Max Crook
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Maxfield Doyle Crook (born 2 November 1936) is an American musician, a pioneer of electronic music in pop. He probably remains best known as the featured soloist on Del Shannon's 1961 hit "Runaway", which he co-wrote and on which he played his own invention, the Musitron. He also recorded as Maximilian.
[edit] Life and career
Crook was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, moving as a child to Ann Arbor, Michigan. He first learned to play the accordion, before taking up the piano, and by the time he was fourteen he had already built his own studio. In 1957, after studying at the University of New Mexico, he enrolled at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo where he formed a rock and roll group called The White Bucks, who released a single, "Get That Fly", on Dot Records in 1959.[1]
In the same year he built a hybrid single-note playing synthesiser, which he called the Musitron, out of a clavioline enhanced with additional resisters, television tubes, and parts from household appliances, old amplifiers and reel-to-reel tape machines. Crook was unable to patent the Musitron because most of its components were already patented products. He first used it for recording at a session at Berry Gordy's studio in Detroit, on an unreleased version of "Bumble Boogie" (the tune later recorded by B. Bumble and the Stingers) for which he also used a crude self-made four-track tape recorder. The sound of the Musitron was influential on other musicians and producers, including Gordy, Joe Meek, Ennio Morricone, John Barry and Roy Wood.[2]
Later in 1959, he met Charles Westover, yet to take the stage name Del Shannon, who asked him to join his band, "Charlie Johnson and the Big Little Show Band", as keyboard player. They signed a recording contract in 1960, and Crook began playing the Musitron onstage for the first time soon afterwards. During a live set one night, Crook hit an unusual chord change going from A-minor to G, and he and Del Shannon developed the lick into a song, which became "Runaway". In January 1961, Shannon and Crook recorded "Runaway", which soon became an international hit.
Crook also recorded a series of instrumentals, credited as Maximilian. These included "The Snake" (a hit in Argentina), and later "The Twistin' Ghost" and "Greyhound" (both hits in Canada). For a time he took over as leader of Shannon's old band based in Battle Creek, Michigan, which became "The Maximilian Band", but he left the group in late 1962 for a solo career. He also set up his own record label, Double A, in Ann Arbor. Later in the 1960s he worked as an electronic duo with Scott Ludwig, billed as "The Sounds of Tomorrow"[1], performing instrumental versions of current hits.
In the late 1960s he moved to California and worked as a burglar alarm installer and firefighter, before returning to recording with Del Shannon and Brian Hyland. Hyland's version of Curtis Mayfield's "Gypsy Woman", featuring Crook's keyboards, became a hit in 1970. Crook also wrote the score for James Sturgen's movie Time and Beyond. In the 1980s he began performing gospel and spiritual music, recording an album "Good News!".[3]
He now lives in Deming, New Mexico.
