Roger Powell - Cosmic Furnace
Recorded at Intermedia Sound in Boston, MA
Originally released on Atlantic SD-7251 in February 1973
This CD issued on Wounded Bird WOU 7251 in May 2005
Roger Powell was one of those musicians who really got into the analog synthesizer scene and brought his own voice and feeling to instruments which were, for the most part, very hard to play. Roger shows his excellent technique and prowess using a variety of ARP synthesizers to create the distinctive electronic landscapes on this CD.
Roger Powell has been on the music scene since the late 60s when he began his career as a recording engineer in Atlanta. One of his first jobs was a top ten Billboard hit called "Games People Play" by Joe South. He moved to Boston in the early '70s to work for a Synthesizer company called ARP Instruments, Inc where he helped to develop synthesizers later popularized by Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Jan Hammer and many others. Powell debuted in 1973 with an overlooked solo release, Cosmic Furnace, and soon after was invited by Todd Rundgren to join up with the recently formed Utopia. Powell's debut with Utopia was on their second release, 1975's Another Live, which led to further work on Rundgren solo albums, as well as another prog rock-based Utopia release, 1977's Ra.
But after a couple more increasingly uninteresting Utopia releases, the band dissolved in 1985 and Powell vanished from the music scene. He released a piece of MIDI sequencer software called Texture, and it evidently got him started on a new career path as a software engineer. Initially, he worked for WaveFront in Colorado, then moved on to Silicon Graphics and Macromedia. Six months after the move to Macromedia, they were bought by Apple Computers, where he worked on software called Final Cut Pro.
Roger Powell - ARP synthesizers, clavichord, acoustic & electric pianosynths
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