Max Crook
| Max Crook | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Maxfield Doyle Crook |
| Also known as | Maximilian |
| Born |
November 2, 1936 Lincoln, Nebraska |
| Origin | Ann Arbor, Michigan |
| Genres | Pop |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
| Instruments | Keyboards, synthesizer |
| Labels | Dot Records, Double A Records |
| Associated acts | The White Bucks, Charlie Johnson and the Big Little Show Band, Del Shannon, The Maximilian Band, The Sounds of Tomorrow |
Maxfield Doyle Crook (born November 2, 1936) is an American musician, a pioneer of electronic music in pop. He was 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.
Crook was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Clarence and Helen Crook. The family moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, when Crook was a child. His grandfather, Doyle Mullikin, had musical talent as a United Brethren Minister. Helen Crook was classically trained as a pianist in her early schooling and graduated from college with a degree in Music. Crook 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.
In the same year he built a monophonic synthesizer, which he called the Musitron, out of a clavioline heavily enhanced with additional resistors, 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 previously 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.
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