Researching Bob Thompson

He was prolific in his eight-year career, producing more than 1,000 works before his death in Rome in 1966. The Whitney Museum mounted a retrospective of his work in 1998. He also has works in numerous private and public collections throughout the United States.

In an interview, Van Dyke Parks, who hired Thompson to arrange "Canon in D" for his 1976 album Clang of the Yankee Reaper, said: "In terms of raw invention, I place Bob in the pantheon of Spike Jones, Les Paul, and Juan García Esquivel. Like Beethoven, they were 'populists' in good heart. They meant to appeal to the masses, and did so, by enlightening them."

Thompson is considered a prime exponent of what has belatedly been termed "Space Age Pop," or "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music." This style of breezy, experimental orchestral music became popular in the 1950s and 1960s following the introduction of the long-playing microgroove record and the advent of high-fidelity and stereo home audio systems, which allowed enhanced sonic reproduction. In Thompson's 2013 L.A. Times obit, Koop Kooper, creator of the “Cocktail Nation” podcast and radio show, called Thompson "a seminal figure, a major inventor of this kind of music."

Thompson's involvement with the wine industry began in 1961, when he was hired by Sunset Books as an assistant editor, writing on the subject of wine as well as food and gardening, and met his future wife Harolyn with whom he collaborated. From 1965 to 1969, Thompson worked with the Media Services of the Wine Institute. The book The California Wine Book edited in conjunction with principal editor Doris Muscatine, co-editor Maynard Amerine and with some involvement of Hugh Johnson was published in 1976.

Thompson has written several books on the California wine region including Notes on a California Cellarbook and The Wine Atlas of California and the Pacific Northwest, made numerous contributions to magazines and newspapers such as San Francisco Examiner, and has functioned as an international wine judge. He was designated as the 1989 "wine writer of the year" by the magazine Wines and Vines.

On the subject of Pinot noir, Thompson has stated, "Even where it prospers, [Pinot noir] needs to be coaxed, wheedled, flattered, cajoled, cursed and (or) prayed over almost ounce by ounce through a series of crises that starts at the fermenters and lasts beyond bottling".