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Moondog

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For other uses, see Moondog (disambiguation).
Moondog

Moondog the nom de plume of Louis T. Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), was an American composer, musician and poet, who also invented musical instruments - all this despite being blind, and, for three decades, homeless.

Early life

Born in Marysville, Kansas, he started playing a set of drums that he made himself from a cardboard box at the age of five. Hardin was blinded in a farm accident at the age of 16. After learning the principles of music in several schools for blind young men across middle America, he taught himself the skills of ear training and composition. Principally self-taught, he studied with Burnet Tuthill and at the Iowa School for the Blind. He had a particular interest in Native American music.

Street musician

From the late 1940s until 1974, Moondog lived as a street musician and poet in New York City, busking mostly on 53rd Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. In addition to his music and poetry, he was also known for the distinctive Viking garb that he wore, which included a horned helmet. He partially supported himself by selling copies of his poetry and his musical philosophy. Because of his street post's proximity to the 52nd Street club strip, he was well-known to many jazz musicians and fans.

Moondog's work was early championed by Artur Rodzinski, the conductor of New York Philharmonic in the '40s. He released a number of 78s, 45s and EPs of his music in the 1950s, as well as several LPs on a number of notable jazz labels, including an unusual record of stories for children with actress Julie Andrews in 1957. For ten years no new recordings were heard from Moondog until producer James William Guercio took him into the studio to record an album for Columbia Records in 1969. The track "Stamping Ground", with its odd preamble of Moondog saying one of his epigrams, was featured on the sampler double album Fill Your Head with Rock (CBS, 1970). The melody from the track "Bird's Lament (In memory of Charlie Parker)" was later sampled by Mr. Scruff as the basis for his song "Get a Move On", which was then used in commercials for the Lincoln Navigator SUV.

A second album produced with Guercio featured Moondog's daughter as a vocalist and contained song compositions in canons and rounds. The album did not make as large an impression in popular music as the first had. The two CBS albums were re-released as a single CD in 1989.

The English pop group Prefab Sprout included the song 'Moondog' on their seminal album Jordan: The Comeback released in 1990 as a tribute to Hardin.

Inventions

In a search for new sounds, Moondog also invented several musical instruments, such as the "Oo", a small triangular shaped harp, the "Ooo-ya-tsu", and the "Trimba", a triangular percussion instrument invented in the late 40s. The Original Trimba today is still played by Stefan Lakatos, Swedish percussionist, close friend and pupil of Moondog, who also taught him how to build the instrument.

Germany

Moondog had an idealised view of Germany ("The Holy Land with the Holy River" — the Rhine), where he settled in 1974. A young German student named Ilona Goebel hosted him, first in Oer-Erkenschwick, and later on in Münster in Westphalia, Germany, where he spent the remainder of his life.

Moondog visited America briefly in 1989, for a tribute in which Phillip Glass himself asked him to conduct the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, at the New Music America Festival in Brooklyn, stimulating a renewed interest in his music.

He recorded many albums, and toured both in the US and in Europe — France, Germany and Sweden.

Early recordings

Singles

  • "Snaketimes Rhythm" 1949-1950 SMC
  • "Moondog's Symphony" 1949-1950 SMC
  • "Organ Rounds" 1949-1950 SMC
  • "Oboe Rounds" 1949-1950 SMC
  • "Surf Session" c. 1953 SMC
  • "Caribea Sextet"/"Oo Debut" 1956 Moondog Records

EPs

  • Moondog On The Streets Of New York 1953 Decca/Mars
  • Moondog And His Honking Geese 1955 Moondog Records

LPs

  • Improvisations At A Jazz Concert 1953 Brunswick
  • Moondog And His Friends 1953 Epic (reissed as Jazztime USA vol. 2 in 1955 on the Brunswick label)
  • Moondog 1956 Prestige
  • More Moondog 1956 Prestige
  • The Story Of Moondog 1957 Prestige
  • Tell It Again (with Julie Andrews) 1957 Angel/Capital

Tracks on compilations

Later recordings

Singles

  • '"Stamping Ground Theme" (from the Holland Pop Festival) 1970 CBS

LPs

  • Moondog (not the same as the 1956 LP) 1969 Columbia
  • Moondog II 1971 Columbia
  • Moondog In Europe 1977 Kopf
  • Moondog - Selected Works 1978 Musical Heritage Society
  • H'Art Songs 1978 Kopf
  • A New Sound Of An Old Instrument 1979 Kopf
  • Bracelli 1986 Kakaphone

Cassettes

  • Facets 1981 Managarm

CDs

  • Elpmas 1992 Kopf
  • Moondog + Moondog II 1992 Columbia
  • Big Band 1995 Trimba
  • Alphorn Of Plenty 1995 Hat Art
  • To A Grain Of Rice 1996 Paradise Records
  • Sax Pax For A Sax with the London Saxophonic (1997) Kopf
  • Moondog Vol. 1 & 2 2000 Beat Goes On
  • The German Years 1977-1999 2004 ROOF Music
  • Un hommage a moondog 2005 trAce label
  • Bracelli und Moondog 2005 Laska Records
  • Rare Material 2006 ROOF Music

Tracks on compilations

Moondog's music performed by other musicians

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