Bob Thompson(1924-2013)

Bob Thompson was raised in the small California town of Auburn. Hearing Duke Ellington on the radio during the Depression was a turning point in his life, sending him on to a career in music. His education consisted of short academic music stints combined with apprenticeships to music arrangers - and practical training as a staff arranger at San Francisco's NBC station - KGO. Bob also played in jazz bands (piano), most memorably with Barney Bigard of Duke Ellington's orchestra when he was just 18.

Bob's breakthrough came after he moved to Hollywood and was an RCA darling, recording records there and arranging for its stars like Rosemary Clooney (who called Bob "one hell of an arranger" in her recent autobiography) and Bing Crosby. Bob also worked with Mae West, Gloria Lasso, Julie London, and Ruth Olay.

During a career that spanned 40 years as a Hollywood composer and arranger, Bob wrote music for thousands of commercials, TV themes, movies - and 4 of his own albums which have been come to be known as "Space Age Bachelor Pad" classics.

Tunes from those records (Starfire, Early-Bird Whirly-Bird) have been used from their creation in the late 1950s to the present as music for TV shows, radio shows and commercials. Bob also arranged the famous scene in Picnic (1955) in which Kim Novak and William Holden dance. "Go Go Goodyear" is one of Bob's most famous commercials, garnering him one of his three "Cleos" (awards for excellence in advertising music). Bob also won a Grammy nomination for his RCA tune, "Just for Kicks."