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Richard Greene Biography
Richard 'Bob' Greene is an award-winning composer, arranger, singer, writer, instrumentalist (bass and keyboards), engineer/producer and educator. Born in Washington DC, Richard grew up in Northern Virginia. He started playing the bass professionally at the age of fourteen - mostly with a bunch of older jazz musicians stationed in the DC area with military bands. Richard attended college at Washington University in St. Louis, studying architecture. Friedrich Nietzsche said that "Architecture in general is frozen music." Richard Bob's music has been compared to "melted architecture....." Richard moved to San Francisco in 1970. Shortly after arriving, he wandered into Funky Jack's Funky Features Studio looking for a job as an engineer. Jack said " we don't need another engineer, but we do need a bass player for Joe Crane's band...." Richard's response "Bass player? Sure, how hard could that be?..." Being under contract back in DC, it was decided best to join the band under a pseudonym - Dexter C . Plates. After leaving the Hoodoos in the mid '70's, Richard worked as a session musician/engineer in San Francisco. In the early '80's he turned to vocal (a cappella) music, trading playing the bass parts for singing the bass parts - less equipment to schlep.... As the co-founder and creator of the nu-wave a Cappella super group The Bobs, Greene "fractured and reconstructed the rules For vocal music," and is one of the foremost pioneers of contemporary a cappella. Nominated for a Grammy for his and Gunnar Madsen's a cappella arrangement of the Beatles "Helter Skelter," Greene's songs and arrangements are considered standards, sung by hundreds of groups around the world. He is the recipient of multiple songwriters' awards from ASCAP and the CARAs (the contemporary a cappella recording awards.) As a composer and librettist, Greene has received commissions from Lincoln Center, The Los Angeles Theater Center, the Minnesota Opera, the Goethe Institute, Oberlin Dance Collective, ISO Dance Theater, National Public Radio and many others. He has written music for the feature films "Breaking the Rules" "For Better or Worse" and "Man in the Moon" (the Andy Kaufman bio-pic) He was a vocal arranger for the 1995 Emmy Awards starring Jason Alexander. His compositions have appeared on network television, PBS, Comedy Central and HBO. He has been a regular musical commentator for NPR's "Morning Edition" His work with ISO and the Bobs is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Richard is also famous (if un-named) in the annals of famous jingle singing for "Fall into the Gap." Member of Bobs - Bass - Founder |
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