Moogy Klingman - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mark "Moogy" Klingman was an American musician and songwriter. He was a founding member of Todd Rundgren's

Todd Rundgren

Todd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings...

musical team Utopia, and later became a solo recording artist, bandleader and songwriter. He released two solo recordings, and his songs have been covered by artists as wide ranging as Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...

, Carly Simon

Carly Simon

Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...

, James Cotton

James Cotton

James Cotton is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who has performed and recorded with many of the great blues artists of his time as well as with his own band.-Career:...

, Thelma Houston

Thelma Houston

Thelma Houston is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She scored a number-one hit in 1976 with her cover version of the song "Don't Leave Me This Way", which won the 1978 Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.-Early life & career:Houston is the daughter of a cotton picking mother...

, Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

, Barry Manilow

Barry Manilow

Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...

and Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...

. He played on stage with Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

, Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...

, Luther Vandross

Luther Vandross

Luther Ronzoni Vandross was an American singer-songwriter and record producer. During his career, Vandross sold over twenty-five million albums and won eight Grammy Awards including Best Male R&B Vocal Performance four times...

, Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...

and Allan Woody & Warren Haynes

Warren Haynes

Warren Haynes is an American rock and blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. Haynes is best known for his work as long time guitarist with The Allman Brothers Band and as founding member of the jam band Gov't Mule. Early in his career he was a guitarist for David Allan Coe and The Dickey...

of the Allman Brothers and Gov't Mule
Gov't Mule
Gov't Mule is a Southern rock jam band formed in 1994 as an Allman Brothers Band side project by Warren Haynes and Allen Woody.The band released their debut album Gov't Mule in 1995...

. Other than Rundgren, his longest musical association may have been with Bette Midler

Bette Midler

Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...

, serving as her band leader and who adopted as her signature song (You Gotta Have) Friends
Friends (Bette Midler song)
"Friends" is a 1973 hit single by Bette Midler. It was written by Buzzy Linhart and Mark "Moogy" Klingman. In the United States, the song reached #9 on the Adult Contemporary chart and reached #40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.-Background:A version of "Friends" was recorded by one of the song's...

, composed by Klingman and William "Buzzy" Linhart

Buzzy Linhart

Buzzy Linhart is an American rock performer and musician.Born William Linhart in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he began honing his craft playing percussion for symphony at the age of seven, switching to vibraphone at ten...

Life and career

Mark "Moogy" Klingman's nickname was not from the brand of synthesizers, but from his sister's inability to pronounce his previous nickname "Marky". Although "Moogy" is pronounced "Moo-Gee", he and his nickname rose to fame as Moog synthesizer

Moog synthesizer

Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...

s dominated the market for his main instrument, electronic keyboards.

Klingman grew up in the Long Island suburb of Great Neck, New York

Great Neck, New York

The term Great Neck is commonly applied to a peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island, which includes the village of Great Neck, the village of Great Neck Estates, the village of Great Neck Plaza, and others, as well as an area south of the peninsula near Lake Success and the border of Queens...

. By age 10 he was collecting comic books and gramophone record

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

s, playing DJ in his basement. Through his older sister, he got an access pass to attend the 1965 Newport Folk Festival

Newport Folk Festival

The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...

performance where Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

"went electric," meeting Dylan before and after the concert. Back home, his band The Living Few was signed to a demo deal by producer Dick Glass and recorded a demo of Dylan songs and original tunes.

At 16, he joined Jimmy James and the Blue Flames with Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

and Randy California

Randy California

Randy California was a guitarist, singer and songwriter and one of the original members of the rock group Spirit, formed in 1967.-Biography:...

. His jug band performance with schoolmate Andy Kaufman

Andy Kaufman

Andrew Geoffrey "Andy" Kaufman was an American entertainer, actor and performance artist. While often referred to as a comedian, Kaufman did not consider himself one...

in a controversial civil rights concert resulted in his expulsion from high school in 1966, after which he went to Quintano's School for Young Professionals in New York City. By then, his band Glitterhouse had made records with the star producer Bob Crewe

Bob Crewe

Bob Crewe is an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, record producer and fine artist. He is known for producing, and co-writing with Bob Gaudio, a string of Top 10 singles for The Four Seasons...

, as well as Crewe's soundtrack to the 1968 Roger Vadim

Roger Vadim

Roger Vadim was a French screenwriter, director, and producer as well as a journalist, author and actor, who launched Brigitte Bardot's career in the film And God Created Woman.-Early life:...

film Barbarella

Barbarella (film)

Barbarella is a 1968 Franco-Italian science fiction film based on Jean-Claude Forrest's French Barbarella comics. The film was directed by Roger Vadim and stars Jane Fonda, who was Vadim's wife at the time.-Plot:...

with Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...

.

Klingman's association with Todd Rundgren

Todd Rundgren

commenced in 1968 when they met outside the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. Moogy was the original keyboardist for Todd Rundgren's Utopia, and Klingman's band Moogy & the Rhythm Kings (John "Willie" Wilcox, Ralph Schuckett, John Seigler) formed the core of the original Utopia. In Klingman's Manhattan loft, he and Rundgren constructed the Secret Sound recording studio where Rundgren produced his A Wizard, A True Star
A Wizard, a True Star
A Wizard, a True Star is a progressive rock recording by Todd Rundgren, released in 1973.The album, and especially the first side of the vinyl recording, is an extended medley after the fashion of the Beatles' late recordings; brief songs segue into one another, and the lyrics are frequently...

, Todd
Todd (album)
Todd is a double album by Todd Rundgren, released in February 1974. It was an expansion of his experimentation on A Wizard, A True Star. It showed his growing interest in the synthesizer, and its ability to expand the textures of rock music. Much of the album is intensely experimental. However, it...

, and other albums. He played on ten Todd Rundgren albums, as well as several Utopia albums.

Klingman played keyboards and produced Bette Midler

Bette Midler

's duet with Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Buckets of Rain - which appeared on Midler's 1976 album, Songs for the New Depression
Songs for the New Depression
Songs for the New Depression is the third studio album by American female vocalist Bette Midler, released in early 1976 on the Atlantic Records label. The album which saw Midler making her debut as a composer Songs for the New Depression is the third studio album by American female vocalist Bette...

. Klingman collaborated with William "Buzzy" Linhart

Buzzy Linhart

in co-writing (You Gotta Have) Friends
Friends (Bette Midler song)
"Friends" is a 1973 hit single by Bette Midler. It was written by Buzzy Linhart and Mark "Moogy" Klingman. In the United States, the song reached #9 on the Adult Contemporary chart and reached #40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.-Background:A version of "Friends" was recorded by one of the song's...

, which became Bette Midler's de facto theme song.

Klingman had solo albums out on Capitol and EMI records, as well as on his own label. Songs from his solo albums were covered by Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter

, Eric Clapton, Barry Manilow

Barry Manilow

, Bette Midler, Todd Rundgren and others. His song Dust in the Wind (not to be confused with the hit song of the same name by Kansas

Dust in the Wind

"Dust in the Wind" is a song by American progressive rock band Kansas, first released on their 1977 album Point of Know Return.The song peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of April 22, 1978, making it Kansas' only top ten Billboard Hot 100 charting single...

) was covered by Todd Rundgren on his album Something/Anything?
Something/Anything?
Something/Anything?, released in 1972, is Todd Rundgren's third solo album. It peaked at #29 on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold three years after its release, and remains the singer-songwriter's best-selling album...

and has been performed live in concert by Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...

.

Klingman became the executive producer and musical director of the Music From Free Creek
Music From Free Creek
Music From Free Creek is an album from a series of 1969 "super session" recordings by Free Creek, a group composed of a number of internationally renowned musical artists of the time, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Keith Emerson, Mitch Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt...

"supersession" project when Rundgren's agent Albert Grossman wanted too much money on his behalf, and Rundgren passed the job on to his friend. The sessions featured the participation of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...

, Keith Emerson

Keith Emerson

Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...

, Mitch Mitchell

Mitch Mitchell

John Ronald "Mitch" Mitchell was an English drummer, best known for his work in The Jimi Hendrix Experience.-Early life and the Jimi Hendrix Experience:...

, Harvey Mandel

Harvey Mandel

Harvey Mandel is an American guitarist known for his innovative approach to electric guitar playing. A professional at twenty, he played with Charlie Musselwhite, Canned Heat, The Rolling Stones, and John Mayall before starting a solo career...

and Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...

.

Klingman also performed live at many venues with various groups, playing for Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry

, Jimi Hendrix, Buzzy Linhart and then in the 1990s, with members of the Allman Brothers/Gov't Mule
Gov't Mule
Gov't Mule is a Southern rock jam band formed in 1994 as an Allman Brothers Band side project by Warren Haynes and Allen Woody.The band released their debut album Gov't Mule in 1995...

, and a summer tour with Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley

Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...

. He was the co-founder of the band The Peaceniks, along with Barry Gruber. Klingman also played in the Moogy/Woody Band with Allman Brothers alumni Allan Woody, and Warren Haynes. In 1979 he had a show on Manhattan Cable Channel J called Manhattan Alley.

A benefit concert was held in January 2011, to help pay Klingman's medical expenses, and saw the original Todd Rundgren's Utopia, featuring Ralph Schuckett, Kevin Ellman, John Siegler and Klingman, reunite on stage for the first time in over thirty years.

Klingman died of bladder cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

, in New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

in November 2011, at the age of 61.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.