Biography
David Blume started out as a jazz performer before finding acclaim in pop and motion-picture scoring, all while logging more than three decades as the accompanist for his wife, folksinger Carolyn Hester, both on the road and in the studio. Boston was his birthplace in 1931; he took up classical piano studies at age four and gave his debut recital that same year. Jazz drew his focus in adolescence, leading him to learn big-band and orchestral arranging. He nevertheless earned a journalism degree from Northeastern University while holding a part-time post at United Press International. Upon graduating in 1952, the U.S. Army drafted him and assigned him to arrange and conduct for the base orchestra at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. After his discharge he stayed near Fayetteville and, with cousin Howard Baum, opened the bowling alley B&B Lanes. He also assembled the David Blume Trio, which regularly played the bar at B&B before the group relocated to Boston for a residency at Fred Taylor’s Paul’s Mall and Jazz Workshop. There he began a songwriting partnership with lyricist Jerry Keller; their satirical “Turn Down Way,” though conceived for jazz, became a Top 20 hit in 1966 when covered by sunshine pop group the Cyrkle. That success opened Hollywood doors, resulting in his 1968 score for the Don Knotts vehicle The Shakiest Gun in the West; the same year he contributed to the comedy What’s So Bad About Feeling Good?
Around the same moment, Texas-born singer/songwriter Carolyn Hester—whose friendship with a then-unknown Bob Dylan proved pivotal in securing the latter’s first Columbia recording contract—abruptly and unexpectedly left folk music for psychedelia. She recruited Blume, guitarist Steve Wolfe, and drummer Skeeter Camera to launch the Carolyn Hester Coalition, which issued a much-maligned LP on Cotillion. The group proved short-lived, yet Hester and Blume married in 1969 and maintained their writing and performing partnership for over three decades. In 1972 the couple moved to Los Angeles, where Blume served as a staff producer for RCA. They also ran their own independent label, Outpost, and jointly operated Café Danssa, an L.A. folk-dancing club. Blume later returned to his journalism roots through a series of editorial positions at the Los Angeles Times. He nevertheless remained on the RCA payroll and, after embracing the synthesizer, contributed to Hugo Montenegro’s 1974 cult classic Hugo in Wonder-Land, a collection of Stevie Wonder covers. Beginning in 1994 he served as house pianist for the annual Stan Kenton tribute staged in Monrovia, California. Following his 1999 retirement from the Los Angeles Times, his health declined; shortly after suffering a stroke he died at his home in Sylmar, CA, on March 16, 2006.
Around the same moment, Texas-born singer/songwriter Carolyn Hester—whose friendship with a then-unknown Bob Dylan proved pivotal in securing the latter’s first Columbia recording contract—abruptly and unexpectedly left folk music for psychedelia. She recruited Blume, guitarist Steve Wolfe, and drummer Skeeter Camera to launch the Carolyn Hester Coalition, which issued a much-maligned LP on Cotillion. The group proved short-lived, yet Hester and Blume married in 1969 and maintained their writing and performing partnership for over three decades. In 1972 the couple moved to Los Angeles, where Blume served as a staff producer for RCA. They also ran their own independent label, Outpost, and jointly operated Café Danssa, an L.A. folk-dancing club. Blume later returned to his journalism roots through a series of editorial positions at the Los Angeles Times. He nevertheless remained on the RCA payroll and, after embracing the synthesizer, contributed to Hugo Montenegro’s 1974 cult classic Hugo in Wonder-Land, a collection of Stevie Wonder covers. Beginning in 1994 he served as house pianist for the annual Stan Kenton tribute staged in Monrovia, California. Following his 1999 retirement from the Los Angeles Times, his health declined; shortly after suffering a stroke he died at his home in Sylmar, CA, on March 16, 2006.