David Was

David Was (born David Weiss) is, with his stage-brother Don Was, the founder of the 1980s pop group, Was (Not Was).

Was was born in Detroit, Michigan. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Was fled his native Detroit for California, and found employment as the jazz critic for the now-defunct Hearst daily, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, where he forged friendships with Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis, and Mel Tormé.

With his childhood friend Don Was he went on to form Was (Not Was), providing the lyrics and playing various instruments, primarily flute, keyboards and harmonica. Reviewed by The New York Times in 1980 as "the funkier art-funk band" (comparing them to Talking Heads), Was (Not Was) used members of Funkadelic, alongside jazz legends like trumpeter Marcus Belgrave; and singers Mel Tormé,and Ozzy Osbourne. They released five albums and enjoyed four Top 10 singles worldwide. They continue to tour, their most recent album, "Boo," being issued in 2008. It ranked among that year's top ten releases on many critic's lists. Their 1989 release, "What Up, Dog?" featured two top 10 singles, the latter of which, "Walk the Dinosaur," has been re-recorded by Queen Latifah for the animated feature, Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs."

In other projects, Was produced two soundtrack albums for the X-Files TV show and feature film, as well as music supervised features for Fox and Disney. He joined network music composers on CBS Education of Max Bickford, starring Richard Dreyfuss, and also did the music for ABC's "That Was Then." His theme music introduces Fox Sports' "NFL Pregame Show." As a record producer, he has also worked with Bob Dylan, Rickie Lee Jones, Roy Orbison, k.d. lang, Wayne Kramer (of MC5 fame) and the Holly Cole Trio of Canada.

Was has been a regular contributor to National Public Radio's, Day to Day and, currently, "All Things Considered," where he writes essays about classical, jazz and other forms of music, as well as covering the Consumer Electronic Show annually. As a journalist, he has had bylines in the New York Times, Detroit News, Seattle Post, Entertainment Weekly, Golfweek, Golf and Travel & Golf. He also has a column/blog at the Los Angeles Daily News, called "All Good Things." Was lives in California with his wife, Vickie, with whom he has two children, Nicholas and Phoebe.

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