Yes!

Was holding onto the crossroads bit as the giveaway. Turns out he might not have been the first to have that story told about him but dang I love his music.

Karnak, you're up.

Robert Johnson started the mythology about the deal with the devil for musical talent. Anybody remember the movie “Crossroads” with Karate Kid Ralph Macchio wielding his Telecaster against the Devil Went Down To Georgia’s prog metalman Steve Vai as Eddie Van Satan?

Mmmmkay, this might be too easy, but what the heck.

1. Born in England in 1875.
2. Notoriously excoriated by tabloids of his day as “The Wickedest Man In The World.”
3. Jimmy Page later bought his house on Loch Ness, and Ozzy Osbourne wrote an *EPIC* classic rock song about him.

Oh, I know this one: Aleister Crowley.

Yep, you got it! Your turn, Arthur!

A very eccentric fellow! For years I assumed he had authored The Satanic Bible, but that was someone else.

OK, hopefully this will get some heads scratching:

1. Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia in 1896.

2. At high school I experimented with high-frequency circuits, optics and magnetic fields.

3. While adapting a dielectric device by adding circuitry to generate an audio tone, I noticed that the pitch changed when my hand moved around.

Anton LaVey. I find it fascinating that he was very openly pulling a con but people still bought into it, literally. Shelling out a pretty penny for a little card proclaiming them something akin to minions.

Theremin.

Critter is correct: Léon Theremin, sometimes thought of as the father of electronic music. As you will surmise from my remaining questions below, his was a fascinating but tragic life:

4. I patented my device in 1928 and started giving public concerts with the instrument.

5. After a lengthy tour of Europe, I performed with the New York Philharmonic.

6. When I abruptly returned to the Soviet Union, it was believed that I had been kidnapped by Soviet officials.

7. I was, in fact, sent to a Gulag labor camp and put to work in a secret laboratory.

8. I was forced to develop an eavesdropping system, which was used to spy on the British, French and US embassies in Moscow.

9. The sound of my musical instrument was often used to enhance eerie situations in movies.

10. My musical instrument was used on one of the Beach Boys’ most famous songs.

11. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones also used my instrument on their albums.

Here’s a re-enactment of how it was used in scene from the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti......emb_logo


OK, Critter, your turn!

My dad was an electronic engineer who tinkered and built gadgets as a hobby. I still have his home-made theremin. I plug it into a Marshall half stack with a chorus pedal, ha. Sounds like Harry Lubin’s TV scores for One Step Beyond and The Outer Limits.

Also, I found a pretty cool theremin app that is now on my iPad, and fun to play with. Instead of proximity, it works by you just dragging your finger across the screen. But it sounds like the real deal, especially with lots of finger vibrato.

Anyway, yes, it’s Critter’s turn!

I can pass to whoever wants it. Busy day.

OK, I have one ready to go:

1. I once said: “Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”

2. I was the first musician to use stereophonic phasing effects in recordings.

3. The first tune I learned to play was the television theme "Peter Gunn”.

I’m guessing Les Paul?

Retracted. Dumb impulse answer. Peter Gunn was too late to be LP’s first tune.

Hendrix maybe?

You're too good at this, Karnak! Jimi Hendrix it is. Your turn again ...

P.S. I’ll get back to you guys later … My wife and I are taking the ferry to Seattle to attend a once-in-a-lifetime Violins of Hope performance at Benaroya Hall.

More info here: (If you scroll down on this link, the video is worth watching):

https://www.musicofremembrance.org/concert/violins-hope

Back to the movies:

British horror film star who more than once played Baron Frankenstein (as evil bad guy)
Also played Dracula’s nemesis Dr Van Helsing (as sweet gentile good guy) — so great range!
Was in Star Wars, so Christopher Lee was not the only Hammer horror guy to appear in that franchise

Peter Cushing.