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Moondog
Birth name	Louis Thomas Hardin
Born	May 26, 1916(1916-05-26) in Marysville, KS, U.S.
Died	September 8, 1999 (aged 83) in Germany
Genre(s)	Avant-garde New age Minimalism
Occupation(s)	Vocalist Percussionist Composer
Instrument(s)	Keyboards, Percussion, Vocals
Website	http://moondogscorner.de/

Moondog was the pseudonym of Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), a blind American composer, musician, cosmologist, poet, and inventor of several musical instruments. Although these achievements would have been considered extraordinary for any blind person, Moondog further removed himself from society through his decision to make his home on the streets of New York for approximately twenty of the thirty years he spent in the city. Only in the final decades of Moondog's life did the public begin to appreciate the extent of this man's talents, primarily because of his stubborn refusal to wear anything other than his own home-made clothes, all based on his own (sometimes too singular) interpretation of the Norse god Thor. Indeed, he was known for much of his life as 'The Viking of 6th Avenue'.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Street musician 2.1 Inventions 3 Germany 4 Early recordings 4.1 Singles 4.2 EPs 4.3 LPs 4.4 Tracks on compilations 5 Later recordings 5.1 Singles 5.2 LPs 5.3 Cassettes 5.4 CDs 5.5 Tracks on compilations 6 Moondog's music performed by other musicians 7 Footnote 8 External links

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.

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 famed 52nd Street nightclub 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^[1], 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.

In a search for new sounds, Moondog also invented several musical instruments, including a small triangular-shaped harp known as the "Oo", another which he named the "Ooo-ya-tsu", and (perhaps his most well-known) the "Trimba", a triangular percussion instrument that the composer invented in the late 40s. The original Trimba is still played today by Moondog's friend Stefan Lakatos, a Swedish percussionist, to whom Moondog also explained the methods for building such an 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 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 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.

• "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

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

• Improvisations At A Jazz Concert 1953 Brunswick
• Moondog And His Friends 1953 Epic (reissued as Jazztime USA vol. 2 in 1955 on the Brunswick label, reissued 2006 on Moondog's Corner label)
• Moondog 1956 Prestige
• More Moondog 1956 Prestige
• The Story Of Moondog 1957 Prestige
• Tell It Again (with Julie Andrews) 1957 Angel/Capital

• New York 19 (edited by Tony Schwarz) 1954 Folkways
• Music in the Streets (edited by Tony Schwarz) 1954 Folkways

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

• 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

• Facets 1981 Managarm

• 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 / Atlantic
• 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
• Moondog 2005 Honest Jon's Records
• Rare Material 2006 ROOF Music

• Fill Your Head With Rock 1970 CBS
• The Big Lebowski motion picture soundtrack 1998 Mercury
• Fsuk Vol. 3: The Future Sound of the United Kingdom 1998 Fsuk
• Miniatures 2 2000 Cherry Red
• DJ Kicks 2006 Henrik Schwarz K7 Records

• Moondog and Suncat Suite (1957) by British Jazz musician Kenny Graham, featuring one side of interpretations of the work of Moondog.
• "All Is Loneliness" by Big Brother and the Holding Company, featuring Janis Joplin (1967)
• Canons on the Keys by Paul Jordan, 1978 (unreleased)
• "Theme and Variations" performed by John Fahey on the album Rain Forests, Oceans, and Other Themes (1985) [1]
• "Crescent Moon March" covered as "For You Blue" by Laibach on Let It Be, 1988
• Lovechild Plays Moondog 7" on Forced Exposure (1990)
• "Synchrony Nr. 2" by Kronos Quartet (1997)
• Trees Against The Sky compilation album 1998 SHI-RA-Nui 360°
• "Get A Move On" (remix of "Bird's Lament (In Memory of Charlie Parker") by Mr. Scruff on Keep It Unreal, 1999
• "All Is Loneliness" by Antony and the Johnsons, live (2005)
• "Sidewalk Dances" - Joanna MacGregor (2005) Sound Circus SC010
• "Moondog Sharp Harp" - Xenia Narati (2006) Ars Musici 1404-2

1. ^ Moondog is heard saying, "Machines were mice and men were lions once upon a time. But now that it's the opposite it's twice upon a time."

• Life and Times of Moondog
• Moondog's Corner - The Official Moondog Website
• Interview with Moondog, May 1998
• Stefan Lakatos, Sweden, Moondog interpreter on the Trimba
• Beats In Kansas: The Beat Generation in the Heartland
• 2006 London Jazz Festival - Bach Meets Moondog - Joanna MacGregor
• 2003 Britten Sinfonia Moondog tour with Joanna MacGregor