(Eighty) Three is the Magic Number
The first time I was introduced to Bob Dorough I didnt know it. Of course, that may have been because when he first came into my house I was busy watching Saturday-morning cartoons, slack-jawed, cereal milk running down my chin. At the time I didnt realize who he was, but he has nevertheless made an indelible impression on my life. And Im not alone.
Dorough was the musical director for Schoolhouse Rock. He wrote and sang the knowledge-is-power classics like Three Is The Magic Number and My Hero Zero. Remember? His songs formed the backbone of the animated series of three-minute drop-ins that were broadcast during Hanna-Barbera cartoons on ABC every Saturday morning from 1973 to 1985, and then again in the mid-1990s.
Did you experience it as a youth yourself? Dorough, now 83, asks me over a cup of tea at the Westway Diner in Midtown. I nod and say that, although I havent seen those cartoons in 30 years, I remember them vividly. I even have Best Of Schoolhouse Rock on my iPod.
My colleagues say you can stop on any corner and yell Conjunction Junction, and someone will yell back Whats your function? Dorough says, giggling.
With no prompting, he then tells me the story behind Schoolhouse Rock. The short version goes something like this: In 1972, an advertising executive named David B. McCall commissioned Dorough to write a song that set the multiplication tables to rock music. Doroughs training, however, had been in jazz.
I wasnt a rocker, he explains. I jammed be-bop. This worked in his favor. Two weeks later, when Dorough delivered his first composition, Three Is The Magic Number, with its varied tempos and beats, Mc Call was stunned. He put Dorough on the payroll to write more of the same.
It was just supposed to be a phonograph record, says Dorough. But McCall saw potential, and took the song to ABC. Chuck Eisner, who was running the network then, had been getting complaints from parent groups about the quality of its Saturday morning programming. The network execs bought Three on the spot and set the tune to toons. A few months later, thanks to Dorough and company, kids were learning the fundamentals of math, grammar, history, and science in between episodes of Scooby-Doo and The Jetsons.
Dorough now lives in Pennsylvania, about 70 miles from New York. Although he still finds himself in the studio, most recently to play on Nellie McKays forthcoming album, Dorough prefers live gigs. Im a troubadour, Dorough explains. I like playing in an intimate setting.
This week, Dorough returns to Joes Pub for the second time to perform Schoolhouse Rock and All That Jazz. The show is a 90-minute retrospective of Doroughs variegated 60-year career. Hell be at the piano, leading a guitar-bass-drums combo and his backup singers, The Bobettes. Stay tuned and, as Dorough says, Dig it, man.
Aug. 30, Joes Pub, 425 Lafayette St. (betw. Astor Pl. & E. 4th St.), 212-967-7555; 7, $20.