Skagit Storytellers Podcast
Interview with Bob Paltrow by Liz Duffy
April 2025
I’m, well, red. Fun to be invited by Liz Duffy @liz.duffy80 to tell some of my story on @skagit.storytellers ! Thank you Liz for the interview and preface, Thank you to all the beautiful characters (friends) that populate my life story. https://www.podcastics.com/…/s03-ep026-bob-paltrow-370690/
by Liz Duffy:
Bob Paltrow is a New York native, Bellingham based graphic designer and musician. If you’ve ever seen his current band, Cats Like Us, you’ll know that Bob is a fantastic storyteller, as well as an artist. Find out what song he learned to make his piano teacher mad (it didn’t), and what Arizona reptile inspired him to write his first song (a rap). Check out his website (www.bobpaltrow.com) for any of your design needs, and go see his band for some cool, original rock (www.catslikeus.band). Enjoy the song “So Many Hoes” that Bob performed at the end of the episode. I’ve never had a musician play a keyboard, and it was extra special because it was a keyboard from Skagit Valley’s own archivist, Steve Chambers.
Listen here: https://www.podcastics.com/…/s03-ep026-bob-paltrow-370690/
Enjoy your weekend, be of use, and go do something hard.
Thank you acknowledging with love, respect, appreciation for all who make this particular podcast so fun and interesting and stories worth telling: @soundingsoftheplanet @dudleyevenson @squareonemaps @pre_ttymuchnothing @stonejones3572 @selena_mac_ @dylandalgarn @camp_custer @bootesleo @gibsonfichter @elduffo619 @catslikeus.band @hancockariel @doug.hancock.31
Bob Paltrow Illustrates New Children’s Book
Southside Living Interview
with Bob Paltrow and Author Tracy Spring
January 2025
By Editor David Benjamin Pillinger
“Back to life, back to reality………”
The January 2025 edition of Southside Living magazine is out and features local musician, graphic designer and illustrator Bob Paltrow and fellow local musician Tracy Spring as our feature story. Expertly photographed by Mark Turner at the delightful Firehouse Cafe in Fairhaven and interviewed by Tony Moceri, it’s a great start to the New Year.
We feature the Brigadoon Service Dogs, a story by Peak Hydration on the benefits of glutathione, the Chuckanut Radio Hour, the BPD tell us about their crime scene forensic photography, the Whatcom Humane Society contributed a piece on pet loss support, Whatcom Art Market featured Jen Finley and her photography, Heather Othmer at Windermere Realty keeps us up to date on what’s selling on the Southside, and Danielle Robinson Starr, Michelle Marr and Renee Marr take our monthly Cuisine du Monde food blog to Italy!
Additionally, I spoke with Jena Curry and Nathan Lowe and wrote and photographed a piece I’m particularly pleased with on ‘Down Memory Lane; Speedy O’Tubbs Rhythmic Underground’, right in the heart of Fairhaven.
Art and pages from the book “Love Doesn’t Care Who You Love,” by author/songwriter Tracy Spring. Illustrations and design by Bob Paltrow Design. Published in 2024. Photos by Marc Turner Photography, Bellingham WA for Southside Living Magazine, October 2024
Bob Paltrow sits beside the grand piano at the FireHouse Arts and Events Center. (Finn Wendt/Cascadia Daily News)
Cacadia Daily News Interview
December 2024
with Bob Paltrow by Margaret Bikman
From music to design, Bob Paltrow champions giving back
December 13, 2023 at 5:00 a.m.
By MARGARET BIKMAN
Musician and graphic designer Bob Paltrow said he’s “61 and having fun.”
Judging by what he describes as the projects of which he is most proud, that’s an understatement.
“I give back with my talents,” he said. “I believe in equal opportunities for all, and I want that equality for all people that are marginalized in our world. I’ve worked with many artists, writers, musicians, small businesses and individuals, and activists who want to make a positive impact on a world that needs as much help as we can give it.”
Following is a smattering of what the Bellingham resident has accomplished in the last few decades:
- He was on the design and production crew of the Northwest Herbal Fair in Deming, for 12 years.
- He was co-host of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Poetry Open Mic at the Community Food Co-op with local poet and author Kevin Murphy for nine years. He also designed all the posters for the event.
- “MLK Jr. is emblematic and a hero to me, his life and purpose has largely guided my social activism in life,” Paltrow said.
- He donated graphic work to the campaign to save the Hundred Acre Wood near Fairhaven, which is now a protected area.
- He produced a successful Kickstarter campaign and album with Bailey Ann Martinet to produce an album of original music, “Ruby Flambé.”
- In the 1990s, he helped produce two successful fundraisers and awareness campaigns for WomenCare Shelter of Bellingham.
- Currently, he’s working with musician Tracy Spring on a children’s book based on her song “Love Doesn’t Care Who You Love,” and he’s close to completing the illustrations for the book, which he said has been an intensive project.
- He’s also in the process of writing his own book, “The Last Forest,” which he describes as “a futuristic science-fiction adventure.”
- “I’m a long way into it, and have a long way to go with it,” Paltrow jokes.
- He also has a side project, HempSquatch, with the goal of educating and promoting the myriad uses of hemp as a sustainable crop.
- He’s written more than 350 songs and has performed with bands such as Akaraka, Land of Mu, The Bailout, Patriots of Tomorrow, WuHu with Bekah Zachritz, Hathorakissa, and Your Highness. His current band, Cats Like Us, plays original music and covers.
- Paltrow, 61, has written more than 350 songs. His current band, Cats Like Us, plays original music and covers. (Finn Wendt/Cascadia Daily News)
Before Bellingham
Paltrow was born in Miami Beach, Florida on March 14, 1962. His dad met his mother in Florida, where his father was a DJ at a popular radio station. She was a Dutch immigrant and concentration camp survivor, Paltrow said, who came to America alone at age 24.
Paltrow inherited some of his parents’ interests. His father had a degree in music education and was a singer and accordion player, and played clarinet in the U.S. Army marching band. His mom was an illustrator of children’s books who spoke seven languages and worked as an interpreter for the United Nations.
He grew up in Massapequa, New York, and Tucson, Arizona. Paltrow attended the University of Arizona starting as a music student, took a hiatus, then returned as a theology major, and then earned a bachelor of arts and sciences degree with an emphasis in graphic design illustration.
He spent a lot of time with his grandparents in New York. “My grandfather‘s law office was above a newsstand that sold comic books,” he said. His grandfather would give him a dollar and he would go to the comic store and pick up as many 10- to 15-cent comics he could. “I would read all the comic books in about 10 minutes,” he said, “much to my grandparents’ consternation.” Then his grandmother started supplying him with pens and crayons, watercolors and paper, to keep him busy. “I began to copy and color the comic books I was reading — Spider-Man, The Silver Surfer and The Hulk,” he said. “I would faithfully try to draw and re-create them with pencils and magic markers. And that was really how I began doing art.”
As a multimedia artist he has cultivated creativity. For Paltrow, it involves graphic design, illustration, video-editing, creating music scores, arranging and producing music and video, marketing, branding, and managing social media accounts. “I enjoy trying new things,” he said. “I’m not afraid to try and fail. The creative life is an interesting journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance.”
He’s operated as Bob Paltrow Design since 1995 and has designed more than 300 album covers for independent musicians including Dean and Dudley Evenson, Dana Lyons, Havilah Rand, Robert Blake, The Naughty Blokes, Peter Ali, Anna Schadd, and Lydia McCauley.
About 10 years ago, a couple asked him to marry them, so he got a Universal Light Ministries certification online. “I think I was good at helping them create a ceremony and vows that fit what they wanted to do,” he said. They are the only couple he’s married, but since then, he’s been asked to give eulogies. He said it’s always an honor. “I think I’m asked because I’m a good communicator by nature and by trade,” Paltrow said. “I try to listen and integrate what people are communicating to me. I keep it real and I see the preciousness and sacredness in what is here now, and who is missed.”
Bellingham Musician Bob Paltrow releases
New Album “Always Here For You”
Bellingham Herald Take 5 Artist Profile
Published: January 29, 2013
By MARGARET BIKMAN — THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
Pianist, vocalist and guitarist Bob Paltrow, 50, celebrates the release of his new album, “Always Here For You,” accompanied by the Burning Clover Band at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 1, at Blue Horse Gallery in Bay Street Village, 301 W. Holly St., during the monthly Downtown Art Walk.
Paltrow will open the performance with a few original piano compositions. Learn more about him at bobpaltrowmusic.com.
Question: What brought you to Bellingham?
Answer: I moved from my longtime desert home of Tucson, Ariz., to our fair city in 1992 to work for new-age music label Soundings of the Planet as their in-house graphic designer. They were based in Arizona; however their recording studio is in Bellingham. I visited for the first time in July of ’92 on a working vacation, instantly fell in love with the area, culture and people, and moved here that December.
Q: What’s your day job?
A: I have operated Bob Paltrow Design since 1995. I have a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona with an emphasis in graphic design and editorial illustration. The computer is a place where art, music, text and video converge as “content,” and I do a little of all those things.
I started out designing for print, but as the Internet and electronic media have exploded and forever altered the ways we experience and create media, the demand for traditional print media and print designers has declined dramatically. Out of necessity, I’ve steadily expanded my repertoire to include web design, music and audio production, and video editing.
Q: What’s your take on our musical community?
A: My soon-to-be-trademarked Bellingham-ism is “More Musicians Per Capita Than Any City In The World!” You can’t walk down the street or through the woods without tripping over a great musician. Rock, folk, jazz, country, electronica, hip-hop. It is perfectly normal for your neighbor to be in a metal band, a bluegrass string quintet and a Motown cover band. There is so much creativity, camaraderie, quality in great quantity.
My new fave genre mutation is “stomp-grass” a la Polecat! Bellingham musicians support each other like nowhere else. We all go to each other’s shows. We have a fantastic music community.
Q: Who are some of your influences?
A: What I will call my “principles” group of influences includes Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi and the Dalai Lama. I admire them as men of great faith, commitment and perseverance who ultimately triumphed to set people free from bondage and oppression; to shine a light in the dark.
My first piano teacher, Grace Oglesby, taught me for six years and really allowed me to pursue my musical tastes and helped me maximize my talent.
My first album was Linda Ronstadt’s “Heart like a Wheel.” I loved musicals growing up: “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Godspell” and “The Sound of Music.” The bands I listened to growing up in the ’70s were Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Allman Brothers, The Who, Rolling Stones, The Doors, Jeff Beck and the Beatles. When I became more adept at piano, that list expanded to include Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Carole King and Rick Wakeman of Yes.
Some of the bands I like now are Foster The People, Muse, The xx, Band of Skulls, Mother Mother and the Black Keys. In general, I like artists and performers who push the creative edge in any genre or art form.
Q: How did this CD come about?
My dear friend, associate producer and fellow musician Brett Steelhammer and I have a friendship forged in music. We often share our new material to get feedback from each other. I asked Brett to listen to some new songs I was working on.
Afterward, he began barraging me with questions: “When are you going in the studio?” “How many songs on the album?” “Who’s playing on your album?” On and on it went, relentlessly! We scheduled my first recording session 30 days later on Jan. 7, 2012. A year later I have a fantastic cast of friends and musicians to perform with, and an album I am very proud of in my hand!
Q: Where can people buy it?
A: It is available on iTunes, Amazon mp3, CD Baby and a host of other online outlets.
Q: What else besides music is fun in your life?
A: Whatever I’m doing is most fun with friends. I like to be physically active and enjoy hiking, exploring, playing sports, yoga and working out. I also have a passion for sculpting and 3-dimensional art. I like to make things out of found objects. I like to travel and meet people and be exposed to new ideas and new ways of seeing this beautiful world.
Reach MARGARET BIKMAN at margaret.bikman@bellinghamherald.com or 715-2273.
Album Review – “Always Here For You” by Bob Paltrow and Burning Clover
What’s Up! Magazine
Published: February 1st, 2013
By SHADI GARMAN — WHAT’S UP!
Released in December, “Always Here For You” is the latest album by Bob Paltrow and Burning Clover. Bob Paltrow is a classically-trained pianist, singer-songwriter, producer and composer. The Burning Clover band features Jeffrei Willson on lead guitar, bass, keyboards and drums; Brett Steelhammer and Blake Cisneros sharing drum duties; Kelly Grotke on vocals; Chuck Kitterman on percussion and Phil Heaven on electric viola. The resulting sound is pleasant and very listenable.
In the most positive way, I would say that this album is something my dad would love. Also, it’d be awesome for driving around or running errands. In the best way possible, this reminds me of Costco. Here’s the explanation. Always Here For You is professionally put together. With nine tracks, there is just enough music to catch my interest without getting boring and extensive. The lyrics are amusing and the Burning Clover band provides friendly accompaniment. There is nothing bold or super crazy, and that’s just fine. “Always Her For You” delves into slightly risqué material but somehow still seems goofy and safe. The fact there is a track called “LMAO” is just adorable. That may not be the intent, but it’s quite fun all the same. This album is what your doctor would play in his office, if he were a cool doctor. Bob Paltrow has provided a light-hearted funky album for people to enjoy. While still remaining comfortable, there are delightful surprises sprinkled throughout it.
Modern-retro pop rock is the chosen genre label and definitely sounds universally appealing. Now, go home, put on my favorite track “Dalai Lama” and dance around your kitchen.
— Shadi Garman