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I wanted to relay the news that a fine composer behind one of the best scores for a JTR documentary passed away after over a year's battle with brain cancer on June 2 2013. Rob Morsberger was 53.
I have long been a collector of film and TV music and last year I had set out to find the composer behind the creative score for the Biography episode on Jack The Ripper - Phantom of Death (1995) after finding the composer's name was Robert Secret. Like all things JTR, this was the beginning of a mystery...
My search lead to a Robert Secret in England who was a classical musician, and he responded it was not him but that there was another Robert Secret in New York. Turns out the RS in NY was an alias for TV work used by Rob Morsberger, and when I told the RS in the UK this, he replied that he had actually had Rob M. as a student musician and wondered if this was the source for Rob's alias for his television work.
Rob Morsberger was born in Ohio and raised in Oxford, where he became a classically trained musician before coming to New York. As a musician he worked with Patti Smith and Loudon Wainwright III among others and I discovered he was a terrific critically acclaimed songwriter in his own right with several CDs to his name, all literate and beautifully composed and arranged with his trademark passionate singing.
We corresponded about his TV music days, and while he was focused forward on the new albums he was trying to get out, he did eventually go through old tapes to preserve some of the television work of his past to digital form.
He worked very hard the final year knowing it would be his last, recording several albums and live videos, and a documentary about him is presently in the works.
For information on his extensive Film/TV music as well as his terrific singer/songwriter CDs visit his site-
The Biography episode he scored can be seen on YouTube, and Rob's own YouTube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/user/robmorsberger
(includes the song "The Chronicle Of A Literal Man", a tribute to blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo)
I'm glad my hunt for JTR music lead me to the discovery of his fine songwriting.
I have long been a collector of film and TV music and last year I had set out to find the composer behind the creative score for the Biography episode on Jack The Ripper - Phantom of Death (1995) after finding the composer's name was Robert Secret. Like all things JTR, this was the beginning of a mystery...
My search lead to a Robert Secret in England who was a classical musician, and he responded it was not him but that there was another Robert Secret in New York. Turns out the RS in NY was an alias for TV work used by Rob Morsberger, and when I told the RS in the UK this, he replied that he had actually had Rob M. as a student musician and wondered if this was the source for Rob's alias for his television work.
Rob Morsberger was born in Ohio and raised in Oxford, where he became a classically trained musician before coming to New York. As a musician he worked with Patti Smith and Loudon Wainwright III among others and I discovered he was a terrific critically acclaimed songwriter in his own right with several CDs to his name, all literate and beautifully composed and arranged with his trademark passionate singing.
We corresponded about his TV music days, and while he was focused forward on the new albums he was trying to get out, he did eventually go through old tapes to preserve some of the television work of his past to digital form.
He worked very hard the final year knowing it would be his last, recording several albums and live videos, and a documentary about him is presently in the works.
For information on his extensive Film/TV music as well as his terrific singer/songwriter CDs visit his site-
The Biography episode he scored can be seen on YouTube, and Rob's own YouTube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/user/robmorsberger
(includes the song "The Chronicle Of A Literal Man", a tribute to blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo)
I'm glad my hunt for JTR music lead me to the discovery of his fine songwriting.