David What

David What (* 26. October 1952 in Detroit , Michigan as David Weiss is) an American musician , multi-instrumentalist , record producer and music journalist . Together "brother" with its theaters Don Was he is a founder of the 1980s pop - band Was (Not Was) .

Life

What is Detroit , Michigan born and raised. After graduating from the University of Michigan , Was left his hometown for California . There he found a job as Jazzmusikritiker in today defunct newspaper Los Angeles Herald-Examiner of Hearst . Through this work he was able to make friends with Sonny Rollins , Miles Davis and Mel Tormé .

music

What (not what)

With his friend Don Was since childhood he formed the pop band Was (Not Was) , wrote the lyrics and music for it and played various instruments, especially the flute, keyboards and harmonica. From the New York Times in 1980 as "the funkiest fashion radio rated band," appeared in Was (Not Was) representative of Funkadelic alongside jazz musicians like the trumpeter Marcus Belgrave and singer Mel Tormé also musicians like Ozzy Osbourne with. Was (Not Was) released five albums and landed four times in the top 10 - Single -charts worldwide. Her latest album Boo! was published in 2008 and also made it into the top ten in various charts. ten releases under this year made it onto many critics' lists. Two of the singles from their 1988 release What Up, Dog? took top ten spots, the latter of which, "Walk the Dinosaur" (1987), was re-recorded for the animated film Ice Age 3 by Queen Latifah in 2009 and for use in half a dozen others Feature films was licensed.

music producer

Was produced two soundtrack albums for the X-Files, FBI Scary Cases , among other projects , and worked for Fox and Disney . He composed for the CBS television series The Education of Max Bickford , with Richard Dreyfuss and developed the music for That Was Then , a television series on ABC from 2002. Its theme music opened many years, the NFL pregame show on Fox Sports , while others Compositions have been used in every NBA , NHL , and MBA match report on Fox Sports.

What worked as a music and record producer with Bob Dylan , Rickie Lee Jones , Roy Orbison , kd lang , Wayne Kramer (from MC5 fame) and the Holly Cole trio from Canada .

journalism

What is a regular employee of the news magazine program Day to Day from National Public Radio and All Things Considered, in which he writes and is responsible for cultural topics. As a journalist, he also works for publications such as the New York Times , Wall Street Journal , Detroit News , Seattle Post , Entertainment Weekly , Golfweek , Golf and Travel & Golf . He currently writes a column for Newsweek and contributes to Men's Journal and the LA Daily News .

Web links

• David What in the Internet Movie Database (English)