Cavalcade for December 3

Paul Buckmaster was not the household name, but the records he made with David Bowie, Elton John, the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead may very well be in your home. And there’s a new one we’re anticipating early next year by Brandi Carlile, which will stand as his last great work.

Buckmaster died on November 7 of an undisclosed illness at age 71. Originally a classically trained cellist by trade, he got a taste of the pop world touring with the Bee Gees in the mid-1960s. (Think of how eloquently strings voice the intro to their hit “To Love Somebody.")

But it was the high concept of the rock album as a storytelling vehicle, and the single as instant journalism, that brought Buckmaster fame with his debut as an arranger.  John’s debut album and its hit, “Your Song,” and David Bowie’s moonwalk-timed “Space Oddity” put Buckmaster in the art-rock vanguard in 1969. A year later, he dashed brushstrokes of evocative strings on “Sway” and especially “Moonlight Mile” for the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers.

John’s Madman Across The Water followed, with its taut, jabbing orchestral lines on the title cut, and rich, layered backing on “Levon” and “Tiny Dancer." Strings no longer signified schlock in popular music after Buckmaster’s impressionistic writing for these important 1971 record albums. There were precedents — like John Paul Jones lacy arrangement for the Stones’ “She’s A Rainbow — but nothing would be possible without Sir George Martin’s visionary contributions to the Beatles.

But Buckmaster did change up the game. He brought operatic grandeur to Harry Nilsson’s “Without You" in 1972. In 1973, his writing accented Carly Simon’s radio juggernaut of “You’re So Vain,” and more work with Bowie followed, along with contentious contributions to the Grateful Dead's ambitious epic, “Terrapin Station," in 1977.

In recent years, Taylor Swift, Stevie Nicks, Guns N' Roses, Faith Hill and the film score for "12 Monkeys" all got the Buckmaster treatment. Carlile’s By The Way I Forgive You, due in February 2018, will be his last word, and the baroque backdrop of the advance single, “The Joke,” brings it all full circle with the instrument that Buckmaster cut his teeth on, the cello.

I’ll draw from the songs I’ve mentioned here to honor Buckmaster on tonight’s Cavalcade, 8-11 p.m., EST, on 90.7 and WFUV.org, where the show is archived for on-demand play under weekend shows.