever wrote, so I thought why the hell not. Maybe I could finally get it out of my system, all these songs about some fucking girl who dumped me in high school.”
The new recording of ‘Hello It’s Me’ would become Rundgren’s major league calling card and, for better or worse, the song most commonly associated with him. Given the caliber of the musicians assembled, Rundgren recalls giving them carte blanche to wail as they pleased.
“Despite whatever else made ‘Hello It’s Me’ a hit,” says Rundgren, “it was all live and we didn’t slave over it, you know? There were no charts written out, people were faking what they were playing, and all that horn business at the end was just an impromptu thing that the horn players just started playing. The singers just started repeating, ‘Think of me’ on their own, I didn’t tell them to do that.”
Moogy recalled, in our interview, the hectic atmosphere at the session.
“Todd would be singing and playing,” says Klingman, “ and still trying to engineer. He’d show people their parts and then go back and forth to the booth to get the sounds and levels right. He had [Dan Turbeville] in there working for him, but everyone knew it was Todd’s concept. I remember that, for putting the band together, I was paid triple time in contractor’s fees, because it was a Sunday. I got a check for $2,200, for one day’s work. That was a lot of money back then.”
By 1973, when Rundgren and Klingman began using Moogy’s mid-town Manhattan loft to rehearse and record, the two decided to convert the place into Todd’s first proper studio, Secret Sound.
MK: “I had a loft on 24th street that I had, it was a rental, I gave the guy very little fee money, I think around $250.00 in key money, and he had built a studio he had a studio room and a control room with the glass in the front half of the loft and the back half was more for living. You know I had to really work on the back half to bring it up to speed for living. But the front half was already a control room and a studio. We were able to play all night because it was an industrial building no one lived there. So my band Moogy and the Rhythm Kings would essentially use it for rehearsals. Todd said he wanted to build a studio in my place and he wanted me to start backing him up on Todd Rundgren tours and TV shows with my band. So we were doing both things. So we took like two or three months and Todd decided he wanted to wire up the studio all by himself. I didn’t really know anything about wiring so he would just actually come into the control room and he bought all home equipment, home equalizers, home this and that and he would wire it up. He made his own board, he bought the faders and he just spent months wiring while his record was number one, he was in this little room wiring away for months, he should have been out on tour. But he’d just be in that room by himself and I would be in the back playing my piano. I didn’t really help him with the wiring, you know other stuff whatever was needed in terms of muffling for the studio or equipment I would be working on stuff like that. He just had all this equipment brought in you know, sets of vibes, organs, other keyboards, a Stevens 16 track machine, it was one of the early sixteen tracks by an independent entrepreneur which was a sad thing because it was breaking all the time and this Stevens was the only guy who knew how to fix it. You’d have to try to get this guy on the phone and he would tell you over the phone how to fix the machine. That studio was really put together with band aids and bubble gum. It just barely held together.”
One of the first things they made there was Rundgren’s A Wizard A True Star album. Klingman recalled for me the birth of that now legendary album, right there in his loft.
.
CONTINUED...
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-
http://pulmyears.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/youve-got-to-have-friends-r-i-p-the-wi...
.
The Pulmyears Music Blog
Musings on music from the desk of Paul Myers..
You’ve Got To Have Friends: R.I.P. “the Wizard’s apprentice”, Moogy Klingman
Photo: Todd Rundgren (with Furburger), Ruth Rundgren and Moogy Klingman (Lake Hill, NY, c. 1976)
.
.
PART ONE...
.
This morning I heard that Todd Rundgren’s longtime musical associate, Mark “Moogy” Klingman had succumbed to the dreaded Cancer after a long decline, during which time he had remained active in music until he could no longer make it to the stage. In fact, it may be argued, and I’m inclined to agree, that he was kept alive as long as he was by his sheer passionate love for music’s redemptive power.
He loved music and it guided his life, right up ’til the very end.
Klingman was an early Todd Rundgren cohort, the two had met in Greenwich Village, on the sidewalk outside a jam session at the Café A-Go-Go in 1968. Moogy discussed their meeting when we talked for my book, A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren In The Studio. I use some full excerpts here.
MOOGY KLINGMAN: “We were waiting for the Paul Butterfield Band to show up at the Café A-Go-Go cause he was taking guitar lessons from Elvin Bishop. Elvin was a friend of mine that I was jamming with a lot so we’re both waiting outside. We started talking and he told me that he had a band, Nazz, that was living in Great Neck that he had gotten this big advance with Atlantic. And at the time I was with a group called The Glitter House that was on Bob Crewe’s label DynoVoice, and Bob Crewe was a very big record producer at that time, he produced all the Four Seasons, and Frankie Valli and Mitch Ryder, Lesley Gore, he just had a lot of hits at the time I signed with him and so we were both working on our first original albums with our bands. When Todd told me he took the Nazz advance and moved to Great Neck, it was funny because he moved a few blocks from where I lived. I had grown up in Great Neck, in fact I had left Great Neck because I had created a riot at the high school during a concert, and the principal tried to force me out of the school. The vice principal would force me out of Great Neck so I could go to school in the city so I had left Great Neck because of music. I couldn’t understand why Nazz were out there when it was all happening in the city… but Todd had this vision of the Nazz as being isolated from everyone else and just them living in a house and dressing alike and looking alike and having the same hairstyle and just you know some kind of bonding thing. [Later] when I went out to visit them there, they knew no one out there. We were both about 19 or 20 at the time.”
According to Moogy, the shy young Todd quickly bonded with him and was eager to meet some of his musician friends.
MK: “I was out there, and Todd told me he had been a nerd in high school and he played with his train set in his room when he was working on his music. I just think he was completely isolated in his town like his social skills were undeveloped. He saw me as a guy that could maybe help him at least with musicians, get him out to work with other musicians because about a year later we bumped into each other again… or maybe we stayed close… I’d see him occasionally at [Steve Paul's club] The Scene which was a happening spot. Todd always wore British rock clothes, so he didn’t, like, fit into the village roots funky music scene so much, cause he looked like he came from London or something, you know?”
After Todd left Nazz, Moogy became his go-to guy for rustling musicians to play on his earliest record productions. Among these, was Ian & Sylvia’s Great Speckled Bird.
MK: “I think Amos Garrett was in the band possibly and then [Todd] had me play on some singles for James Cotton. Cotton was blues and Ian and Sylvia were country, and with Todd’s British influence… clothes, you know they were taken a little aback with him. For the James Cotton single he had me hire the rhythm section from the first time, which is what I would be doing with Todd a lot… hiring all the musicians or finding musicians for his bands in many instances… for the James Cotton sessions I got the McCoys… Randy Zehringer on drums, Ricky Zehringer’s brother, Rick became Rick Derringer, and Randy Hobbs on bass. They went to Johnny Winter after the McCoys broke up and became Johnny Winter Band. I was closer to McCoys, I was closer to a lot of musicians, I just made friends a lot with everyone from Jimi Hendrix and James Taylor to the McCoys and Traffic and Moby Grape. I would just see their shows, I’d hang out with them, they’d invite me to their recording sessions. I was young and they just dug me. And I played some good harmonica and I play some good blues piano so I could always jam with people, pick up a harp, sit down at the piano. So I got the McCoys on the James Cotton sessions and we made some really good tracks. Todd wrote some horn charts, which were pretty amazing… he couldn’t really read or write music but he could do it enough to write these horn charts for some of the songs. And we recorded one of my tunes, Todd liked one of my songs so he had James Cotton record it. He was pushing me as a songwriter and I was helping him get the musicians and make the tracks. And then during his first sessions for Grossman.”
Rundgren continued to do productions for Bearsville, while Klingman set up his own band, Moogy and the Rhythm Kings. When Todd ventured back into recording his own material, he looked up his old pal Moogy for some help.
.
CONTINUED...
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
-
-
EthicalVegan
-
.
I need to include several more articles, obituaries, that sort of thing... because, for the life of me, I cannot find the words myself to describe who Moogy Klingman was.
I can say that he was extremely wonderful, talented, sweet, funny, smart, clever, and wrote some really nice music. My personal favorite has to be "(You Got to Have) Friends," because he wrote that with another old friend of mine, Buzzy Linhart. "Friends" became Bette Midler's song.
I had the pleasure of knowing Moogy during his time with Buzzy, and then saw his jump to co-founding Utopia, with Todd Rundgren.
Moogy died of bladder cancer a few days back, and I only learned of his death this morning. I'm immensely sad that more in this world didn't get to know him personally.
.
- 6 months ago
-
EthicalVegan
