MAX CROOK Maxfield Doyle Crook (b. November 2, 1936 in Lincoln, Nebraska) was a whiz kid with equipments. By 57, he had already built a studio by himself. He played keyboards of all sorts, which led him to invent Musitron - an ancestor to synthesizers - no later than in 59. The same year he recorded a single with The White Bucks, which was a local hit. Max played the piano and was responsible of the instrumentals. He met Del Shannon and they started to collaborate both on stage and in the studio. Together they wrote Runaway (61) which is one of the most influental rock/pop songs ever, and Jody. Its not just the song but the Musitron arrangement which is inevitably part of the classic where-ever its played. The famous, if not notorious, chord sequence Am-G-F-E7 which was used albeit in faster tempo by The Ventures with Walk dont run the previous year, has been copied to numerous songs all over the world. The smoothly played solo break by Max is the highlight of the song, not the refrain. Runaway had a plenty of copycats and so did Musitron. Crooks sound was imitated by several producers, perhaps the most notably by Joe Meek with The Tornadoes Telstar. Max Crook also guested on some record dates for many, along with his gadget. Max recorded some instrumentals as Maximilian, using the Musitron gimmick once again. After his solo attempts, he got back to record with Del and Brian Hyland, who had a hit with Gypsy woman in 70 featuring Max in the keys. He also wrote the score for the movie Time and Beyond. Another interesting fact is that a teenager called Bob Seger recorded his first acetate in his studio, as The Decibels way back in 61. “Orny” is a feisty little instrumental recorded on a two track Ampeg tape machine in a radio station and released on Dot Records in February 1959. It keeps the drummer, sax player and someone’s whistling cheeks very busy. Unfortunately the original is not found from the YouTube site. Here is Johnny and The Hurricanes playing the Max Crook song “Mr Lonely”, B side from 1961: https://youtube/watch?v=TcyqSLE7VNA As Maximilian MaxCrook wrote and recorded this song “The Snake” in 1961: https://youtube/watch?v=AdyNnpuI9u8 B side from 1962, “The twistin ghost” also as Maximilian: https://youtube/watch?v=k-0OXH640_A One of the great Del Shannon classics, “Runaway”, written by Crook and Del Shannon, from 1961: https://youtube/watch?v=0S13mP_pfEc Here is a live clip from 1973, Del singing and Max playing on “Runaway”: https://youtube/watch?v=vbTZqS0qCrA The B side of “Runaway”, “Jody”, written also by the same duo: https://youtube/watch?v=_ZM3BeI3st0 Del’s next single after “Runaway” was “Hats off to Larry” and it had also Crook’s keyboards in it: https://youtube/watch?v=Xk_FR3341bA In 1963 as Maximilian this song “Greyhound” was released as an A side: https://youtube/watch?v=eHhYGZNdGLs In 1970 Brian Hyland covered the Curtis Mayfield song “Gypsy woman” with Crook on keyboards (producer Del Shannon on guitar): https://youtube/watch?v=StC5lwA2snM Crook had a duo called The sounds of tomorrow with a drummer (also an inventor of musical instruments) Scott Ludwig. Their recordings and experiments were later released on a compilation in 2005. This is “Overnite run” from 1970: https://youtube/watch?v=AVLU9s5bjbs
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 08:37:36 +0000
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