If you know Thomas Dolby only as the man who “blinded us with science,” his upcoming San Francisco show is a chance to rediscover just how wildly inventive and influential his 35-year career has been.
Dolby didn’t just help define the sound of the British New Wave; he expanded what pop music could be. An early MTV icon, he blended electronics, humor and cinematic imagination into videos that still feel ahead of their time. And the same year he topped the pop and dance charts, he co-wrote and produced the rap 12-inch, Whodini’s “Magic’s Wand.”
His fingerprints are everywhere: as a producer and synth savant for Foreigner, Def Leppard, George Clinton and Joni Mitchell; onstage with Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock and David Bowie at Live Aid.
Dolby has also built a parallel life as a technologist, startup founder, film composer, digital filmmaker, TED music director and professor of New Media at Johns Hopkins.
As J.J. Abrams once put it, Dolby is a “brilliant multi-hyphenate” — a rare artist whose curiosity keeps rewriting his own story. This show promises a window into all of it.
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