Ron Nagle is an American ceramic sculptor, musician and songwriter.

History

Ron Nagle grew up in San Francisco’s Mission District

Mission District, San Francisco, California

The Mission District, also commonly called "The Mission", is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, USA, originally known as "the Mission lands" meaning the lands belonging to the sixth Alta California mission, Mission San Francisco de Asis...

. He graduated from San Francisco State College with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1961.

As An Artist

Between 1961 and 1978, he taught at the San Francisco Art Institute

San Francisco Art Institute

San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...

, the University of California at Berkeley, and the California College of Arts and Crafts before becoming a professor of art at Mills College

Mills College

Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...

. Nagle is considered part of the Abstract Expressionist Ceramics group that developed around Peter Voulkos

Peter Voulkos

Peter Voulkos popular name of Panagiotis Voulkos, was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his Abstract Expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic crafts and fine art....

. Ken Price

Kenneth Price

Kenneth Price is an American ceramic artist and printmaker who was born in Los Angeles, California in 1935. He studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, before receiving his BFA degree from the University of Southern California in 1956...

 and Michael Frimkess were major influences in his early career. Having seen an exhibition of paintings by Giorgio Morandi

Giorgio Morandi

Giorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting apparently simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bowls, flowers, and landscapes.-Biography:Giorgio Morandi was born in Bologna...

, Nagle decided to focus on making cups, and has worked almost exclusively on variations of cups, often pushing the form to the point of abstraction. Nagle lives and works in San Francisco, California.

As Musician and Songwriter; Nagle, Mathews and The Dūrocs

Nagle also was a musician and singer, performing in the band The Mystery Trend

The Mystery Trend

The Mystery Trend was a rock band from San Francisco, California. They were part of the early wave of bands in the "San Francisco Sound," with The Charlatans and The Great Society, and played with the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane early in their careers...

 in San Francisco from 1965 - 1968. In 1970, he issued a solo album on Warner Bros. Records called Bad Rice, most of which was produced by Jack Nitzsche

Jack Nitzsche

Bernard Alfred "Jack" Nitzsche was an arranger, producer, songwriter, and film score composer. He first came to prominence in the late 1950s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector, and went on to work with the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and others...

. Nagle plays keyboards and sings. He wrote or co-wrote all of the songs. Ry Cooder

Ry Cooder

Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...

 plays guitar on two of the tracks. The album received some favorable reviews and has become a cult favorite.

Nagle teamed up with songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist, Scott Mathews

Scott Mathews

.Scott Mathews is a multi-platinum selling music producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and entrepreneur.-Early Days:...

 in 1975 and wrote songs for Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

, The Tubes

The Tubes

The Tubes are a San Francisco-based rock band, whose 1975 debut album included the hit single, "White Punks on Dope". During its first fifteen years or so, the band's live performances combined quasi-pornography with wild satires of media, consumerism, and politics...

, Michelle Phillips

Michelle Phillips

Michelle Phillips is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She gained fame as a member of the 1960s group The Mamas & the Papas, and is the last surviving original member of the group.-Early life:...

 and many other major recording artists. This partnership turned into a band project called The Dūrocs (named after a breed of pig with extremely big ears and testicles). The Dūrocs were signed to Capitol Records in 1979 and released an album that received five stars in Rolling Stone Magazine and spawned some European hits. Nagle and Mathews broke into a Capitol Records sales meeting being held by the president of the company and disrupted the proceedings with midgets blasting fanfare trumpets and squealing pigs running lose through the legs of the executives. The Dūrocs were unceremoniously dropped from the label shortly after the incident.

Not wanting to be recording artists that toured, Nagle and Mathews built their own studio (The Pig Pen) and continued producing projects for others including John Hiatt

John Hiatt

John Hiatt is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New Wave, blues and country. Hiatt has been nominated for several Grammy Awards - although he has never won- and has been awarded a variety of other...

's breakthrough album, Riding With the King

Riding with the King

Riding with the King was singer-songwriter John Hiatt's sixth album, released in 1983. It was his second of three albums with Geffen Records. Ron Nagle and Scott Mathews produced side one of the album at The Pen in San Francisco, with Mathews himself playing all instruments and all the...

, Paul Kantner

Paul Kantner

Paul Lorin Kantner is an American rock musician, known for co-founding the psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane and its spin-off band Jefferson Starship.- Overview :...

's Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra

Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra (album)

-Personnel:*Paul Kantner – vocals, guitars, banjo, glass harmonica, synthesizers on "Circle of Fire", lead guitar on "Underground"*Grace Slick – vocals, piano on "The Mountain Song" and "The Sky Is No Limit"*Jack Casady – bass...

, and a host of others. In 1999, the Dūrocs contributed to the tribute album

Tribute album

A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...

 for Moby Grape

Moby Grape

Moby Grape is an American rock group from the 1960s, known for having all five members contribute to singing and songwriting and that collectively merged elements of folk music, blues, country, and jazz together with rock and psychedelic music...

 co-founder, Skip Spence

Skip Spence

Alexander Lee "Skip" Spence was a Canadian-born musician and singer-songwriter. He was co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. He released one solo album, 1969's Oar, and then largely withdrew from the music industry...

, who was terminally ill with cancer. The album, More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album

More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album

More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album is a 1999 tribute album completed shortly before and released shortly after the death of Moby Grape founding member Skip Spence. The album contains cover versions by various artists of Spence's music from his Oar album, released in 1969, presented in...

(Birdman

Birdman Records

Birdman Records is an independent record label based in South San Francisco, founded by former Warner Bros. Records A&R vice-president David Katznelson.-History:...

, 1999), contained cover version

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

s of the songs from Spence's only solo album, Oar

Oar (Skip Spence album)

Oar is a 1969 album by the late Skip Spence. It is Spence's only solo album, recorded over seven days in Nashville, on which Spence plays all of the instruments.- History :...

(Columbia

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

, 1969).

Nagle Today

While his work in ceramics remain Nagle's main career, he is still writing and recording music with Mathews. A new album entitled She Lied was initially scheduled for 2009 release, but has been rescheduled.

Ron Nagle is mentioned in Leo Kottke's "Tilt Billings and the Student Prince." Unfortunately for Tilt, it was at one of Ron's parties "where a drunk stumbled by and sat down where he laid it(the most incredible guitar, 'The Student Prince.') ...and he's never sounded quite the same since."

See also

• McTwigan, Michael, Ron Nagle, A Survey Exhibition 1958-1993, Oakland, CA, Mills College Art Gallery, 1993.