David Bloom was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up in the San Fernando Valley. He is a longtime musician, first-time author whose life has mostly been an adventure in music. Spinning his father’s 78 rpm collection of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Rossini, etc. while in diapers, to singing harmonies in kindergarten at age four, learning the guitar at five, and then almost four years of piano lessons from the age of eight.
He joined classmates in the rock band Organized Confusion when he was fourteen, after hearing them practicing around the corner. His mom would drive him with his Farfisa keyboard and amp in tow when the practice location moved to the home of the band’s drummer, Tyler Barnes. Tyler’s dad was Billy Barnes, the pianist on NBC’s Laugh-In, beaming into U.S. television sets weekly at the time. Tyler’s mom was actress Joyce Jameson, whose career scrapbook was the first of two scrapbooks David has been shown by the actresses in them. Organized Confusion was performing “Light My Fire” live, complete version, before radio was playing it.
During the next year David began writing songs, first on guitar and then on piano, after hearing Laura Nyro’s recordings. This led to being offered a management deal and a recording contract when he was sixteen from Doug Weston, owner of The Troubadour in Los Angeles. David auditioned at The Troubadour in the afternoon, playing the piano that Laura Nyro played later that evening for her first of many appearances there. A few days later, Weston asked him to record for his fledgling label, Troubadour Records. A few months down the road, David met Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther, who were at the time Longbranch and Pennywhistle, a duo signed to Weston’s management company before the formation of The Eagles. One night, they sat David down in the bar at The Troubadour and strongly recommended that he not sign the contracts; a recommendation that was heeded. This was one of many close encounters with some of his favorite recording artists, record producers and singer-songwriters, at auspicious and interesting moments in modern musical history. Some of those encounters occurred at the original West Coast Record Plant recording studios on 3rd St. in Los Angeles, near La Cienega Blvd., and also at A&M Records, originally Charlie Chaplin’s Studio.
Other encounters of the remarkable and unusual kind occurred at The Great American Food & Beverage Co. in Santa Monica, where many of the servers, hosts, hostesses, and folks behind the bar were entertainers. He passed an audition and began a six-year stint, working first as a singing and piano playing busboy, and eventually a waiter. There was occasional time off for good behavior so that he could play in two different bands with Link Wray.
While working as a recording engineer at Echo Sound recording studios, David had the opportunity to record and mix Rodney O and Joe Cooley’s first album titled Me and Joe. In 2015, Rolling Stone named “Everlasting Bass” from that album, one of the 20 greatest rap songs before the release of Straight Outta Compton, the 1989 groundbreaking album from NWA. Six years later in 1993, he reunited with Rodney and Joe when they needed one more track for their upcoming album, F__k New York, and recorded “Humps For The Boulevard” at Boulevard Sound. That track was eventually one of two hit singles Rodney and Joe had in The Billboard Hot 100 at the same time from their own label, Psychotic Records; a feat that, up until then, had never been done before. The other single was “U Don’t Hear Me Tho,” which peaked at #93 on The Billboard Hot 100. “Humps For The Boulevard” peaked at #84 on The Billboard Hot 100 and #10 on the Rap/Hip-Hop charts.
David was a co-founder and co-owner, with Richard Barron, of Boulevard Sound, a recording studio located in the first commercial building built in Hollywood. The thirty-by-thirty square foot and acoustically designed room featured a seventeen-foot-high ceiling and hardwood floor over 80 years old; and in the control room, the last of the thirteen hand-made and hand-wired Trident A Range Series Consoles.
David engineered and mixed recordings that found a home in two films. The first is the Disney film Honey, I Shrunk The Kids starring Rick Moranis. The song “Fire” was recorded by reggae-rock band Planet 10, written by Jelani Jones and Wade Stallings and recorded at Echo Sound; and the film Deep Impact, an Amblin Entertainment motion picture production, directed by Mimi Leder and starring Robert De Niro, Tea Leoni, and Elijah Wood. This film features the song “Angel Day” from Larry Dean’s album From A Distance. The song was co-written by Larry Dean and Larry Weiss. Larry Weiss had previously written “Rhinestone Cowboy” for Glen Campbell. All of the songs on the album, except for one, were recorded and mixed at Boulevard Sound. David and Larry Dean co-produced From A Distance.
Both David and Richard Barron had the opportunity to engineer for Edgar Winter when he moved into Boulevard Sound for a week to record four songs for the feature film Netherworld.
David recorded and mixed most of Paul Zollo’s first solo album Orange Avenue at Boulevard Sound, including the duet of Paul and Art Garfunkel singing “Being In This World.” David also contributed vocals and piano to that album.
David continues to enjoy playing and singing live and in studios. He also continues to enjoy writing and has a project nearly completed, while another is in the works.
He believes the best part of the adventure could be just around the corner.
