Jean Jacques Perrey and Harry Breuer's
HE HAPPY MOOG was recorded in 1969-70
by Jean Jacques Perrey and Harry Breuer, and was released on LP
around 1971. It came out on the budget label, Pickwick Records,
and to this day has never come out on CD. Back in the late '60s
and early '70s, Pickwick was famous for putting out records that
cashed in on popular artists of the day, sometimes culling early
demo or flop records, that the artist was surely embarassed to
see released.
THE HAPPY MOOG was different, in that it was created specifically for the Pickwick label. It was recorded at the Carroll Instrument Rental Company studios in New York City, and all the instruments on it were played soley by Perry (Moog, other keyboards) and Breuer (mostly percussion, xylophone, and a bit of keyboards.)
The album is one of my favorites. Why? Because it features the Moog synthesizer in a playful and delightful way, and because the songs are wonderful, tasty originals -- all written by Perrey and Breuer. Many of the tunes are written in ragtime, and that combination of that "old" style of melody, and the "new" medium of radical electronic instruments is fantastic.
Jean Jacques considers it "an electronic album for children," but in my opinion, its' appeal goes beyond that, and children of all ages can love this album.
I have tried (in vain) to locate the owner of the Pickwick masters, and would LOVE to see it put out legally. I briefly had contact with a CD label out of New Jersey called Simitar Entertainment, and they claimed to be the new owners of both the Pickwick and Tops Records' material. Since then, Simitar seems to have gone out of business, and left no trail behind. I've heard rumors that a Japanese company was going to put THE HAPPY MOOG out, but so far that's not happened. My friend Julian West has cleaned up a nice vinyl copy of THE HAPPY MOOG from my collection, using digital restoration techniques. He and I are waiting to see if A,) we can find the current owner of the Pickwick masters, and B,) if we could find a label to release it on CD. Heck, I'd even START my own label to put THE HAPPY MOOG out. It's a sure-fire winner.
Julian and I have also been working on a "boxed-set" of other Jean Jacques Perrey rarities, including all of his French library music on the Montparnasse label. I was with JJ in France this summer, and personally went through his collection of recordings and unearthed a ton of rare and great things that basically have never seen the light of day. Julian and I have been dutifully restoring these recordings and there is some really exciting things just waiting for legal release. It would be a 4 or 5 CD set, with fully annotated liner notes. But everything's kind of on "hold" right now, until we find the owners of the Pickwick masters -- a key part of Jean Jacques Perrey's unreleased material (on CD.)
If any of you reading this, out there in e-mail-land, happen to know how to contact the owners of the master tapes to THE HAPPY MOOG, please contact me at dana@danacountryman.com.