Switched On: Bob Moog and the Synthesizer Revolution by author and award-winning composer Albert Glinsky, is the first complete biography of the synthesizer pioneer’s storied life and career. The 496-page hardcover book, with 58 black-and-white and color illustrations — and a foreword by Francis Ford Coppola — published by Oxford University Press, retails for $39.95.
Bob Moog and his biographer, composer and author Albert Glinsky.
In Switched On, Glinsky draws on exclusive access to Bob Moog’s personal archives and probing interviews with Bob’s family and a multitude of associates. Switched On takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride at turns triumphant, heartbreaking, and frequently laugh-out-loud absurd — a nuanced trip through the public and private worlds of the legendary inventor who altered the course of music, forever.
Bob Moog was a brilliant engineer and lovable geek with Einstein hair and pocket protectors. He walked into history in 1964 when his early synthesizers unexpectedly became a sensation. A wide variety of musical acts including The Beatles, The Doors, The Byrds, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, and Stevie Wonder discovered the Moog synthesizer, and it came to be featured in seminal film scores including A Clockwork Orange and Apocalypse Now.
The Moog synthesizer’s game-changing sounds saturated ‘60s counterculture, and burst into the disco party scene in the ‘70s to set off the electronic dance music movement. Bob had helped create the synth industry, and had unwittingly become a star in the process.
But his life was not all it seemed. He was also going broke. Imitators copied his technology, the musicians’ union accused him of replacing live players, and Japanese competitors started overtaking his work. He struggled to hang on to his inventions, his business, and his very name. Bob’s story upends our notions of success and wealth, showing that the two don’t always go together
The biography took Glinsky over 12 painstaking years to research and write. He draws on an astounding depth of original research, including over 65 interviews and thousands of archival documents. His beautiful synthesis of troves of information disrupts many long-held views about Moog’s story by drawing on a host of primary sources to overturn common myths, timelines, and assumptions.
“I was honored to be asked by Michelle Moog-Koussa, executive director of the Bob Moog Foundation, to write Bob’s biography,” Glinsky said. “The process of writing this book has been an extraordinary experience, and I am proud to be able to offer this definitive story of Bob’s complex life and career.”
Composer and writer Glinsky is also the author of “Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage,” with a foreword by Bob Moog, which won the 2001 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. He has composed music on a variety of analog and digital synthesizers at New York University, where he earned his Ph.D. in electroacoustic composition after completing Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at the Julliard School. He has appeared on the Discovery Channel, the A&E Network, CBS Sunday Morning, the Science Channel, PBS History Detectives, National Public Radio, Canada’s CBC network, England’s BBC Radio, and podcasts in the U.S. and Europe.
Glinsky’s music has been performed at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, the Aspen Music Festival, Wolf Trap, in Europe and the Far East, and has been commissioned and premiered by organizations as varied as the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and the Boys’ Choir of Harlem. His music has been recorded on the RCA Red Seal, Koch International Classics,Centaur, BMG Catalyst, and Leonore labels, and is published by C.F. Peters, E.C. Schirmer, Hinshaw Press, and American Composers Alliance. He has received grants and prizes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Smithsonian Institution, the Jerome Foundation, and the Astral Foundation, among others. He has been BMI Composer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University, and Professor of Music at Mercyhurst University in Pennsylvania, where he currently holds the title of Professor Emeritus.
The Bob Moog Foundation is proud to have supported Glinsky’s efforts by facilitating interviews and providing access to hundreds of rare historical documents and photos. The Foundation’s executive director, Michelle Moog-Koussa, is mentioned in the acknowledgments of the book for her role in its creation.
These efforts are an extension of the Foundation’s mission to protect, preserve, and share the wealth of materials of the Bob Moog Foundation Archives with people from all over the world.
Take a deep dive into the history of electronic music:
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Also available at the Moogseum.
Albert Glinsky also wrote the biography of Bob’s hero and “virtual mentor,” Leon Theremin. Bob write the foreword. Check it out here: Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage
Bob and Albert Glinsky, the man who would become his official biographer, in 2000 during the release of “Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage.”