Bob Power
| Bob Power | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Bob Power |
| Occupation(s) | Record producer, engineer |
| Years active | 1975 – present |
| Associated acts |
A Tribe Called Quest Erykah Badu Citizen Cope D'Angelo De La Soul India Arie Jungle Brothers Meshell Ndegeocello Ozomatli The Roots |
| Website |
www |
Bob Power is a Grammy Award winning and nominated, and multi-platinum producer, engineer, composer, arranger, performer, and educator.[1][2]
Early life
Power was born in Chicago, moved to Rye, New York, then moved to St. Louis, Missouri and attended Webster College, where he studied music theory.[3][4]
He also studied classical composition and conducting, alongside playing his own contemporary music. He subsequently attained a master’s degree in jazz from Lone Mountain College, now known as Lone Mountain Campus, in San Francisco.[4]
Career
He stayed in California between 1975 and 1982, scoring music for the PBS Emmy Award winning television series Over Easy and writing music for broadcast advertising. Power contributed music for advertising campaigns for companies including, The American Cancer Society (EMMY Award winner), AT&T, Casio, Coca-Cola, Elizabeth Arden, Hardee's, Hertz, Intel, Mercedes-Benz, Purina, and The United States Postal Service. [5]
He then moved to New York City in 1982 to further his music career playing gigs in a variety of venues, including one performance at a wedding of a member of the Bensonhurst Mafia.[6]
He was asked by the owner of Callipso Studios to sit in as engineer of a music recording session by the group Stetsasonic. Stetsasonic thought so highly of Bob Power's work that he continued to work with Stetsasonic, overseeing the breakthrough sessions for their album, On Fire. [4]
He continued his liaison with rap groups thereafter, linking up with the New York City rap collective, the Native Tongues. The Native Tongues was a group of hip-hop groups, including A Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep, De La Soul ,and Jungle Brothers. All of the music groups within the collective based their music which based their music around intricate designed and complex arrangements of sampling.
Power's ability to produce music which mimicked the clarity of the sampled recordings was highly valued by producers within the Native Tongues.
Bob Power's most noteworthy project as an engineer is his work on A Tribe Called Quest's sophomore album, The Low End Theory which was recorded during the years of 1990 thru 1991 and released in 1991. Power describes his work on The Low End Theory in the following quote:
"The Low End Theory was an interesting record; in a way, it was "The Sgt. Pepper's" of hip-hop. (read the "Legacy" section of the Wikipedia page entitled "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" It's a record that changed the way that people thought about putting music together. I'm not a big hip-hop historian; I just know the stuff that I worked on. Until that point, when people used samples on records, it was pretty much one loop that played throughout. With The Low End Theory, and People's Instinctive Travels, to a lesser extent, Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed were at the leading edge of a new wave where people started making elaborate musical constructions out of samples from different places that would not, and in many ways, could not, have been played by regular players." [7]
By the mid-90's he was given charge of a production suite at Sony Music Studios in New York. His profile as a producer continued to grow through work with Me'Shell N'degéocello, D'Angelo and Erykah Badu. The latter gave Power his first number 1 R&B single,'On & On', while N’degéocello’s Peace Beyond Passion received a Grammy nomination for best engineered album.
Recent career
Bob Power is currently an Associate Arts Professor in the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts located in New York City, NY.[2]
References
- ↑ "1996 Best R&B album Grammy nominee". CNN.com.
- 1 2 "Faculty Directory". Tisch School of the Arts. New York University. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
- ↑ Farberman, Brad. "5 R&B records that producer/ engineer Bob Power put his stamp on". Wax Poetics. Wax Poetics LLC. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
- 1 2 3 "Bob Power | Biography". AllMusic.com. All Media Network, LLC. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
- ↑ "Robert Power Music - Biography". BobPower.com.
- ↑ "Robert Power Music - Timeline". BobPower.com.
- ↑ "20 Years Later, Engineer Bob Power Talks Tribe's "The Low End Theory"". UPROXX.com.>