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Wendy Carlos: A Biography by Amanda Sewell

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In 1968, Wendy Carlos was thrust into the limelight with her synthesizer interpretations of the music of J.S. Bach. The LP Switched-On Bach caught the attention of both classical and non-classical music listeners alike.

As a child, Carlos began playing piano and eventually composing her own works. At the same time, she also developed a keen interest in electronics. By the time she was in high school in the early 1950s, she had built her own home computer.

Her interest in both music and electronics led to her studying composition at Columbia University with two pioneers in electronic music – Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening. It was during this time that she learned the trade of working in a recording studio and eventually met up with Robert Moog.

Her relationship with Moog was a fruitful one in which she provided much feedback to the electronics engineer regarding the design and construction of devices which would eventually be incorporated into Moog’s modular synthesizers.

Carlos’ meticulous sound construction process would eventually lead to her experimenting with producing a piece of music by Bach. The concept of an entire album of synthesized Bach works was presented to Columbia Records by her long-time collaborator Rachel Elkind and it was agreed to issue the set on their Masterworks classical label.

After its release in October of 1968, the set was so popular that it held the number one spot on Billboard’s Classical Music chart for three years. By the mid-70s, its sales surpassed a million copies in the US alone.

In 1969, she released a second LP entitled The Well-Tempered Synthesizer which included works by Bach and other classical composers.

1972 saw the release of an expansive double LP set entitled Sonic Seasonings. Here, she devoted each side to a different season and used a combination of real-world nature recordings combined with synthetic sounds to produce evocative soundscapes. This was well before Brian Eno introduced his concept of “ambient music” on such recordings as Discreet Music and Music for Airports.

It was around this time that Carlos was invited to record music for Stanley Kubrick’s upcoming film A Clockwork Orange. In the end, only a small portion of her recordings made its way into the film and original soundtrack album. But, she eventually released her own works on a separate LP.

In the 1980s Carlos began working with digital synthesizers and created her album Digital Moonscapes. The versatility of the digital domain also made her want to experiment with alternate keyboard tunings such as microtonal scales with as many as 35 notes per octave. This resulted in the LP Beauty in the Beast. As the ’80s drew to a close, she collaborated with “Weird Al” Yankovic on a unique take on the work Peter and the Wolf.

The 1990s saw Carlos enter a partnership with the label East Side Digital where she would eventually re-issue remastered versions of her older albums (and previously unissued material) as well as her final album to date entitled Tales from Heaven and Hell.

Of course, one cannot cover the life and work of Wendy Carlos without acknowledging the path of her personal life. The most obvious aspect of which was her gender transition which took place over several years. Author Amanda Sewell does not side-step this part of Carlos’s life and treats the subject with care and respect. This includes the effect which is had on both her personal and professional life.

The biography of Wendy Carlos is an engrossing read about a musical pioneer whose work helped to bring attention to the world of electronic music and provide a vision of music’s future.

Sandy Denny: Remembered Again

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Sandy Denny was one of the richest voices to come out of the British music scene during the 1960s and ’70s. She was a person who was much admired and respected within her area of folk and folk-rock music. Unfortunately, at the time of her death in 1978 at the age of 31, the promise of her hard work seemed to never be fully realized.

Mick Houghton’s new book about the late British singer brings together impressive amounts of information which help to gain an insight into the events which shaped her path through her musical career.

Many surviving members of her inner circle of friends and fellow performers have been interviewed to provide an insight into her rise and fall. These include people like Richard and Linda Thompson, Al Stewart, Ralph McTell, John Renbourn and members of Fairport Convention. Archival interviews with many other people including her late parents are also mined for extra depth into her character.

Denny began singing in folk clubs when just barely into her mid-teens. She sang what were called floor spots. These were performances by young hopefuls whereby they could sing and play a few songs without having yet achieved the status of being a credited performer on the main stage. Eventually, she did move onto that stage where she succeeded in attracting the attention of the audience and other folk musicians.

The story traces her first recordings with other musicians such as Alex Campbell and Johnny Silvo to her move to join the Strawbs with Dave Cousins. Of course, the thing that may be of most interest to many people was her joining Fairport Convention as a replacement for singer Judy Dyble.

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Houghton artfully weaves the story dealing with Denny’s involvement with Fairport Convention, her departure to start her group Fotheringay and her time as a solo recording artist.

Her personal life and relationships are also covered in great detail. Both that personal life and her musical life were often victims to her own emotional ups and downs. Bouts of insecurity often seemed to derail her attempts to keep things both musical and personal on a steady track. The addition of heavy drinking and cocaine use also served to keep things off a productive path.

I’ve Always Kept a Unicorn (a line from Denny’s song entitled Solo) is a well documented and well paced book which helps to put Sandy Denny’s life and career into perspective nearly forty years after her death from a fall down the stairs.

This is essential reading for any fan of British folk music from that era.

(I’ve Always Kept a Unicorn by Mick Houghton is published by Faber & Faber, London)