Today we're sharing an episode from another Pushkin podcast we love called The Last Archive. The fourth season of The Last Archive just dropped and it's full of truly unexpected stories and big ideas.
The episode you will hear today, "Player Piano," is an audio biography of one of the most famous composers of the 20th century who most people have never heard of: Raymond Scott. He wrote tons of hits in the '30s and since then his music has been sampled by Lizzo, J. Dilla and the Gorillaz.
Aside from being an avid composer, Scott was also an inventor. And later in his life, he was hired by Motown Records to create a machine that could help people write songs. He called it The Electronium.
Today's episode is a crazy piece of musical history, and just a wild story. Be sure to subscribe to The Last Archive to hear other episodes about time travel, invasive species panics, freelance wiretappers-turned-evangelists, and secret science fiction family histories, and more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.