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Gershon Kingsley

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Gershon Kingsley was born in 1922 as Götz Gustav Ksinski in Bochum and grew up in Berlin. Because his father was Jewish, he fled in 1938, a few days before Kristallnacht, to a kibbutz in what was then Palestine. There he taught himself to play the piano. He played jazz in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and studied at the Jerusalem conservatoire. After the Second World War he emigrated to America, where he became a conductor of Broadway musicals.

Music and breakthrough

In the 1960s Kingsley worked as an arranger at Vanguard Records. There, with the French musician Jean-Jacques Perrey, he formed the duo Perrey and Kingsley, who released The In Sound from Way Out! (1966) and Kaleidoscopic Vibrations (1967). In 1969 he released the album Music to Moog By, with arrangements of music by, among others, The Beatles and Beethoven, and pieces of his own. It included Popcorn, the track that made him famous. In 1970 his First Moog Quartet became the first group to play electronic music at Carnegie Hall.

Influence

Kingsley was one of the pioneers of the Moog synthesizer. He showed that this new instrument was suited not only to experiments but also to cheerful, catchy pop music. His work ranged from avant-garde to advertising music, and he also wrote rock-style music for Jewish celebrations. Later he worked with the first digital synthesizers, such as the Fairlight and the Synclavier. He died in 2019 in New York, aged 97.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Popcorn and notice the short, bouncy synthesizer notes that give the track its name. Hear how one simple melody is repeated again and again, while little sounds are added around it.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

Categories: Artists