Born on October 14: Thomas Dolby, call me teacher!

Born Thomas Morgan Robertson in London in 1958, it was not for nothing that this genius tinkerer took the pseudonym Dolby.

A jack-of-all-trades, he began his career by participating in the recording of "4," the 1981 album by Foreigner. It's certainly the best album by the other Mick Jones' band (not the Clash one, of course), but it's not certain he'd be boasting about it today!

He is above all one of the precursors of English intellectual synthpop with tracks like "She Blinded Me With Science" (1982) and "Hyperactive" (1984). He ultimately recorded only six studio albums during his career, the best known of which are "The Golden Age Of Wireless" (1982) and "The Flat Earth" (1984), but they all feature some truly remarkable tracks like "Astronauts And Heretics" (1999) and "Aliens Ate My Buick" (1988). If you're a fan of Ken Russell's 1986 film "Gothics," you're also familiar with his music, but not necessarily his name. He has also produced or worked with artists as diverse as the Thompson Twins, Def Leopard, David Bowie, and, among others, Prefab Sprout.

On July 21, 1990, Roger Waters offered him the role of the teacher for the memorable "The Wall in Berlin" concert at Potsdamer Platz. It couldn't be better for the man who created Beatnik, a polyphonic ringtone software program used by over 500 million users. In 2014, he was appointed Homewood Professor of the Arts at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. As good news never comes alone, he also runs a graduate program entitled Music for New Media for the Peabody Institute at the same university. Did we tell you that you should call him "teacher"?

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo : Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Thomas Dolby visiting the Windsor Hotel in Brussels (Belgium) on March 2, 1983 to promote his album "The Golden Age Of Wireless"