Thomas Dolby
b. Thomas Morgan Robertson, 14 October 1958, Cairo, Egypt. Dolby is a self-taught musician/vocalist/songwriter, and computer programmer. After studying meteorology and projectionism at college, he started building his own synthesizers at the age of 18. With his own hand-built PA system he acted as sound engineer on tours by the Members, Fall and the Passions. Afterwards, he co-founded Camera Cub with Bruce Wooley in January 1979, before joining the Lene Lovich backing group in September 1980, for whom he wrote New Toy. His first solo output was the single Urges on the Armageddon label in 1981, before he scored hits the following year with Europa and The Pirate Twins. For a series of 1982 concerts at the Marquee he recruited ex- Soft Boy Matthew Seligman and Kevin Armstrong of the Thompson Twins, while finding time to contribute to albums by M., Joan Armatrading and Foreigner. Other collaborations included Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Dusty Springfield, Howard Jones and Grace Jones. The most visual of such appearances came when he backed David Bowie at Live Aid. A strong ‘mad scientist’ image proliferated in his videos, which also featured famous British eccentric Magnus Pike. These earned him a strong media profile, but, surprisingly, his best known singles She Blinded Me With Science and Hyperactive only peaked at numbers 31 and 17 respectively. The latter did however, reach the Top 5 in the USA. As well as production for Prefab Sprout and Joni Mitchell, he has scored music for several films including HOWARD (A NEW BREED OF HERO). He is married to actress Kathleen Beller (Kirby Colby from DYNASTY). Dolby commands high respect in the music business, as his back-room contributions have already been considerable.