Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

MOONDOG

(b Louis Thomas Hardin, 26 May 1916, Marysville KS; d 8 September 1999, Germany) Composer. His father was a preacher; he sat in the lap of an Indian chief at age five beating out the rhythm for a sun dance, blinded himself with dynamite at age 16, discovered classical music at a school for the blind, learned piano, violin and viola. He became a street personality in NYC who played original music on various percussion and original reed instruments called oo (a hammer-struck harp), trimba (a triagular drum), utsu, uni, samisen etc; he slept in doorways. Walter Winchell wrote a column about him and Charlie Parker wanted to record with him 'but the next thing I heard, he was dead. So I wrote a piece, ''Bird's Lament''.' He sued disc jockey Alan Freed for calling himself Moondog and using one of his records for a signature tune; Igor Stravinsky testified on his behalf and he won. His costume included a Viking helmet and a spear.

Albums on Prestige '56-7 included Caribea (additional percussion by Sam Ulano and Ray Malone, who also tapdanced), More Moondog (with Malone; it included 'Conversation and Music at 51st Street and 6th Avenue'), The Story Of Moondog; possession of these LPs guaranteed a certain cachet during the golden age of the Beat movement, especially outside NYC. He also recorded for Brunswick and Columbia including an orchestral album '69 (CD Music Of Moondog), joined ASCAP '70 and moved to Germany, where he played a concert on German radio '74. In old age he had given up the Viking look and resembled William Blake's God the Father. He was a rigorous composer who disdained improvisation, claims to find mistakes in every bar of Bach: 'He probably didn't have time to check, with so many children, and having to produce a new cantata every week.' Big Band '96 on Trimba included saxophonist John Harle and a London orchestra playing multi-layered contrapuntal pieces in praise of great cities; Sax Pax For A Sax '97 may be the same music or similar, the London Saxophonic Orchestra including reeds, Peter Hammill, Danny Thompson etc.

A biography, Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue by Robert Scotto, from Princess Media, pulls no punches. Hardin was hard to get along with and indulged in some reprehensible behaviour. Staying with Philip Glass in 1968, who is Jewish, he bragged that he hated blacks and Jews, then wondered why so many of his friends were from these groups. The book includes a CD of recordings made with Glass and Steve Reich.