Stan Ridgway

Stan Ridgway born on April 5, 1954, is an American multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter, and was the original lead singer of the band Wall of Voodoo. The band was named Wall of Voodoo by Ridgway before their first gig in reference to a comment made by a friend of Ridgway's, while recording and overdubbing a Kalamazoo Rhythm Ace drum machine, a gift to Ridgway by writer and iconic voice over artist Daws Butler, partner to Stan Freberg, voice of... more

Stan Ridgway born on April 5, 1954, is an American multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter, and was the original lead singer of the band Wall of Voodoo. The band was named Wall of Voodoo by Ridgway before their first gig in reference to a comment made by a friend of Ridgway's, while recording and overdubbing a Kalamazoo Rhythm Ace drum machine, a gift to Ridgway by writer and iconic voice over artist Daws Butler, partner to Stan Freberg, voice of Yogi Bear and many other Hanna-Barbera characters. While listening to some of the music Ridgway had created in the studio, Ridgway jokingly compared the multiple-drum-machine- and Farfisa-organ-laden recordings to Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, while the friend commented it sounded more like a "wall of voodoo", and the name stuck. Actually, for new listeners, the voodoo reference was a little misleading, as it referred to the music's often spooky quality, as opposed to any Haitian or Caribbean influences. In fact, Ridgway's Wov music could... less