Gene Tyranny

Robert Nathan Sheff (January 1, 1945 – December 12, 2020 ), known professionally as “Blue” Gene Tyranny, was an American avant-garde composer and pianist. “His memorable pseudonym, coined during his brief stint with Iggy and the Stooges, was derived partly from Jean, his adoptive mother’s middle name,” wrote Steve Smith, in his New York Times obituary for Tyranny. “It also referred to what he called ’the tyranny of the genes’ — a predisposition to being ‘strongly overcome by emotion,’ he said in Just for the Record: Conversations With and About ‘Blue’ Gene Tyranny, a documentary film.” Early life Tyranny was born Joseph Gantic in San Antonio on January 1, 1945, to William and Eleanor Gantic. Later that year, after his birth father, an Army paratrooper, went missing in the Asian theater of World War II, his mother put him up for adoption. He was adopted by Dorothy and Meyer Sheff of San Antonio, who changed his name to Robert Nathan Sheff. Tyranny was raised in the Lutheran church. He studied piano with Meta Hertwig and Rodney Hoare, and composition with Otto Wick and Frank Hughes. Career Tyranny began his performance career in high school, playing pieces by major composers (such as