Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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BLUMBERG, David

(b 29 December 1942, Blythe CA; d 17 April 2010) Composer, arranger, producer. He grew up in Los Angeles, studying music in college and privately. He had numerous performances of his classical compositions for orchestra, string quartet, chamber groups, and brass/wind ensembles, but made his living in TV and film music and in the back room at record labels.
 He did everything from shorts, animated features, commercials and CD-Roms to feature films and gold records.

      He began his arranging career at Clarence Paul's Venture Records; then Hal Davis at Motown began using him, and over eleven years there were 14 gold albums, including their first three Jackson Five albums, where his first chart-topper was Michael Jackson's album Got To Be There '72, and another was Dinah Ross's single 'Love Hangover' '76. At Motown he worked with Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, the Miracles, Jermaine Jackson, Leon Ware, the Four Tops and Marvin Gaye, as well as working for other labels during the same period.
      He worked with Quincy Jones on Body Heat '74 including 'Everything Must Change', and did orchestrations on several of Jones's films. In 1979 he was the arranger on Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive', a no. 1 hit that became an anthem. Other artists he worked with included Nat and Cannonball Adderly, Wayne Shorter, Milt Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Melissa Manchester, Tim Buckley, Nils Lofgrin, Neil Young, Spirit, Bobby Womack, Patti LaBelle, James Brown, Johnny Mathis, Eric Clapton, Natalie Cole, Gene Page, Joe Sample, Frankie Valli, David Byrne, Cameo, Peabo Bryson, Johnny Nash, Anita Baker, Tina Turner, Patti Austin, Jerry Butler, Syreeta, Jimmy Smith, Andy Williams, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dakota Staton, and many others.
      In film, Blumberg did orchestrations or arranging for Herbie Hancock on four films, including Round Midnight, which won an Oscar for its music in 1987. He also worked on films with Elmer Bernstein, Bob Alcivar, Neil Young, Fred Karlin, and Frank Stalone.

      In more recent years he arranged for David Benoit including American Landscape, three albums with Maxwell for Sony including This Woman's Work (soul singer-songwriter Gerald Maxwell Rivera, b 23 May 1973), Ellis Hall's Straight Ahead, orchestration for Robbie Buchanan for Barbra Streisand's Movie album, and orchestration for Jorge Calandrelli for the Norwegian singer Sissel's self-titled album, as well as three tracks on Ray Charles's duets album Genius Loves Company, and an album for Stevie Wonder. He had been working as an arranger on the American Idol TV show for four years.
      After studying for many years with Spud Murphy, he was teaching Murphy's Equal Interval System to private students as a composition tool.