Moondog (1916–1999)

Moondog
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For other uses, see Moondog (disambiguation).

Moondog

Moondog was the nom de plume of Louis T. Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999).

He was a New York City street musician and former beat poet who was blinded as a young adult. From the late 1940s until 1974, he was a permanent fixture on 54th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. He was known not only for his music and poetry, but also for the distinctive Viking garb that he wore, including a horned helmet. He routinely gave away copies of his work to anybody who would take them. In this way, he came to the attention of producer James William Guercio, who took him into the studio to record an album, released as Moondog (1969) on the CBS label. 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. Another track on the album, Bird's Lament (In memory of Charlie Parker) was the basis for a recording by Mr. Scruff called Get a Move On, which in turn was used, with unintentional irony, in commercials for the luxury model Lincoln Navigator SUV.

A second album produced with Guercio, and featuring both him and Moondog's daughter as vocalists, contained song compositions in the forms of canons and rounds. It did not make an impression on popular music as the first had. The two CBS albums were re-released as a single CD in 1989.

In a search for new sounds, Moondog also invented several musical instruments, such as the "Oo", a small triangular shaped harp, 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.

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 accommodated him, first in Oer-Erkenschwick, and later on in Münster in Westphalia, Germany, where he spent the remainder of his life.

Moondog visited America in 1989, at the invitation of 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… (more)