Settling the Score at Fox Music

“Lady Marmalade,” which features five of the hottest divas in the music world—Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Missy Elliot, Mya and Pink—and the French come-on line, “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?” is the number one song in the country.

It’s also the handiwork of Fox Music President Robert M. Kraft ’76.

Kraft spent the past three years overseeing work on the soundtrack for the movie Moulin Rouge, which uses its music as a fundamental plot device.

In fact, Kraft is ultimately responsible for the music in every movie and TV show released by 20th Century Fox. In his job, Kraft may spend one day convincing Sting to write a hit song and the next helping Danny Elfman write fitting music for Planet of the Apes.

For the first time in his life, Kraft isn’t doing much performing or composing.

Now, he appoints others to work on the minutiae of song production while he oversees their progress. He works behind a desk and telephone, instead of a piano and microphone, but his background as a musician was the perfect preparation for his current position.

“I don’t know if I could do the job I currently have if I hadn’t been an artist for 18 years,” Kraft says. “I bring to the executive chair a true sensitivity to the role of the songwriter, and bass player and piano player because I’ve had those gigs.”

Music has always been Kraft’s passion in life and he knew since childhood that he would pursue it.

But, after deciding against attending music conservatory and after being turned away by the Harvard Music department because they felt he had an inadequate background in classical theory, Kraft found a far less traditional path to becoming a musician.

His first real mentor in his Harvard days was an avant-garde composer named David Patterson.

Patterson remembers instructing “Robbie,” as his friends call him, to play a C-major triad at the beginning of his first lesson. Then he asked him the mysteriously simple question, “What is that?” Without missing a beat, Kraft replied, “That’s the chord, that’s the chord you hear out in the world, out in nature.”

Patterson immediately sensed Kraft’s ability of to see the deeper meaning of the music, beyond the mere technical aspects of playing.

With Patterson’s guidance, Kraft began an exploration of the outer boundaries of western music. The duo discarded musical notation whenever it hindered their music. Sometimes they would play from scores that replaced staves and notes with astral charts and nature paintings.

On campus, Kraft made music his primary commitment. He fronted three student bands that gigged at mixers around Harvard and Wellesley. Off stage, the boys would spend hours listening to the cutting edge music of jazz greats like Miles Davis and Chick Corea—influences that seeped into the jazz laced rock tunes that Kraft composed for the bands.

Not pursuing music academically, Kraft found himself studying in the VES department where he developed an interest in the visual arts as well.

After a freshman seminar that he calls “an intro to everything cool in the visual world,” he was hooked.

“There was no doubt in my mind that I was a musician first and foremost, and since they didn’t want me in their department, I ended up VES,” he says.

Upon graduating, Kraft immediately jumped into a music career.

“He followed his heart,” college roommate Hunter R. Clark ’76 says of Kraft’s decision. “A lot of people from our generation went to graduate school first, but Robbie pursued his interest in music directly.”

Kraft originally intended to be an avant-garde composer like Patterson, but these plans ended after a couple months. He was soon introduced to the other, slightly more lucrative options that are open to a young composer.

“I was at a party in New York and someone asked me if I would write the theme song for their television show,” Kraft says. “I composed something, made a tape and gave it to this TV producer and it ended up the theme-song to some public television show. I said, ‘Maybe this is a career.’”

As he received more offers from television producers, he took up permanent residence in New York, and began producing songs for “Fame.”

In addition to these side projects, his rock band, Robert Kraft and the Ivory Coast, was performing regularly and attaining moderate success. At the height of their popularity, the band sold out.

In 1986, Kraft was invited to try his hand at producing an album for his friend, Bruce Willis. Willis, at the time an up-and-coming television star, had been offered a record deal on Motown, and he insisted that Kraft produce it.

Kraft had been performing at a Greenwich Village nightclub when Willis began playing the harmonica in the audience. Kraft invited the stranger up to the stage and the two hit it off immediately.

The men became frequent drinking buddies and Willis would occasionally crash on Kraft’s couch when the struggling actor needed a place to stay.

The chance to produce Willis’ album was a real breakthrough for Kraft’s career.

“I was really involved on that project,” he says. “I was truly a hands on musician composer, and producer—absolutely the guy responsible.”

It was their next collaboration that propelled Kraft into the movie business. Willis had shown interest years earlier in adapting Kraft’s song “Hudson Hawk” into a feature length film.

When the opportunity presented itself, the two jumped at it, co-writing the script, and heading up the production. Kraft found that his talents were suited to the screen and has been in the movie business ever since.

Now, after years in the industry, Kraft has overseen hundreds of projects, including many, like Titanic and Bulworth, which are remembered as much for their music as for the movies themselves.

Kraft currently lives in Encino, Calif. with his wife, Beth, and his two boys, Noah and Lucas.

“We have a very creative household. You can do anything you want in the Kraft household, in terms of art,” Kraft says. And there is plenty of music in the family. The family rock band rehearses in the garage every Saturday.

—Staff writer Warren S. Adler can be reached at wsadler@fas.harvard.edu.