WEBVTT - Introducing The Last Archive 0:00:15.476 --> 0:00:22.476 Pushkin. Hey everyone, we're taking the week off here at 0:00:22.516 --> 0:00:25.956 Broken Record. But while we're away, I wanted to introduce 0:00:25.996 --> 0:00:28.036 you to a show from a friend of mine called 0:00:28.196 --> 0:00:31.756 The Last Archive. The episode from that show that I'm 0:00:31.796 --> 0:00:35.156 playing for you today is an audio biography of one 0:00:35.236 --> 0:00:38.676 of the most famous composers of the twentieth century who 0:00:38.756 --> 0:00:43.196 most people have never heard of, Raymond Scott. Whether you 0:00:43.236 --> 0:00:46.156 know him or not, you know his music. He wrote 0:00:46.196 --> 0:00:47.996 tons of hits in the thirties. A lot of them 0:00:48.036 --> 0:00:51.356 were used in the Looney Tunes cartoons in some really 0:00:51.636 --> 0:00:55.156 iconic moments. But if you're not a cartoon of fiicionado, 0:00:55.276 --> 0:00:57.756 you probably know him from being sampled by the likes 0:00:57.796 --> 0:01:02.036 of Lizzo, j Dilla, Gorillas and more. But what even 0:01:02.076 --> 0:01:05.036 most fans of Scott don't realize is he wasn't just 0:01:05.196 --> 0:01:08.676 a songwriter. He was also an inventor, and later in 0:01:08.716 --> 0:01:12.236 his life he was hired by Motown Records. The Motown 0:01:12.276 --> 0:01:15.436 Records run by Barry Gordy to create a machine that 0:01:15.476 --> 0:01:19.316 could help people write songs. He called it the Electronium. 0:01:20.076 --> 0:01:22.396 It's just one of the crazy histories uncovered in this 0:01:22.436 --> 0:01:25.476 season of The Last Archive. You can check out all 0:01:25.516 --> 0:01:28.356 the other episodes from season four. Now there's something for 0:01:28.436 --> 0:01:32.876 everyone's stuff on time travel, invasive species, panics, freelance wire 0:01:32.956 --> 0:01:39.156 tappers turned evangelists, and secret science fiction family histories. I'll 0:01:39.236 --> 0:01:41.796 let you figure that one out for yourself. But this 0:01:41.916 --> 0:01:44.796 episode is the one that really got me, so I 0:01:44.836 --> 0:01:47.396 want to play it for you here today. Here's player 0:01:47.436 --> 0:01:50.756 piano from season four of The Last Archive. 0:01:56.796 --> 0:01:59.716 The Last Archive, A History of Truth. 0:02:03.316 --> 0:02:06.076 About thirty years ago, a man named Irwin choose It 0:02:06.156 --> 0:02:09.316 encountered one of the strangest machines almost nobody had ever 0:02:09.356 --> 0:02:09.676 heard of. 0:02:10.676 --> 0:02:13.636 I was forty, I was broke. It was kind of 0:02:13.636 --> 0:02:14.716 a professional failure. 0:02:15.676 --> 0:02:18.276 Choose It was a DJ for a small community radio 0:02:18.316 --> 0:02:21.156 station in New Jersey. A friend of his had put 0:02:21.236 --> 0:02:24.396 him on to a musician named Raymond Scott, one of 0:02:24.476 --> 0:02:27.636 the most famous musicians of the early twentieth century who 0:02:27.636 --> 0:02:30.156 had somehow been completely lost to history. 0:02:30.636 --> 0:02:33.716 These were records that were twenty five cents of pop 0:02:33.756 --> 0:02:35.596 and used record stores back then. 0:02:35.596 --> 0:02:37.196 And you didn't even They didn't even have him in 0:02:37.196 --> 0:02:39.196 a bin. They had him under the bins. 0:02:39.796 --> 0:02:42.596 Joos It loved Scott's music, and he began to get 0:02:42.676 --> 0:02:45.516 drawn into the mystery of it all? Who was this guy? 0:02:46.076 --> 0:02:49.396 He was obsessed, but his research kept dead ending. 0:02:50.196 --> 0:02:52.996 I went to a library and went looking through music 0:02:53.076 --> 0:02:56.156 history books, and there's almost no mention of Raymond Scott. 0:02:56.196 --> 0:02:58.196 He wasn't in the jazz books, he wasn't in the 0:02:58.196 --> 0:03:01.676 classical books, he wasn't in the pop books. I was 0:03:01.716 --> 0:03:03.476 kind of mystify. He was kind of a mystery man. 0:03:05.516 --> 0:03:08.556 He was stuck until his friend found Scott in a 0:03:08.596 --> 0:03:12.956 phone book. He was still alive, living in California, Jews. 0:03:12.996 --> 0:03:14.836 It made a phone call and then he got on 0:03:14.876 --> 0:03:18.836 a plane and flew across the country. By then, Scott 0:03:18.876 --> 0:03:21.556 was in his eighties. He'd had a few strokes and 0:03:21.596 --> 0:03:24.316 he couldn't speak. He would rest in the back of 0:03:24.356 --> 0:03:27.316 a dingy old ranch house with the heat turned all 0:03:27.356 --> 0:03:29.876 the way up and a humidifier on full blast, so 0:03:29.916 --> 0:03:32.436 there was a kind of heavy fog all around. His 0:03:32.476 --> 0:03:34.756 wife was taking care of him, but she also kept 0:03:34.756 --> 0:03:37.116 a lot of stray animals. There was a dog with 0:03:37.196 --> 0:03:40.956 paralyzed hind legs dragging itself around, and a lifetime's worth 0:03:40.996 --> 0:03:42.716 of stuff piled everywhere. 0:03:43.436 --> 0:03:46.636 There were old rusted tape decks, There were wires, There 0:03:46.636 --> 0:03:50.236 were reels of tape. There were seventy eight oar PM discs, 0:03:50.276 --> 0:03:53.196 many of them broken, some of them on shelves old 0:03:53.636 --> 0:04:01.636 magazines of electronic industry publications, parts catalogs, some of them 0:04:01.716 --> 0:04:03.836 dating back to the nineteen forties and fifties. 0:04:04.956 --> 0:04:08.556 I should say this story spooky as it is, it's 0:04:08.636 --> 0:04:11.796 kind of my I'm been Thatt of Haffrey, and I've 0:04:11.796 --> 0:04:14.356 produced this podcast for the last few years, and I'm 0:04:14.356 --> 0:04:17.396 hosting a season of six episodes now, which more on 0:04:17.476 --> 0:04:21.196 that later. All my life, I've written about history and 0:04:21.316 --> 0:04:25.116 made music. To find a secret, hidden archive full of 0:04:25.196 --> 0:04:29.676 strange musical electronics. I can imagine almost nothing better to 0:04:29.796 --> 0:04:33.796 know through artifacts what someone else once knew, something lost 0:04:33.956 --> 0:04:37.196 because the records and papers and magazines that choose had 0:04:37.196 --> 0:04:42.076 found told a story. Scott had been one of the 0:04:42.076 --> 0:04:45.076 most famous musicians of the twentieth century. He'd been on 0:04:45.156 --> 0:04:48.156 TV every week for a long time, in all the 0:04:48.196 --> 0:04:52.676 big magazines and films with the movie stars, but almost 0:04:52.716 --> 0:04:54.636 nobody remembered him now and. 0:04:54.556 --> 0:05:00.316 I saw Raymond's entire life's work spread out between a 0:05:00.396 --> 0:05:07.116 leaky guest shed, a garage, some outbuildings on the property 0:05:07.116 --> 0:05:08.516 in Van NY's. 0:05:09.116 --> 0:05:12.876 And somebody so famous be so forgotten. But something else 0:05:12.916 --> 0:05:15.956 didn't make sense either. There are all these old machines 0:05:15.956 --> 0:05:18.836 and tools strewn about with the rusty edges, and in 0:05:18.876 --> 0:05:22.796 the corner of the guest shed covered in dust, choose 0:05:22.836 --> 0:05:26.676 It saw a huge hunk of metal encased in wood, a. 0:05:26.716 --> 0:05:30.756 Large, dusty piece of furniture, a bit like a wooden console. 0:05:31.236 --> 0:05:34.236 But it wasn't furniture. It was a heavy machine with 0:05:34.316 --> 0:05:37.836 wires spilling out, hundreds of switches on a black metal front, 0:05:38.036 --> 0:05:41.436 and wood paneling all around. It looked like the cockpit 0:05:41.476 --> 0:05:44.196 of an airplane, except that some of the switches and 0:05:44.196 --> 0:05:47.196 buttons said things like record and power, and others said 0:05:47.196 --> 0:05:48.436 things like DOA. 0:05:48.796 --> 0:05:49.796 I didn't know what it was. 0:05:51.556 --> 0:05:54.676 Later on, someone helping to sort through Scott's files found 0:05:54.676 --> 0:05:58.356 a contract. It was between Raymond Scott and Motown Records, 0:05:58.716 --> 0:06:03.316 and it detailed a binding, confidential agreement to build that machine. 0:06:03.356 --> 0:06:06.916 That Choose. It was staring at a machine that was 0:06:06.996 --> 0:06:12.556 meant to write songs, the Electronium Choose. It had come 0:06:12.556 --> 0:06:15.316 out to California because of these twenty five cent records 0:06:15.356 --> 0:06:18.876 he'd gotten obsessed with. It was honestly pretty random, but 0:06:19.036 --> 0:06:22.076 somehow he'd stumbled on one of the strangest stories in 0:06:22.116 --> 0:06:23.956 the history of technology. 0:06:24.156 --> 0:06:24.996 How did it work? 0:06:25.836 --> 0:06:29.116 That's the voice of Brian Keihu, one time keyboardist for 0:06:29.116 --> 0:06:33.156 The Who, Fiona Apple, producer, Beatles historian, and one of 0:06:33.156 --> 0:06:35.556 the people for whom this machine has become now a 0:06:35.636 --> 0:06:39.956 kind of holy grail because it makes no sense. Raymond 0:06:39.996 --> 0:06:43.036 Scott began building this thing in the nineteen fifties, and 0:06:43.076 --> 0:06:46.516 it was a kind of mechanical early artificial intelligence that 0:06:46.676 --> 0:06:50.836 actually worked. Were freaked out about chat GPT. Now this 0:06:50.916 --> 0:06:53.716 thing was built in secret at a major studio in 0:06:53.716 --> 0:06:57.276 the nineteen seventies. Michael Jackson used to watch it work, 0:06:57.876 --> 0:06:59.836 and nobody now can figure out how to get it 0:06:59.876 --> 0:07:03.676 to work again. In the years between choose it stumbling 0:07:03.796 --> 0:07:06.716 upon the electronium in that Rundown ranch house and today 0:07:07.196 --> 0:07:09.476 a lot of people have gotten involved in preserving the 0:07:09.516 --> 0:07:11.836 machine or bringing it back to life in some fashion. 0:07:12.476 --> 0:07:16.076 Brian Keyhu, but also Mark Mothersbaugh, the lead singer of 0:07:16.116 --> 0:07:19.596 Devo gat Ye the pop star, and teams of engineers 0:07:19.596 --> 0:07:23.316 and programmers and musicians from all around the world. Because 0:07:23.316 --> 0:07:25.836 it turns out that the man behind it knew how 0:07:25.876 --> 0:07:28.876 to make music like no one else and they want 0:07:28.876 --> 0:07:34.276 to hear it again. Welcome to season four of The 0:07:34.356 --> 0:07:37.316 Last Archive, the show about how we know what we know, 0:07:37.596 --> 0:07:39.756 how we used to know things, and why it seems 0:07:39.796 --> 0:07:43.956 sometimes lately is if we don't know anything at all. 0:07:44.156 --> 0:07:48.276 This episode is about that machine and its inventor, Raymond Scott, 0:07:49.236 --> 0:07:51.756 not just because Scott is the most famous composer of 0:07:51.796 --> 0:07:54.076 the twentieth century that most people have never heard of, 0:07:54.996 --> 0:07:56.916 but because I think his life traces one of the 0:07:56.916 --> 0:08:00.716 biggest stories about truth in our world today, the attempt 0:08:00.716 --> 0:08:09.276 to define the difference between man and machine. 0:08:13.036 --> 0:08:15.676 Remarks before Harry sits down. He is now setting down. 0:08:16.076 --> 0:08:18.476 There's another reason I want to spend some time with Scott. 0:08:19.716 --> 0:08:21.636 He is making himself comfortable. 0:08:22.036 --> 0:08:25.636 He recorded his whole life and again there he goes, 0:08:25.876 --> 0:08:38.796 which made for some fun research. Raymond Scott was born 0:08:38.796 --> 0:08:41.876 in Brooklyn in nineteen oh eight. His parents named him 0:08:41.916 --> 0:08:45.356 Harry Warno. His father had sailed from Russia to New 0:08:45.436 --> 0:08:49.396 York two years earlier on a ship called America. Sometime 0:08:49.436 --> 0:08:52.036 after Scott was born, his parents bought a music store 0:08:52.036 --> 0:08:55.996 in Brooklyn. In Brownsville, a small Jewish neighborhood. They lived 0:08:55.996 --> 0:08:59.076 in the two floor apartment above their shop, surrounded by 0:08:59.156 --> 0:09:03.756 music and sound machines. Scott especially loved the phone. Sometimes 0:09:03.836 --> 0:09:16.516 he'd make prank calls. Scott was growing up in an 0:09:16.556 --> 0:09:19.596 in between time, a mismatch of the world we know now, 0:09:19.796 --> 0:09:22.836 in the world of the nineteenth century. The electrified subway 0:09:22.916 --> 0:09:25.316 was brand new then. The year Scott was born, it 0:09:25.316 --> 0:09:27.836 had made its way out to Brooklyn, but the gas 0:09:27.876 --> 0:09:30.556 street lamps in Brownsville were still lit every night by 0:09:30.556 --> 0:09:33.756 a lamplighter. There were chickens in the street, the smell 0:09:33.796 --> 0:09:36.956 of the sea out over Canarsi, candy shops and tenements, 0:09:37.196 --> 0:09:39.996 hot spiced corn beef in the delis, and briny half 0:09:40.036 --> 0:09:43.356 sour pickles in the Jewish market, farms in Salt Water. 0:09:44.236 --> 0:09:46.716 It felt like the old country. It felt like the 0:09:46.836 --> 0:09:47.476 ends of the earth. 0:09:50.716 --> 0:09:53.676 It was a lack a little village. It was a neighborhood. 0:09:54.276 --> 0:09:57.036 Pearls Imny Winters one of the girls from the neighborhood. 0:09:57.596 --> 0:10:00.596 Later on she and Scott got married, and she's all 0:10:00.636 --> 0:10:04.356 over Scott's recordings. Jusit, who never got over his obsession 0:10:04.356 --> 0:10:07.156 with Raymond Scott interviewed her with a colleague just a 0:10:07.196 --> 0:10:08.196 little before she died. 0:10:08.596 --> 0:10:11.436 They used go into the music store, you know, to 0:10:11.476 --> 0:10:12.116 buy music. 0:10:12.156 --> 0:10:16.476 When I was a kid, that music shop is where 0:10:16.516 --> 0:10:19.676 I think the dream of the songwriting machine began. It 0:10:19.756 --> 0:10:22.356 was a snapshot of everything that was changing in music 0:10:22.396 --> 0:10:25.596 in the early nineteen hundreds. For centuries, if you wanted 0:10:25.596 --> 0:10:27.956 to hear music in your house, someone in your family 0:10:28.036 --> 0:10:30.996 needed to know how to play. For a while, buying 0:10:30.996 --> 0:10:35.196 a song meant buying sheet music bound together in little pamphlets. 0:10:35.556 --> 0:10:38.916 But later in the nineteenth century, technologies that could capture 0:10:38.996 --> 0:10:41.676 and reproduce sound were invented, and by the start of 0:10:41.716 --> 0:10:45.996 the twentieth century, mechanical music was taking off. Suddenly, you 0:10:46.036 --> 0:10:47.996 didn't need to know somebody who could play to listen 0:10:47.996 --> 0:10:51.596 to music. You could listen on records, wax cylinders, the radio. 0:10:52.116 --> 0:10:54.756 Scott was obsessed with these machines and the music that 0:10:54.796 --> 0:10:58.036 came out of them. He even started an amateur home 0:10:58.116 --> 0:11:01.276 radio station so he could make broadcasts from his bedroom 0:11:01.636 --> 0:11:03.476 to the living room. 0:11:03.836 --> 0:11:07.356 You mean to tell me that's recording now, Oh my god, 0:11:07.436 --> 0:11:08.036 lot to fuck that. 0:11:09.196 --> 0:11:11.436 Even as a kid he was always working on something. 0:11:11.876 --> 0:11:15.116 He dangle microphones out the window to record conversations on 0:11:15.156 --> 0:11:18.236 the street or the neighbor practicing piano. He would hang 0:11:18.276 --> 0:11:21.276 around the music shop with his dad, tinkering and watching 0:11:21.436 --> 0:11:24.516 not just how music was made, but how it was sold, 0:11:24.716 --> 0:11:28.156 what sold, and how it got reproduced. And there was 0:11:28.156 --> 0:11:32.396 one machine in particular that he became fascinated by. 0:11:33.276 --> 0:11:35.636 He told me that he taught himself to play the 0:11:35.676 --> 0:11:39.396 piano with the player piano, and I guess that's how 0:11:39.476 --> 0:11:41.356 he first started. 0:11:42.356 --> 0:11:46.036 The player piano. You've probably seen one before in a 0:11:46.076 --> 0:11:49.356 saloon in an old Western, you know, when someone gets shot, 0:11:49.716 --> 0:11:53.076 falls on the piano and it starts playing itself. That's 0:11:53.116 --> 0:11:55.996 the player piano, a piano that plays as if there 0:11:55.996 --> 0:11:58.756 were a ghost of the keyboard. Songs were sold as 0:11:58.836 --> 0:12:01.716 scrolls of paper with little holes punched out for each note, 0:12:01.836 --> 0:12:05.396 a set of mechanical instructions for the piano. The result 0:12:05.676 --> 0:12:08.836 you could hear nearly any song in your home, even 0:12:08.876 --> 0:12:10.916 if you you had no idea how to play it yourself. 0:12:11.556 --> 0:12:14.196 Scott loved the piano in the shop. He'd take a 0:12:14.316 --> 0:12:18.036 role and probably play it as slowly as possible, fitting 0:12:18.076 --> 0:12:20.756 his little fingers to the keys as they press themselves down, 0:12:21.516 --> 0:12:26.836 learning by machine. Most people these days think of the 0:12:26.836 --> 0:12:30.116 player piano as a novelty or a gimmick, but I 0:12:30.156 --> 0:12:32.476 want to spend a minute with it here because it's 0:12:32.476 --> 0:12:35.276 a big part not just of music history, but of 0:12:35.316 --> 0:12:39.476 automation history. We tend to think of automation as man 0:12:39.596 --> 0:12:42.996 versus robot, factory lines and coal mines, but the player 0:12:42.996 --> 0:12:45.556 piano was a kind of robot too, one we often 0:12:45.596 --> 0:12:50.956 forget about, but in early, massively influential, one that foreshadowed 0:12:51.076 --> 0:12:55.876 so much of what was to come. When Scott was 0:12:55.876 --> 0:12:58.076 a kid, people thought the player piano would be the 0:12:58.116 --> 0:13:01.556 future of music. There were hundreds of thousands of them 0:13:01.636 --> 0:13:06.396 sold each year in millions of song roles. By nineteen nineteen, 0:13:06.596 --> 0:13:09.396 when Scott was eleven, there were more player pianos being 0:13:09.436 --> 0:13:14.396 sold than regular pianos. It wasn't just sales, though. Copyright 0:13:14.436 --> 0:13:16.556 laws in the United States were built around the player 0:13:16.556 --> 0:13:19.636 piano and the record player an equal part. You can 0:13:19.716 --> 0:13:23.116 draw a straight line from player piano roles to punch 0:13:23.196 --> 0:13:27.116 cards and the first computer programs, and people made all 0:13:27.196 --> 0:13:30.116 kinds of player pianos. What you're listening to now is 0:13:30.156 --> 0:13:32.676 a special kind of player piano role that could capture 0:13:32.716 --> 0:13:35.996 all the subtleties of a human performance. This one was 0:13:36.036 --> 0:13:39.316 recorded by the composer w C and reproduced decades after 0:13:39.356 --> 0:13:43.716 his death. By machine. That's what Scott was learning in 0:13:43.756 --> 0:13:47.076 his family's music shop, role by role, not just to 0:13:47.156 --> 0:13:49.876 play like a machine, but to wonder at all the 0:13:49.956 --> 0:13:58.356 magical things machines suddenly could do. When I was trying 0:13:58.356 --> 0:14:00.556 to understand how Scott grew up, I read up on 0:14:00.636 --> 0:14:04.196 his neighborhood, and in one memoir I found a particular 0:14:04.236 --> 0:14:07.556 detail that snapped it all into view. The drug store 0:14:07.636 --> 0:14:09.716 just down the street from Scott had a poster in 0:14:09.756 --> 0:14:13.276 the window. It was titled the Human Factory, and it 0:14:13.396 --> 0:14:15.236 imagined a person as if they were a kind of 0:14:15.356 --> 0:14:20.076 complex machine, with all these little engineers inside. Scott must 0:14:20.116 --> 0:14:23.436 have passed that poster plenty of times. He had dreams 0:14:23.476 --> 0:14:26.436 of becoming like a machine himself, attaching motors to his 0:14:26.516 --> 0:14:28.956 hands so he could play the piano faster, the kind 0:14:28.996 --> 0:14:33.276 of way only a player piano could. Everywhere that line 0:14:33.316 --> 0:14:38.676 between man and machine was beginning to blur, but there 0:14:38.716 --> 0:14:42.476 was one place where the difference was unmistakable. A machine 0:14:42.836 --> 0:14:47.316 never made mistakes. The song sounded the same every single time, 0:14:47.796 --> 0:14:49.796 and to Scott, that was the ideal. 0:14:50.676 --> 0:14:54.916 The struggle between being a musician and an engineer was 0:14:55.476 --> 0:15:01.116 very real for him. He just loved equipment. Mock was 0:15:01.156 --> 0:15:04.636 the one insisted that he go to Julia. I don't 0:15:04.636 --> 0:15:05.756 think he wanted to. 0:15:06.276 --> 0:15:10.916 That choice music or engineer. It set the chorus for 0:15:10.996 --> 0:15:15.276 Scott's entire life because Scott never could give up on engineering. 0:15:15.636 --> 0:15:18.076 But his brother, who was a rising star in music, 0:15:18.396 --> 0:15:20.996 saw that he had a gift for composing that almost 0:15:20.996 --> 0:15:23.756 no one else did. He got Scott a job as 0:15:23.796 --> 0:15:27.276 the pianist for the CBS Radio Orchestra, and immediately Scott 0:15:27.316 --> 0:15:30.196 began to get noticed. He was anxious that people would 0:15:30.196 --> 0:15:32.116 think he only had the job because of his brother, 0:15:32.556 --> 0:15:35.796 so Harry Warno flipped through the phone book until he 0:15:35.836 --> 0:15:39.036 found a name he liked, Raymond Scott, a name he 0:15:39.076 --> 0:15:42.036 also chose because it sounded less Jewish and he was 0:15:42.076 --> 0:15:45.796 always anxious about that. He played his piano, he wrote 0:15:45.836 --> 0:15:49.236 his songs, and he kept his engineering passion more as 0:15:49.236 --> 0:15:53.716 a hobby. CBS was a good situation except for one thing. 0:15:54.596 --> 0:15:57.876 He was always playing standards songs that people knew they 0:15:58.036 --> 0:16:00.076 liked and had heard a million times already. 0:16:00.636 --> 0:16:03.436 He said that he wanted to write music that people 0:16:03.436 --> 0:16:06.596 would like the first time they heard it. He asked 0:16:06.596 --> 0:16:09.076 his brother Mark if he could put together a bit. 0:16:09.716 --> 0:16:11.756 He wanted to put together a six piece band with 0:16:11.876 --> 0:16:12.716 himself in it. 0:16:15.916 --> 0:16:19.476 Mark said yes. Scott started hunting for five musicians who 0:16:19.476 --> 0:16:22.516 could do exactly what he wanted. What he wanted was 0:16:22.636 --> 0:16:25.156 music with a spark that could form a connection with 0:16:25.196 --> 0:16:28.196 a listener immediately out of nowhere. He had a couple 0:16:28.316 --> 0:16:31.716 songs ready, so he found his guys, rehearsed, and then 0:16:31.716 --> 0:16:35.436 he got an audience together in CBS's Studio B. They 0:16:35.436 --> 0:16:38.756 dimmed the lights all the way and they began to play. 0:16:40.996 --> 0:16:42.836 A journalist wrote about it a year later. 0:16:43.836 --> 0:16:47.036 Nobody who attended that premiere eighteen months ago was likely 0:16:47.116 --> 0:16:49.796 to forget it. Out of the darkness, there came a 0:16:49.876 --> 0:16:55.076 thin wailing note, barely masking a slow, suggestive thumping on 0:16:55.156 --> 0:16:57.876 the drums. When it was over, the audience rose to 0:16:57.916 --> 0:16:59.076 its feet and cheered. 0:16:59.556 --> 0:17:02.836 Fan Mail poured in, Who was this man's Scott? 0:17:02.996 --> 0:17:06.516 Where was he from? Where had he been all these years? 0:17:08.076 --> 0:17:09.236 They created. 0:17:11.396 --> 0:17:16.156 Generated such an amazing listener reaction that they immediately got 0:17:16.476 --> 0:17:20.716 a recording contract with the Master Label, which was owned 0:17:20.756 --> 0:17:24.236 by Irving Mills, who was Duke Ellington's manager. 0:17:25.036 --> 0:17:27.556 The response was unprecedented and. 0:17:27.556 --> 0:17:29.436 Admitted I'm going to take you right on in, but 0:17:29.476 --> 0:17:31.356 we're going to have a very entertaining visit with one 0:17:31.396 --> 0:17:31.836 of the years. 0:17:31.836 --> 0:17:33.916 Them fational music, good, don't they get in there. 0:17:34.596 --> 0:17:37.876 Scott was trying to sell a perfect musical package. He 0:17:37.916 --> 0:17:40.396 said he went out to clubs to track which tempos 0:17:40.396 --> 0:17:42.916 made people get up and dance. He had a whole 0:17:42.916 --> 0:17:45.796 thing about names. He called his band of six people 0:17:45.876 --> 0:17:49.836 a quintet, not a sextet. He even renamed his saxophone player. 0:17:50.236 --> 0:17:51.636 And he is the youngest of all group. 0:17:51.876 --> 0:17:54.516 His name was originally Dave Harris, but now it's Eric 0:17:54.556 --> 0:17:55.796 Hoek Eric Koek. 0:17:55.876 --> 0:17:56.956 Then it's an interesting name. 0:17:57.196 --> 0:17:58.796 Yeah, that's Raymond's idea of a name. 0:17:59.756 --> 0:18:01.996 He wouldn't write his music down. He'd just play it 0:18:02.036 --> 0:18:04.116 at the piano for his quintet and then have them 0:18:04.116 --> 0:18:05.996 play their parts back till they could do it right 0:18:06.556 --> 0:18:07.436 note for note. 0:18:07.636 --> 0:18:10.036 And they called the pillow that marvel field of memories. 0:18:10.116 --> 0:18:12.396 They never to get a composition Wednesday've. 0:18:11.996 --> 0:18:14.996 Done it once they had it down, It rarely changed 0:18:15.316 --> 0:18:17.996 and that was just how Scott wanted it. If he 0:18:18.036 --> 0:18:20.516 could have replaced each of his musicians' minds with a 0:18:20.556 --> 0:18:22.796 scroll of music, he probably would have. 0:18:23.396 --> 0:18:27.596 He didn't know how to handle human relationships too well. 0:18:27.996 --> 0:18:32.596 They called him a bully, they called him something, he's bastard. 0:18:32.956 --> 0:18:35.436 They called him all kinds of names because he was 0:18:35.636 --> 0:18:38.796 trying to make them play better. One of his musicians 0:18:38.916 --> 0:18:42.876 once said, nobody worked with Raymond. Everybody worked under Raymond. 0:18:42.956 --> 0:18:45.596 Johnny Williams, the drummer, said we were we We hated 0:18:45.636 --> 0:18:47.396 every minute of it because we were being told what 0:18:47.516 --> 0:18:49.876 to play. He said, at the same time that we 0:18:49.916 --> 0:18:52.396 hated it, we were making more money than anybody in town. 0:18:53.276 --> 0:18:56.156 The music was like jazz, but without the improvisation or 0:18:56.196 --> 0:19:00.556 the looseness. Tightly managed the price of mechanical perfection. 0:19:01.076 --> 0:19:06.596 Well, he rehearsed, I want to cut that price, and 0:19:06.636 --> 0:19:08.756 he rehearsed keep on again. 0:19:08.916 --> 0:19:12.076 Thee from getting accocated by saying, temple to do it 0:19:12.116 --> 0:19:13.236 that way without thinking about it. 0:19:13.196 --> 0:19:16.076 And he was driving his musicians crazy because they would say, 0:19:16.316 --> 0:19:18.356 nobody needs to rehearse this much. 0:19:21.476 --> 0:19:25.236 Scott held his musicians to an impossible standard. He wanted 0:19:25.236 --> 0:19:28.556 them to play like machines, but it's hard to argue 0:19:28.556 --> 0:19:33.316 with the results. His rise was stratospheric. Stravinsky, Cab Calloway 0:19:33.396 --> 0:19:36.636 Duke Ellington. They were all Raymond Scott fans. In the 0:19:36.716 --> 0:19:39.956 nineteen forties he had his own radio show, The Raymond 0:19:39.956 --> 0:19:43.516 Scott Show. He became the music director of CBS Radio, 0:19:44.036 --> 0:19:47.916 where he led a racially integrated radio orchestra. This, I 0:19:47.916 --> 0:19:51.476 think not because he was especially progressive, but because all 0:19:51.476 --> 0:19:52.956 he cared about was the music. 0:19:53.796 --> 0:19:56.116 This is in so many ways explains why he was 0:19:56.156 --> 0:19:57.956 working with machines late in life. 0:19:58.236 --> 0:20:00.716 Oh yeah, he was his best friend. 0:20:01.596 --> 0:20:05.076 The machines were his best friends. To me, when I 0:20:05.116 --> 0:20:07.836 heard this story, I kept thinking about Scott as a 0:20:07.916 --> 0:20:11.476 kid at the player piano. When that machine was invented, 0:20:11.716 --> 0:20:15.236 it scared people. Two years before Raymond Scott was born, 0:20:15.516 --> 0:20:19.036 John Phillips Sussa, the famous composer, wrote an essay called 0:20:19.276 --> 0:20:22.716 the Menace of Mechanical Music. The whole course of music 0:20:22.796 --> 0:20:25.716 has been the expression of soul, states he wrote. And 0:20:25.756 --> 0:20:28.396 now in this twentieth century come these talking and playing 0:20:28.436 --> 0:20:34.116 machines to reduce the expression to a mathematical system of megaphones, wheels, cogs, discs, 0:20:34.156 --> 0:20:38.356 cylinders in all manner of revolving things. The player piano 0:20:38.476 --> 0:20:41.756 became a dark symbol of modern life. When Kurt Vonnegut 0:20:41.796 --> 0:20:44.796 wrote his first novel about a dystopian America run by 0:20:44.836 --> 0:20:48.236 engineers in their automatic machinery. He called it Player Piano. 0:20:50.556 --> 0:20:53.396 By the time Raymond Scott was getting famous, those fears 0:20:53.396 --> 0:20:57.516 about mechanical music were everywhere, same story. 0:20:57.556 --> 0:21:04.476 Everywhere, new machines, high speed production. Few are jobs, and 0:21:04.636 --> 0:21:06.836 ten men for every job it can be had. 0:21:07.556 --> 0:21:12.436 Scott was fighting a classic back mechanical perfection against human error. 0:21:12.956 --> 0:21:16.836 What was at stake were free will agency the human soul. 0:21:17.796 --> 0:21:20.396 That conflict was one of the main rhythms of twentieth 0:21:20.436 --> 0:21:23.956 century history, and Scott was like a leading melody and 0:21:24.036 --> 0:21:29.316 then he hit a wrong note that story. After the 0:21:29.356 --> 0:21:37.076 break in the nineteen forties, Raymond Scott was properly famous. 0:21:37.676 --> 0:21:39.596 He and his wife Pearl, packed up their kids at 0:21:39.596 --> 0:21:42.436 his equipment and moved to a big house out in Tuckaho, 0:21:42.556 --> 0:21:42.956 New York. 0:21:43.436 --> 0:21:46.196 He had a mindful apartment and said he fully moved 0:21:46.236 --> 0:21:50.156 from there. Of course, he was a ham radio operator. 0:21:50.876 --> 0:21:53.076 He wanted to be where he'd have good reception. 0:21:53.876 --> 0:21:56.396 I kind of love that he finally had enough money 0:21:56.396 --> 0:21:58.516 to buy a big house. But actually the only reason 0:21:58.516 --> 0:22:00.316 he was moving out of the city was so that 0:22:00.356 --> 0:22:03.876 he could have better ham radio reception. He was tinkering 0:22:03.916 --> 0:22:07.636 with his machines again, not just microphones in high fi equipment, 0:22:07.756 --> 0:22:11.116 but new sorts of instruments. The problem was electronics was 0:22:11.156 --> 0:22:13.636 not a casual hobby. In the late nineteen thirties and 0:22:13.676 --> 0:22:14.876 early forties. 0:22:15.116 --> 0:22:17.836 He saw an electronic parts catalog and he wanted to 0:22:17.956 --> 0:22:19.636 order every part in the catalog. 0:22:20.396 --> 0:22:24.036 Stan Warno is Raymond Scott and Pearl's Imni Winter's son. 0:22:24.676 --> 0:22:28.316 He made a great documentary about his father called Deconstructing Dad. 0:22:28.716 --> 0:22:30.316 I visited him last winter. 0:22:30.476 --> 0:22:32.036 And he thought, the only way he's going to make 0:22:32.116 --> 0:22:34.996 enough money to do that is to form a big band. 0:22:35.356 --> 0:22:37.036 And so he did form a big band and went 0:22:37.076 --> 0:22:37.756 out on the road. 0:22:40.436 --> 0:22:43.516 It's more thirty in New York and time for CBS 0:22:43.516 --> 0:22:46.956 to present the Raymond Scott Show across the continent and 0:22:47.036 --> 0:22:50.316 later to the whole world by shortwave come song Hits 0:22:50.316 --> 0:22:53.996 of the Day, starring America's number one composer with a band. 0:22:54.356 --> 0:22:56.116 Here he is Raymond Scott. 0:22:58.156 --> 0:23:00.556 In the nineteen thirties, Scott's hits seem to have been 0:23:00.596 --> 0:23:04.116 about the music first, but in the forties his focus 0:23:04.116 --> 0:23:07.076 seems to have shifted from writing great songs to making 0:23:07.116 --> 0:23:09.676 as much money from his music as possible so he 0:23:09.716 --> 0:23:12.836 could fuel his mechanical hobby. He was like his own 0:23:12.916 --> 0:23:15.876 version of his dad's music shop. Music sold any way 0:23:15.916 --> 0:23:19.196 you like. But a big band needed a singer. He 0:23:19.276 --> 0:23:21.836 was always churning through them, always on the lookout for 0:23:21.916 --> 0:23:25.956 someone perfect. And that's how he met Marjorie Chandler. 0:23:26.716 --> 0:23:30.756 We went in Chicago and we took an apartment there. 0:23:31.756 --> 0:23:34.116 Scott heard through one of the band's managers that there 0:23:34.116 --> 0:23:36.716 was a young girl from Canada he should meet. She'd 0:23:36.756 --> 0:23:39.556 sung in a big radio contest in one first place. 0:23:40.116 --> 0:23:42.756 She was about thirteen years old and her voice was amazing. 0:23:43.516 --> 0:23:46.996 Scott decided to take her on as a student full time. 0:23:47.756 --> 0:23:53.716 He thought she had real potential, and so she came 0:23:53.876 --> 0:23:55.196 to live with us. 0:23:55.836 --> 0:23:58.916 Marjorie's family sent her to live at the house in Tuckahoe. 0:23:59.236 --> 0:24:02.356 According to Pearl, she and Scott were like surrogate parents, 0:24:02.836 --> 0:24:07.516 except Scott and Marjorie spent endless hours practicing. It was 0:24:07.596 --> 0:24:11.316 like with his quintet, except Chandler was a kid away 0:24:11.316 --> 0:24:14.756 from her parents. This tape is likely from later on, 0:24:15.316 --> 0:24:29.916 but even then you can hear how exacting he isles guys, you. 0:24:29.956 --> 0:24:30.796 Think the. 0:24:35.196 --> 0:24:39.516 Scott gave her a new name, Dorothy Collins. She'd go 0:24:39.556 --> 0:24:42.316 to school, she'd wander around the big House and write 0:24:42.316 --> 0:24:46.436 her name Marjorie over and over again. Then she'd go 0:24:46.516 --> 0:24:56.916 back to practicing love. It was a backbreaking regimen, but 0:24:56.996 --> 0:24:58.716 she was an incredible talent. 0:24:59.636 --> 0:25:04.356 And as she got older and better she be he 0:25:04.476 --> 0:25:06.796 began featuring her in his band. 0:25:07.876 --> 0:25:10.356 She grew up with the family. When she was a 0:25:10.356 --> 0:25:12.396 bit older, she sang with the band for the first 0:25:12.436 --> 0:25:15.796 time on the air. After Scott started hosting The Lucky 0:25:15.796 --> 0:25:19.076 Strike Hit Parade, a popular TV show, she became the 0:25:19.116 --> 0:25:22.876 featured singer. She was twenty four, and at some point 0:25:22.916 --> 0:25:25.276 along the way they got romantically involved. 0:25:25.956 --> 0:25:29.156 And then I have seen some letters where my mother 0:25:29.396 --> 0:25:33.396 was writing to him saying it's really I'm not really 0:25:33.436 --> 0:25:36.036 comfortable with her, and who knows what was going on, 0:25:36.236 --> 0:25:40.996 because again that they eventually got involved with each other 0:25:41.316 --> 0:25:45.036 and he divorced my mom and married her. 0:25:46.236 --> 0:25:49.596 Scott and Marjorie now Dorothy Collins, were married when she 0:25:49.676 --> 0:25:52.996 was twenty five. I don't want to dramatize this or 0:25:53.036 --> 0:25:55.956 speculate on how and when they got together, because no 0:25:55.956 --> 0:25:58.796 matter what, it's a dark turn. She had been like 0:25:58.836 --> 0:26:01.996 an adopted daughter to them, away from her own parents. 0:26:02.476 --> 0:26:05.436 It was the culmination, I think of the most dangerous 0:26:05.436 --> 0:26:09.396 strain in Scott's thinking about musicians and people must have 0:26:09.476 --> 0:26:13.036 seen in Marjorie Chandler. In the beginning. Was Dorothy Collins 0:26:13.836 --> 0:26:17.196 the chance to make his own musician, his own person, 0:26:17.996 --> 0:26:24.356 as if he were building a machine. Every week they 0:26:24.356 --> 0:26:28.436 appeared on TV together, Collins became a kind of American darling, 0:26:28.916 --> 0:26:31.916 achieving a level of celebrity even Scott had never had 0:26:32.356 --> 0:26:36.836 a star. The money came pouring in. They moved into 0:26:36.876 --> 0:26:38.276 a mansion on Long Island. 0:26:39.316 --> 0:26:42.356 It had thirty two rooms and four stories. 0:26:43.556 --> 0:26:48.676 That's deb Studebaker, Raymond Scott and Dorothy Collins's daughter. She's 0:26:48.716 --> 0:26:51.196 a teacher and a poet, which you can hear by 0:26:51.236 --> 0:26:52.956 the way she describes her childhood home. 0:26:54.636 --> 0:26:57.276 The house was at the end of a long gravel driveway. 0:26:58.196 --> 0:27:02.836 It had had a forest behind. It was very grand. 0:27:03.596 --> 0:27:08.316 There was a library with a secret door you pull 0:27:08.356 --> 0:27:10.916 it out. There was a through behind it. We would 0:27:10.916 --> 0:27:15.636 go on these explorations in the forest. There was wisteria 0:27:15.876 --> 0:27:20.156 hanging over an archway that was always filled with bees. 0:27:21.356 --> 0:27:24.316 Inside the house, Scott had begun to amass all the 0:27:24.356 --> 0:27:27.756 electronic parts he wanted. He was at once secretive and 0:27:27.876 --> 0:27:28.836 proud to show it off. 0:27:29.716 --> 0:27:32.596 Let me take you downstairs and show you these technical facilities, 0:27:32.876 --> 0:27:36.636 and I take it we're supposed to have, oh maybe 0:27:36.636 --> 0:27:39.156 a half a million separate items or so. An electronic 0:27:39.236 --> 0:27:42.036 music studio wants to grow and grow and grow and grow. 0:27:42.716 --> 0:27:46.916 The room was full of gear, switches, meters, welders, a furnace. 0:27:47.476 --> 0:27:48.156 But now I'd like. 0:27:48.156 --> 0:27:50.476 To take upstairs to show you what we've been building 0:27:50.716 --> 0:27:51.636 with all this equipment. 0:27:53.236 --> 0:27:57.716 Upstairs was a thirty foot wall of obscure electronic musical machinery. 0:27:58.556 --> 0:28:01.516 Alongside his other musical work, Scott had begun writing and 0:28:01.556 --> 0:28:06.996 recording music for commercials. I have for several months now 0:28:07.116 --> 0:28:09.236 been unable to get this jingle for Sprite out of 0:28:09.316 --> 0:28:12.316 my head. Over the course of the nineteen fifties, Scott 0:28:12.316 --> 0:28:16.396 wrote jingles for a lot of big companies schlitzpier RCA, Victor, 0:28:16.596 --> 0:28:19.836 vix Ford, Chrysler, and a lot of the time it 0:28:19.876 --> 0:28:22.836 was Dorothy Collins singing them. He had a plaque over 0:28:22.876 --> 0:28:25.916 his piano that read, ideally the words should make sense, 0:28:26.596 --> 0:28:30.036 what makes and Nolan bout dance a melon ballads and 0:28:30.156 --> 0:28:30.876 then bout. 0:28:30.756 --> 0:28:34.036 Dance what makes and Nolan bout dance the ice. 0:28:33.996 --> 0:28:35.076 Dart past the Fight. 0:28:36.196 --> 0:28:39.076 These companies were selling the future, and they needed a 0:28:39.156 --> 0:28:42.676 sound to match it. In the nineteen fifties, Americans were 0:28:42.756 --> 0:28:46.036 drunk on the post war promise of consumer technology. It 0:28:46.156 --> 0:28:48.716 was the age of automatic, of being able to buy 0:28:48.836 --> 0:28:52.516 all sorts of machines that would make your life easier, to. 0:28:52.556 --> 0:28:54.396 Make reality of imagination. 0:28:55.796 --> 0:28:58.556 This is Bendix the Tomorrow People. 0:29:01.796 --> 0:29:03.796 Scott and Collins seemed at the time to have a 0:29:03.876 --> 0:29:07.156 happy life together as the Tomorrow People, throwing parties at 0:29:07.156 --> 0:29:10.156 their mansion, making music in the machine rooms, and listening 0:29:10.156 --> 0:29:12.556 to it in the listening room. They were, in many 0:29:12.596 --> 0:29:15.476 ways the sound of that post war dream world. They 0:29:15.516 --> 0:29:18.396 made music meant to push the button that sent consumers 0:29:18.436 --> 0:29:21.956 marching off to make a purchase. During those years, Scott 0:29:21.996 --> 0:29:24.236 was creating the kinds of machines. His music helped to 0:29:24.276 --> 0:29:27.596 sell whirling spinning devices that seemed as if they came 0:29:27.636 --> 0:29:30.436 from the future. Just keep in mind how different what 0:29:30.476 --> 0:29:33.436 you're hearing is from popular music in the fifties. I mean, 0:29:33.716 --> 0:29:36.116 this was the top song of nineteen fifty nine. 0:29:37.036 --> 0:29:39.716 I come send the British cap a company. There wasn't 0:29:39.836 --> 0:29:40.916 as many as there was. 0:29:40.916 --> 0:29:44.396 Obamaga refired once more and they began to run it 0:29:44.756 --> 0:29:46.916 down to Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico. 0:29:49.956 --> 0:29:52.996 Music like Scott's just didn't exist in the mainstream, but 0:29:53.076 --> 0:29:56.396 he was sneaking it in there through commercials. He saw 0:29:56.396 --> 0:29:58.836 his machines as a way to push the envelope and 0:29:58.916 --> 0:30:01.516 thought that because the sounds they made were new, they'd 0:30:01.516 --> 0:30:04.556 catch the ear and away jingles made with old instruments couldn't. 0:30:05.836 --> 0:30:08.036 Scott seems to have created one of the first, if 0:30:08.036 --> 0:30:11.156 not the first, musical sequencer, a device that is the 0:30:11.156 --> 0:30:15.316 foundation for much of modern pop. In a weird historical twist, 0:30:15.516 --> 0:30:18.236 one of the ways he had financed all this experimentation 0:30:18.596 --> 0:30:21.116 was by selling his early hits to Warner Brothers, where 0:30:21.156 --> 0:30:24.996 they became a lot of the music soundtracking the Looney Tunes. Literally, 0:30:25.036 --> 0:30:30.436 this man put the tunes in Looney Tunes. But then 0:30:30.436 --> 0:30:33.476 he started to get sick. His brother and his father 0:30:33.596 --> 0:30:36.316 had died of heart disease, and Scott had his first 0:30:36.316 --> 0:30:39.756 heart attack in nineteen fifty eight. I don't think it's 0:30:39.796 --> 0:30:43.036 a coincidence that within a year, he began to work 0:30:43.156 --> 0:30:47.996 on the first version of the Electronium, his songwriting machine. 0:30:49.076 --> 0:30:52.796 I remember him telling me, you know about this machine. 0:30:53.036 --> 0:30:55.956 I'm working on a machine that's going to compose and 0:30:56.076 --> 0:30:57.636 perform at the same time. 0:30:58.396 --> 0:31:01.356 This was the stuff of science fiction, a dream of 0:31:01.396 --> 0:31:04.316 few people had had, but nobody went for it quite 0:31:04.356 --> 0:31:07.716 like Scott. A machine not just for playing music, but 0:31:07.756 --> 0:31:11.956 for composing it. Scott began to work harder and harder 0:31:12.036 --> 0:31:15.156 on the machine, and at the same time his marriage 0:31:15.196 --> 0:31:16.956 to Dorothy Collins unraveled. 0:31:17.716 --> 0:31:21.756 She discovered that she loved acting in the theater, and 0:31:21.996 --> 0:31:25.516 my dad didn't travel with her or us. He was 0:31:25.556 --> 0:31:28.876 always working on his own stuff. But I think there 0:31:28.956 --> 0:31:31.476 was a certain lightness. I think that she probably found 0:31:31.676 --> 0:31:37.236 being respected now, you know, for something new that was hers. 0:31:37.476 --> 0:31:39.756 Acting was hers. He had nothing to do with that. 0:31:41.276 --> 0:31:44.876 Collins left and then they were divorced. She testified in 0:31:44.956 --> 0:31:48.956 court that he was such a perfectionist, so intensely critical, 0:31:49.356 --> 0:31:52.116 that he gave her asthma and she couldn't sing when 0:31:52.116 --> 0:31:52.756 he was around. 0:31:53.796 --> 0:31:56.996 So my mother used to say it was like Frankenstein's Monster, 0:31:57.156 --> 0:32:00.596 and the monster kind of woke up and decided, you 0:32:00.636 --> 0:32:03.876 know that she could be her own person. 0:32:04.756 --> 0:32:08.036 But Scott was bereft, and he took a bunch of 0:32:08.196 --> 0:32:11.996 sleeping pills, thinking he was going to kill himself, but 0:32:12.076 --> 0:32:13.836 he just went to sleep for a long time. 0:32:15.356 --> 0:32:18.356 He moved out of the house into an industrial space 0:32:18.556 --> 0:32:22.036 in a big office park on Long Island. His TV 0:32:22.116 --> 0:32:24.916 show was off the air, he didn't have a hip 0:32:24.996 --> 0:32:29.076 band anymore, and he was alone. But he had one 0:32:29.236 --> 0:32:46.116 thing left, the electronium. 0:32:46.236 --> 0:32:50.076 I have very clear memories of being out there and 0:32:50.156 --> 0:32:55.276 the electronium was in the very next room, iterating away, 0:32:55.396 --> 0:32:57.396 which is what it did. You had to kind of 0:32:57.876 --> 0:33:00.116 set it up and then it would go through these 0:33:00.156 --> 0:33:03.716 iterations and we would be listening to it, and he 0:33:03.756 --> 0:33:06.196 would hear something he really liked and he'd jump up 0:33:06.236 --> 0:33:09.596 and go in there and record it on the cassette. 0:33:09.716 --> 0:33:13.396 In the nineteen sixties, Raymond Scott was living in a long, low, 0:33:13.436 --> 0:33:16.516 white cement warehouse surrounded by machines. 0:33:17.676 --> 0:33:20.156 He had to seriously downgrade his life. 0:33:20.636 --> 0:33:23.836 Jeff Winner, he works with Choose It, that radio DJ 0:33:23.916 --> 0:33:26.956 who went out to visit Scott and together with Scott's family, 0:33:27.116 --> 0:33:29.836 they're preserving, managing and sharing his archives. 0:33:30.276 --> 0:33:34.956 He went from a massive mansion of his own design 0:33:35.516 --> 0:33:38.236 to living on Long Island in a warehouse that wasn't 0:33:38.276 --> 0:33:41.716 even zoned for residential, that didn't have a kitchen. 0:33:42.236 --> 0:33:43.956 He was not supposed to be living there. 0:33:44.756 --> 0:33:47.516 He'd gotten married for the third time, to a woman 0:33:47.716 --> 0:33:51.436 named Mitzi Curtis, and this time it stuck. But money 0:33:51.516 --> 0:33:55.316 was tight, popular music was moving on. He was still 0:33:55.316 --> 0:33:59.036 composing the occasional jingle, but now really it was all 0:33:59.156 --> 0:34:03.396 machines and not just in his warehouse. The concern over 0:34:03.436 --> 0:34:06.676 automation was reaching a fever pitch in the United States. 0:34:07.276 --> 0:34:10.516 In nineteen sixty John F. Kennedy even ran for president 0:34:10.596 --> 0:34:13.156 against the machine threat. 0:34:12.676 --> 0:34:15.356 Because the problem that West Virginia is facing is the 0:34:15.396 --> 0:34:17.236 problem that all America is going to face. 0:34:17.796 --> 0:34:20.436 That is the problem of what happens to man when 0:34:20.516 --> 0:34:21.756 machines take their place. 0:34:23.116 --> 0:34:26.196 Meanwhile, Raymond Scott seems to have been trying to replace 0:34:26.276 --> 0:34:28.636 as much of himself as possible with the machine. 0:34:29.516 --> 0:34:32.836 Everything he had ever done up until that point, in 0:34:32.876 --> 0:34:36.316 one way or another, would become part of Electronium, even 0:34:36.316 --> 0:34:39.196 if he hadn't even declared to himself that that was 0:34:39.236 --> 0:34:39.636 his goal. 0:34:39.716 --> 0:34:42.396 Yet it's like everything's under that one roof. 0:34:43.116 --> 0:34:47.156 His baseline generator his drum pattern generator, the melody sequencer, 0:34:47.756 --> 0:34:50.876 all of it tied together with thick wires hidden behind 0:34:50.876 --> 0:34:52.476 the concrete walls of the factory. 0:34:53.436 --> 0:34:58.796 And when Raymond came to the door, the first thing 0:34:58.996 --> 0:35:02.716 I encountered was, well, I want you to write sign 0:35:02.836 --> 0:35:05.676 this disclosure agreement. 0:35:06.356 --> 0:35:08.636 Tom ray He used to work at Mogue, probably the 0:35:08.636 --> 0:35:11.756 most famos misynthesizer company of all time. He's taught in 0:35:11.756 --> 0:35:14.396 electronic music history at the Berkeley College of Music, where 0:35:14.436 --> 0:35:16.676 he was a professor. But at the time he met 0:35:16.716 --> 0:35:18.956 Scott in the summer of nineteen seventy, he was a 0:35:18.996 --> 0:35:22.756 graduate student working on his dissertation for a PhD in music. 0:35:23.476 --> 0:35:27.716 I mean, I'm not an industrial spy. I'm a graduate student. 0:35:28.636 --> 0:35:31.436 Ray had heard that Scott was touched with genius, and 0:35:31.476 --> 0:35:33.156 he wanted to see what he'd been inventing. 0:35:33.716 --> 0:35:36.876 What did I see? I saw everything. Oh my gosh, 0:35:36.876 --> 0:35:40.116 you know, what is this thing over here? And I said, 0:35:40.476 --> 0:35:42.676 doesn't seem to have a keyboard or any kind of 0:35:42.716 --> 0:35:46.796 an interface. He said, well, it does. It had one 0:35:46.836 --> 0:35:50.916 little micro switch, and so he goes over and he 0:35:50.956 --> 0:35:55.116 flips some of these many many knobs and switches and 0:35:55.196 --> 0:35:58.636 things on the panel. Of the thing, said I'm going 0:35:58.716 --> 0:36:01.716 to have it suggest a theme, and it gives out 0:36:01.756 --> 0:36:04.716 with a little melody, and then he says, uh, I 0:36:04.756 --> 0:36:07.516 think I will ask it to make the intervals, the 0:36:08.116 --> 0:36:11.836 musical intervals wider, and he flips a couple of switches 0:36:11.876 --> 0:36:17.076 and they're wider, you know, And he put together, as 0:36:17.116 --> 0:36:25.596 I sat there, a rather lush uh composition with not 0:36:25.676 --> 0:36:29.316 only accompaniment but counterpoint, and you know, the whole thing. 0:36:32.996 --> 0:36:36.956 Scott was inventing madly during those years. The electronium combined 0:36:36.956 --> 0:36:39.156 a lot of different gizmos he'd created, and it was 0:36:39.196 --> 0:36:42.716 a constantly changing set of modules. You controlled the music 0:36:42.756 --> 0:36:45.476 the machine made by means of switches he called the 0:36:45.476 --> 0:36:48.996 composer guidance control. One of the major X factors of 0:36:49.036 --> 0:36:51.276 the electronium is that it seems to have had some 0:36:51.356 --> 0:36:54.876 way of generating randomness within the preset patterns. They would 0:36:54.956 --> 0:36:57.476 change on their own over time. But it's not clear 0:36:57.476 --> 0:37:01.156 to anyone how this was a crazy idea. But you 0:37:01.196 --> 0:37:03.476 can get a clue to why Scott was after it 0:37:03.516 --> 0:37:05.916 from an ad he made around then with Jim Henson, 0:37:06.156 --> 0:37:10.316 the Muppets guy for IBM. They were pitching new word processor, 0:37:10.716 --> 0:37:13.356 but the ad is all about modern life. It's a 0:37:13.436 --> 0:37:18.316 kind of crazy montage of vacant looking people, machines and explosions. 0:37:18.876 --> 0:37:22.516 There always seemed to be enough time to do the paperwork. 0:37:23.076 --> 0:37:26.116 What today there is today? 0:37:26.276 --> 0:37:27.676 There isn't enough time. 0:37:27.796 --> 0:37:29.596 Today, there aren't enough people. 0:37:29.796 --> 0:37:33.556 Machines should do the work, that's what their best bet. 0:37:33.596 --> 0:37:34.876 People should do the thinking. 0:37:35.356 --> 0:37:36.716 That's what their best bet. 0:37:37.236 --> 0:37:39.396 But what about a machine that did the work and 0:37:39.476 --> 0:37:43.036 the thinking. When Scott was born, machines were being created 0:37:43.116 --> 0:37:46.276 mostly to help people do roat physical labor. In the 0:37:46.276 --> 0:37:48.756 first half of the twentieth century, they began to do 0:37:48.796 --> 0:37:52.076 those things automatically at the push of a button, and 0:37:52.116 --> 0:37:55.716 by the age of the electronium, machines began automatically to 0:37:55.796 --> 0:37:58.756 do things that looked a lot like intellectual labor. 0:38:00.436 --> 0:38:03.356 This rulebot manipulator can be easily taught because of its 0:38:03.396 --> 0:38:04.316 electronic brains. 0:38:05.556 --> 0:38:08.916 Can this type of control be applied to other types 0:38:08.956 --> 0:38:13.596 of machines? Certainly in that light, Scott was reaching for 0:38:13.636 --> 0:38:17.996 the brass ring, a machine capable of making art, of 0:38:18.036 --> 0:38:21.276 helping people make art that expressed a human soul and 0:38:21.356 --> 0:38:24.756 stirred human emotions. But he needed money to do it, 0:38:25.276 --> 0:38:28.276 so he started doing a little press, small articles here 0:38:28.316 --> 0:38:31.796 and there. It's like inventing the typewriter, he told a journalist. 0:38:32.116 --> 0:38:35.716 Only the typewriter furnishes the plot and reads the result. 0:38:36.076 --> 0:38:40.476 I've always told people that I consider Raymond Scott one 0:38:40.476 --> 0:38:43.316 of the pioneers of artificial intelligence and music. 0:38:43.876 --> 0:38:46.556 But if you wanted to buy an electronium from Raymond Scott, 0:38:46.716 --> 0:38:48.396 it was going to cost you an arm and a leg, 0:38:49.116 --> 0:38:51.676 and it was a crazy idea. So it was by 0:38:51.676 --> 0:38:54.396 a stroke of luck that the head of Motown Records, 0:38:54.636 --> 0:38:56.956 Barry Gordy, heard about it. 0:38:56.956 --> 0:38:58.716 It was not a one man organization or a two 0:38:58.716 --> 0:39:01.996 man organization, but it is an organization of teamwork, you know. 0:39:02.116 --> 0:39:04.676 I mean, it's the unseeing hero, so to speak. 0:39:05.356 --> 0:39:09.076 Barry Gordy founded Motown in nineteen fifty nine in Detroit. 0:39:09.636 --> 0:39:12.036 Before founding the company, he had worked at a car 0:39:12.076 --> 0:39:14.556 factory during the years when there was lots of hubbub 0:39:14.596 --> 0:39:17.796 over plants that had achieved near full automation. It was 0:39:17.796 --> 0:39:20.556 on the assembly line that Gordy started to think about 0:39:20.596 --> 0:39:25.276 doing music differently. In his autobiography, he wrote, at the plant, 0:39:25.476 --> 0:39:28.236 the cars started out as just a frame pulled along 0:39:28.276 --> 0:39:30.676 on conveyor belts until they emerged at the end of 0:39:30.716 --> 0:39:33.716 the line. I wanted the same concept for my company, 0:39:34.076 --> 0:39:36.636 only with artists and songs and records. 0:39:37.876 --> 0:39:39.916 It would it had gone any year without Hit Records, 0:39:39.916 --> 0:39:41.396 we would out of a business. 0:39:41.796 --> 0:39:44.756 Motown was a black owned business selling music by black 0:39:44.876 --> 0:39:48.556 artists to everyone in America. Like everything in the music business, 0:39:48.716 --> 0:39:52.556 it was precarious economically because Hit Records deal in matters 0:39:52.596 --> 0:39:56.796 of taste, and taste is subject to bia sees and whims. Gordy, 0:39:56.916 --> 0:39:59.996 with his assembly line pasted, wasn't having that. He wanted 0:40:00.036 --> 0:40:03.676 to systematize as much as possible. They'd ab test songs 0:40:03.676 --> 0:40:06.596 with different artists until something stuck. Like R and D. 0:40:07.116 --> 0:40:10.676 They had a house band, the Funk Brothers, providing ironclad 0:40:10.716 --> 0:40:14.036 rhythm section arrangements across Motown songs. Is if they were 0:40:14.076 --> 0:40:17.996 the engine department. The only thing missing was the automation. 0:40:20.516 --> 0:40:22.676 And that's why it makes sense to me that one 0:40:22.756 --> 0:40:27.116 day in the early nineteen seventies, Barry Gordy pulled up 0:40:27.156 --> 0:40:30.556 to Raymond Scott's warehouse with a string of limos to 0:40:30.636 --> 0:40:33.356 see the automatic songwriting machine for himself. 0:40:33.676 --> 0:40:35.996 And by the way, Barry Gordy knew who Raymond Scott 0:40:36.116 --> 0:40:38.596 was like anybody of his generation. Raymond Scott was a 0:40:38.596 --> 0:40:42.276 famous person, so Gordy also knew he was getting that 0:40:42.556 --> 0:40:45.996 in the deal, someone who is a musical mind, who 0:40:46.156 --> 0:40:47.636 has already written hits. 0:40:48.276 --> 0:40:51.356 Scott showed Gordy and his crew the warehouse and then 0:40:51.396 --> 0:40:53.556 he fired up the electronium, just like he did with 0:40:53.676 --> 0:40:57.476 ray He must have shown Gordy how you flipped the 0:40:57.516 --> 0:41:01.316 switches to set a pattern, then watched as the machine iterated, 0:41:01.556 --> 0:41:06.396 changing notes, repeating phrases, rifling through ideas semi randomly. 0:41:07.276 --> 0:41:10.036 And during the last couple of moment to Patta, generator 0:41:10.276 --> 0:41:14.356 was only one four or five. 0:41:17.436 --> 0:41:20.756 Scott was selling an idea at that point, the potential 0:41:20.836 --> 0:41:23.116 of a songwriting machine that could hit on, an idea 0:41:23.276 --> 0:41:26.076 that a person alone never would. If it came up 0:41:26.116 --> 0:41:28.156 with a hook that sparked in the way a hit does, 0:41:28.596 --> 0:41:30.316 you'd know it when you heard it, and you could 0:41:30.316 --> 0:41:32.556 bottle it up and sell it to millions of people. 0:41:34.596 --> 0:41:39.276 This idea, I think came straight from Scott's quintetes finding 0:41:39.316 --> 0:41:42.276 that sound that you liked the first time you hear it. 0:41:42.276 --> 0:41:44.956 It's a tricky balancing act because it has to be 0:41:45.036 --> 0:41:47.756 new enough that it catches your attention. But a hit 0:41:47.876 --> 0:41:50.196 also has to sound familiar enough that you kind of 0:41:50.236 --> 0:41:51.556 know what you're going to get as soon as you 0:41:51.596 --> 0:41:54.316 hear it. It's like an elevator pitch to the listener. 0:41:54.516 --> 0:41:58.396 And Gordie was uncompromising about it. Here's Smokey Robinson in 0:41:58.436 --> 0:42:01.436 a twenty nineteen documentary remembering that process. 0:42:01.956 --> 0:42:02.956 You used to say that all tied. 0:42:02.956 --> 0:42:04.556 We got to get him in first ten seconds. 0:42:04.636 --> 0:42:06.796 We had to grab company's fabulous intros. 0:42:07.116 --> 0:42:10.116 You know, something that would get your digit. And so 0:42:10.316 --> 0:42:12.796 in that light, the electronium makes perfect sense to me. 0:42:13.396 --> 0:42:15.396 What if you could take a machine that had baked 0:42:15.396 --> 0:42:18.116 into it all of the patterns, an intuitive musical sense 0:42:18.156 --> 0:42:20.996 of a proven hit maker like Scott, but then this 0:42:21.156 --> 0:42:26.316 crazy X factor of proto artificially intelligent randomness. That dream 0:42:26.596 --> 0:42:30.796 was Scott's life's work. He needed it to work. Everything 0:42:30.876 --> 0:42:31.636 was writing on it. 0:42:36.516 --> 0:42:39.596 So Gordy was so impressed that you wrote a check 0:42:39.636 --> 0:42:42.556 on the spot for ten thousand dollars to get started, 0:42:42.876 --> 0:42:44.356 and that was a lot of money back then. 0:42:47.356 --> 0:42:51.396 It was a huge windfall. Scott was overjoyed. Gordy wanted 0:42:51.396 --> 0:42:55.076 the instrument remade to suit Motown's needs, so Scott began 0:42:55.156 --> 0:42:59.196 work immediately. The machine would be a culmination of everything 0:42:59.236 --> 0:43:02.836 he'd worked on up to that point, including the player 0:43:02.876 --> 0:43:06.196 piano from his childhood. Here's a call from a couple 0:43:06.236 --> 0:43:09.236 of years earlier between Scott and Bob Mogue, the the 0:43:09.236 --> 0:43:12.196 sizer legend who'd worked with him, And this knocked me 0:43:12.236 --> 0:43:14.156 out when I first heard it in the archives. But 0:43:14.276 --> 0:43:16.956 he was still thinking about the player piano. You can 0:43:16.996 --> 0:43:18.956 hear the ideas just bursting out of him. 0:43:19.516 --> 0:43:21.796 I have some things that I think would lest we 0:43:21.916 --> 0:43:27.436 slip you, and this is how the secret stuff. But well, 0:43:27.716 --> 0:43:29.076 I'll have to explain with you when I see when 0:43:29.116 --> 0:43:33.076 I see. Okay, but the the programming isn't evitable. I mean, 0:43:33.156 --> 0:43:36.476 you know, the computing machine into programming things and was 0:43:36.516 --> 0:43:40.116 programming things and all them a major tools of programming things. Yeah, 0:43:40.876 --> 0:43:43.796 and so the programming it's going to be the way 0:43:43.836 --> 0:43:44.396 it's done. 0:43:45.036 --> 0:43:50.596 A player piano for the space age. Scott, of course, 0:43:50.716 --> 0:43:53.276 quickly blew through the Motown down payment and ran out 0:43:53.276 --> 0:43:56.956 of time, but Gordy didn't seem to mind. Scott moved 0:43:56.956 --> 0:43:59.676 out to Motown's offices in Los Angeles to work on 0:43:59.716 --> 0:44:03.276 the electronium in a room above Barry Gordy's garage. He 0:44:03.356 --> 0:44:07.956 became the director of electronic music research and development. Eventually 0:44:08.116 --> 0:44:10.836 he started to work on the machine in the Motown studios. 0:44:11.436 --> 0:44:14.316 People were in awe of him. I'm thinking of a 0:44:14.356 --> 0:44:17.556 couple different engineers who were up there who would just 0:44:17.716 --> 0:44:19.636 come out and be like shaking their heads, kind of 0:44:19.676 --> 0:44:21.876 like like you know, what is going on kind of thing. 0:44:22.276 --> 0:44:25.756 Scott's daughter deb Studa Baker Again, according to a former 0:44:25.796 --> 0:44:29.436 engineer at Motown, Michael Jackson, would come by Scott's studio, 0:44:29.676 --> 0:44:32.156 a small room on the second floor and watch the 0:44:32.196 --> 0:44:37.036 electronium work. It made music unlike anything they'd heard. The 0:44:37.076 --> 0:44:39.436 idea wasn't that the machine would write a complete song 0:44:39.476 --> 0:44:42.956 structure versus chorus bridge, but that it would iterate on 0:44:43.076 --> 0:44:46.916 combinations of rhythm, chord and melody in search of that spark. 0:44:47.436 --> 0:44:49.716 It was a way of automating the part of songwriting. 0:44:49.756 --> 0:44:52.836 Scott excelled at the thing that caught your ear and 0:44:52.956 --> 0:44:56.036 made you like something the first time you heard it. 0:44:56.036 --> 0:44:58.756 It was meant as a collaboration between man and machine, 0:44:59.116 --> 0:45:00.916 one that took the hard work out of the most 0:45:00.996 --> 0:45:08.836 crucial part of the songwriting process. The inspiration but over time, 0:45:08.956 --> 0:45:11.996 the the extreme cost weighed the project down. Also the 0:45:11.996 --> 0:45:15.556 fact that Scott was never satisfied, refused to be finished. 0:45:16.156 --> 0:45:21.476 The electronium worked, it just was always opened up, being redesigned, refined, changed. 0:45:22.196 --> 0:45:25.156 At one point, that same engineer tried to get Motown's 0:45:25.196 --> 0:45:28.156 famous session musicians to play along with the machine as 0:45:28.196 --> 0:45:30.516 part of a drive to use the instrument on a recording, 0:45:31.036 --> 0:45:31.876 but they revolted. 0:45:32.996 --> 0:45:34.276 They didn't like it. 0:45:34.276 --> 0:45:36.276 They didn't like the idea of it, they didn't like 0:45:36.596 --> 0:45:39.916 the concept, they didn't like what it theoretically represented. 0:45:40.156 --> 0:45:43.716 And these guys were great musicians. They didn't want to 0:45:43.756 --> 0:45:45.156 be replaced by a machine. 0:45:47.716 --> 0:45:50.876 It's not known whether the electronium ever suggested an idea 0:45:50.916 --> 0:45:53.276 that made it into a Motown song, but I think 0:45:53.316 --> 0:45:57.036 it's unlikely. Gordy let Scott take the electronium home with 0:45:57.156 --> 0:46:00.516 him eventually to tinker with it around the house. He'd 0:46:00.516 --> 0:46:02.436 stay up all night and work on it all day 0:46:02.436 --> 0:46:06.196 in his pajamas, building new bits and pieces, taking it apart, 0:46:06.316 --> 0:46:09.516 and building it again. Then his health got worse, the 0:46:09.596 --> 0:46:12.956 music industry moved on started to forget about him. He 0:46:13.076 --> 0:46:16.276 had several strokes, and the electronium sat and the guests 0:46:16.316 --> 0:46:20.596 shed out back gathering dust, waiting to be found. 0:46:20.996 --> 0:46:23.836 Well, it's doctor Frankenstein's monster, isn't it. 0:46:23.916 --> 0:46:27.956 Brian Keihue again synthesizer wizard, former keyboardist for The Who, 0:46:28.156 --> 0:46:31.316 Fiona Apple, producer and the second person this episode to 0:46:31.316 --> 0:46:34.876 bring up Frankenstein's monster more happily, in this case about 0:46:34.916 --> 0:46:38.116 a machine rather than a person. He's working now to 0:46:38.116 --> 0:46:41.796 bring the electronium back to life. We spoke last winter. 0:46:42.556 --> 0:46:46.756 And so electronium might be literally just a piece of inspiration. 0:46:47.076 --> 0:46:49.236 If I play piano or if I play guitar and 0:46:49.276 --> 0:46:52.876 write songs, my fingers are even limiting because I tend 0:46:52.876 --> 0:46:55.676 to play a certain chord shape where I'm jazzier and 0:46:55.716 --> 0:46:59.676 he's more country. But if the electronium was not confined 0:46:59.676 --> 0:47:02.476 by those things, it might come up with ideas that 0:47:02.516 --> 0:47:06.716 are beautiful hybrids. Maybe little jazzy, but little polka, and 0:47:06.756 --> 0:47:09.276 who knows what it would come up with. That It's 0:47:09.396 --> 0:47:13.276 an idea to say that the human creativity is limited. 0:47:13.316 --> 0:47:15.476 It's a beautiful thing when it works, but as we know, 0:47:16.156 --> 0:47:19.116 you can't just write great music all day, otherwise everybody would. 0:47:19.516 --> 0:47:20.996 I guess part of the problem is like in a 0:47:21.036 --> 0:47:25.196 creative line of work. Your business, especially when you're a motown, 0:47:25.276 --> 0:47:28.156 which is an empire at that point, is totally dependent 0:47:28.196 --> 0:47:31.716 on this fundamentally unknowable, unreliable thing, which is human creativity. 0:47:31.836 --> 0:47:33.476 Like you never really know when the music is going 0:47:33.516 --> 0:47:36.396 to strike, and so especially with the kind of assembly 0:47:36.476 --> 0:47:42.676 line motown idea, if you could just make that predictable 0:47:42.836 --> 0:47:48.076 and automate it the aha moment, then that would take 0:47:48.076 --> 0:47:50.316 a lot of the uncertainty out of the business. 0:47:50.636 --> 0:47:52.876 I think you pointed out something that most people don't 0:47:52.956 --> 0:47:57.116 want to ever mention, which is that creativity is unreliable. 0:47:57.836 --> 0:48:00.116 You might be Paul McCartney and able to write some 0:48:00.236 --> 0:48:02.116 of the world's greatest songs. But if I brought him 0:48:02.116 --> 0:48:03.556 in the room right now and gave him an hour, 0:48:03.676 --> 0:48:06.796 said write me a great song, it doesn't work that way. 0:48:09.796 --> 0:48:12.836 It doesn't work that way. But you can understand why 0:48:12.876 --> 0:48:16.156 someone who devoted his whole life to making perfect music 0:48:16.796 --> 0:48:45.396 wish that it did it. Raymond Scott died in nineteen 0:48:45.476 --> 0:48:49.076 ninety four in obscurity and relative poverty in a nursing 0:48:49.116 --> 0:48:53.356 home near that faded house and Van nuys Jo's a Winner. 0:48:53.556 --> 0:48:57.076 A slew of fellow enthusiasts, and the Scott family started 0:48:57.076 --> 0:48:59.636 to comb through his archives to piece the whole crazy 0:48:59.676 --> 0:49:03.156 story together. They shipped boxes and boxes of tapes and 0:49:03.196 --> 0:49:05.676 records and papers to the Mars Sound Archives at the 0:49:05.756 --> 0:49:09.676 University of Missouri, Kansas City. Then they released his music 0:49:09.716 --> 0:49:13.916 and compilations. Scott had always kept his machines mostly secret 0:49:14.116 --> 0:49:16.716 in case anyone wanted to steal them, but when they 0:49:16.796 --> 0:49:20.156 finally released Scott's electronic music in the early two thousands, 0:49:20.236 --> 0:49:22.876 he suddenly had a new set of posthumous hits. You 0:49:22.916 --> 0:49:25.836 probably don't even realize you've heard a Raymond Scott's song before, 0:49:26.116 --> 0:49:30.436 but he's been sampled all over the place. Gorillas, Jay Dilla, Lizzo, 0:49:30.756 --> 0:49:33.836 They've all sampled Scott. His music is in the Simpsons, 0:49:33.916 --> 0:49:37.756 ren and Stimpy HBO shows. The song you're hearing now 0:49:37.876 --> 0:49:41.236 is called port Afino, and it was unreleased in his lifetime, 0:49:41.956 --> 0:49:44.556 but there are all these recordings of it, each trying 0:49:44.596 --> 0:49:48.636 it a different way, all electronics, with vocals, with saxophone. 0:49:49.196 --> 0:49:52.156 When the archivists found it, choose it thought the melody 0:49:52.196 --> 0:49:54.276 was so classic it must have been a cover. 0:49:54.716 --> 0:49:58.116 And I went into various databases looking for a port Afino. 0:49:58.676 --> 0:50:01.636 There's like eighty or one hundred things called port Afino, 0:50:02.276 --> 0:50:04.716 and I would go through iTunes listen to every goddamn 0:50:04.756 --> 0:50:06.996 one of them, and not one of them was Raymond's melody. 0:50:07.236 --> 0:50:09.916 But to this date, I mean, that thing's been out 0:50:09.916 --> 0:50:11.836 for twenty one years, no one has come to us 0:50:11.836 --> 0:50:15.236 and said, h that's cover version, or someone else wrote that, 0:50:15.356 --> 0:50:16.996 or it's a traditional melody. 0:50:17.436 --> 0:50:21.956 A true original. Meanwhile, Mark Mothersbaugh, the lead singer of Devo, 0:50:22.316 --> 0:50:25.036 bought the Electronium and dragged it from the shed to 0:50:25.076 --> 0:50:28.996 his studios. Brian key Hugh is trying now to assemble 0:50:28.996 --> 0:50:31.596 a team of engineers to bring it back online in 0:50:31.676 --> 0:50:35.276 digital or physical form. Even with all the schematics, they're 0:50:35.316 --> 0:50:36.196 still mystified. 0:50:36.596 --> 0:50:38.876 You know. Somebody said it's still a black box, and 0:50:38.916 --> 0:50:41.836 that's true. We still don't know what it did. And 0:50:41.876 --> 0:50:44.396 I feel like we're looking through a keyhole at a 0:50:44.476 --> 0:50:46.996 room and we can barely see it until we get 0:50:47.036 --> 0:50:48.036 through the door a bit more. 0:50:49.436 --> 0:50:52.996 There are Scott cover bands and Scott festivals. Somehow his 0:50:53.116 --> 0:50:56.716 music still resonates. Whatever spark he caught is still catching. 0:50:57.436 --> 0:50:59.756 What I think is strange, as most of the musicians 0:50:59.796 --> 0:51:01.756 who knew Scott earlier in his life seemed to have 0:51:01.796 --> 0:51:04.316 hated him, but the engineers who knew him at the 0:51:04.396 --> 0:51:06.916 end of his life loved him. A lot of his 0:51:06.956 --> 0:51:10.996 early jazz hits were aggressive, frantic firecrackers of song, but 0:51:11.036 --> 0:51:15.316 the electronic stuff is often sweet, guileless innocent. Some of 0:51:15.356 --> 0:51:19.036 that stuff was written in partnership with the electronium. His melody, 0:51:19.396 --> 0:51:22.556 its patterns, and it sounds like a songwriter at peace 0:51:22.596 --> 0:51:23.196 with himself. 0:51:23.996 --> 0:51:27.396 At one point he'd resisted human control of it, but 0:51:27.436 --> 0:51:29.636 then he took one of the voice cards and adapted 0:51:29.676 --> 0:51:32.796 it to a keyboard input. As he found before when 0:51:32.796 --> 0:51:35.436 he would put a Hammond organ or mostly an ondulan 0:51:35.516 --> 0:51:38.916 on top of the electronium, it really needed somebody doing 0:51:38.956 --> 0:51:43.076 a nice melody in order to sell the package. 0:51:46.996 --> 0:51:50.356 There is, I think a lesson in Scott's life, one 0:51:50.396 --> 0:51:52.916 that's kind of a morality tale for our own AI 0:51:53.036 --> 0:51:57.756 adult chat GPT world. He walked from automatic pianos to 0:51:57.836 --> 0:52:03.356 the first computers. He sought perfection, he sought industrial scale creativity, 0:52:04.036 --> 0:52:07.436 but the trade offs he made were the relationships around him, 0:52:07.676 --> 0:52:10.076 the failure to see the humanity of the people he 0:52:10.156 --> 0:52:13.596 was trying to control. People would sometimes talk about Scott 0:52:13.596 --> 0:52:16.316 as if he were a machine. But I think there's 0:52:16.316 --> 0:52:19.516 something in his music that testifies to a soul, that 0:52:19.596 --> 0:52:22.956 ghost at the keys of the player piano, those recorded 0:52:22.956 --> 0:52:26.196 phone calls to his family, that early string of hits, 0:52:26.756 --> 0:52:30.436 All the musical machines, what they have in common is 0:52:30.476 --> 0:52:34.076 the goal of each song to connect people through sound. 0:52:35.676 --> 0:52:40.116 Scott prized perfection in that end above everything else, and 0:52:40.156 --> 0:52:44.036 it ruined him. Someday soon someone might be able to 0:52:44.036 --> 0:52:46.876 bring the electronium back to life. And here again the 0:52:46.916 --> 0:52:50.876 inside of Scott's mind. But still I think he must 0:52:50.876 --> 0:52:54.756 have known the electronium could never write a Raymond Scott song. 0:52:55.876 --> 0:53:14.716 For that you needed Raymond Scott on the Last Archive 0:53:14.836 --> 0:53:18.956 is written and hosted by Me, Ben Nattaphaffrey. It's produced 0:53:18.956 --> 0:53:22.236 by Me and Lucy Sullivan and edited by Sophie Crane. 0:53:22.676 --> 0:53:26.236 Jake Gorsky is our engineer. Fact checking on this episode 0:53:26.276 --> 0:53:30.076 by Arthur Gompertz and Lucy Sullivan. Sound design by Jake 0:53:30.116 --> 0:53:34.556 Gorsky and Lucy Sullivan. Our executive producers are Sophie Crane 0:53:34.676 --> 0:53:39.236 and Jill Lapour. Thanks also to Julia Barton Pushkin's executive editor. 0:53:39.916 --> 0:53:43.236 Original music by Matthias Bossi and John Evans of stell 0:53:43.276 --> 0:53:48.436 Wagon Symphonet. Additional music by Quarantooth. Our foolproof player is 0:53:48.476 --> 0:53:51.556 Becca A. Lewis. Many of our sound effects are from 0:53:51.556 --> 0:53:55.596 Harry Jannette Junior in the Star Ganette Foundation. Special thanks 0:53:55.636 --> 0:53:58.756 on this episode to Alan w and Tenman, Jack Hurtz, 0:53:59.076 --> 0:54:02.836 Carl Miller and the Pierian Recording Society, and Byron Werner 0:54:03.436 --> 0:54:06.516 for a bibliography. Further reading and a transcript and teaching 0:54:06.516 --> 0:54:09.116 guide to this episode, head to the Last Archive dot org. 0:54:10.076 --> 0:54:13.476 The Last Archive is a production of Pushkin Industries. If 0:54:13.516 --> 0:54:17.076 you love this show, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus, offering 0:54:17.116 --> 0:54:20.076 bonus content and ad free listening across our network for 0:54:20.116 --> 0:54:22.876 four ninety nine a month. Look for the Pushkin Plus 0:54:22.956 --> 0:54:26.396 channel on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm, and 0:54:26.476 --> 0:54:29.356 please sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm 0:54:29.396 --> 0:54:33.316 slash Newsletter. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the 0:54:33.356 --> 0:54:37.316 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 0:54:37.916 --> 0:54:47.836 I'm Ben Nattafhaffrey.