By Erik Pederson, Deadline: David L. Hamilton, who co-founded and played keyboards for the prog-rock group Pavlov’s Dog before pivoting to a composing career and earning an Emmy nom, has died. He was 74.
A rep for the family said he died June 20 but not give provide a cause or place of death.
Born on May 4, 1951, in St. Louis, Hamilton studied classical piano while attending Macalester College in St. Paul before attended the University of Stirling in Scotland on an English lit exchange fellowship. While there he continued studying piano at at the Royal Academy of Music in Edinburgh.
After returning to St. Louis, he co-founded Pavlov’s Dog, a seven-piece progressive rock band with which he would record a pair of albums for Columbia Records. The group toured with the likes of Journey, ELO and Kraftwerk but couldn’t break through commercially. Its albums Pampered Menial (1975) and At the Sound of the Bell (1976) did sell in Australia, both cracking the Top 40 there. Pampered Metal dented the Billboard 200 stateside, fueled by the single “Julia,” which Hamilton co-wrote.
He left the band in 1976 and later relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a composer. His first job was writing the music — and script — for the 20-part KOCE instructional series The Photographic Vision, which won him a Los Angeles Area Emmy Award for Best Music.
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Read more of Mr. Hamilton’s bio here:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/emmys/david-l-hamilton-dies-emmy-nominated-composer-founding-keyboardist-for-pavlov-s-dog-was-74/