Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

BEAVER & KRAUSE

Bernie Krause (b 8 December 1938, Detroit) and Paul Beaver (b 1926, Ohio; d 16 January 1975) were pioneers of electronic pop. Krause had sung with the Weavers and done production work for Motown; Beaver was a jazz musician; they bought a Moog synthesizer and tried without success to convince Hollywood studios of its usefulness, then set up a booth at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. 'Various people skulked in,' said Krause, 'and I don't know whether they were all stoned but we managed to sell a dozen synthesizers. The Monkees, Frank Zappa, the Byrds all bought. The problem was people didn't know how to operate the damn things.' They found themselves very busy helping the Beach Boys, Doors, Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, George Harrison and others, and made their own albums: Ragnarok Electric Funk '69 on Limelight; In A Wild Sanctuary, Gandharva and All Good Men '70-2 on WB and Guide To Electronic Music '75 on Nonesuch. Gandharva was their most memorable album, named after the celestial musician in Hindu mythology; it had Mike Bloomfield and Ronnie Montrose on guitars on side one, as well as various noodlings, and 'Grace Cathedral' on side two, with Krause on Moog, Beaver on the cathedral organ, Bud Shank and Gerry Mulligan on saxophones. This could be blamed for starting new age music, but that would be like blaming Black Sabbath on Led Zeppelin. Krause subsequently switched to bio-acoustics, releasing over 50 albums of fish, mammals and insects doing their thing; he made the news when he lured a whale called Humphrey out of the Sacramento River back into the ocean. (Quotes from John Bungey in Mojo.)