Perrey and Kingsley

The musical duo Perrey and Kingsley (Jean-Jacques Perrey, b. 1929 and Gershon Kingsley, b. 1925), were pioneers in the field of electronic music. Prior to their collaboration in 1964, electronic music was considered to be purely avant-garde. The notion of electronic music for the masses was nearly unthinkable.

Hollywood takes notice

Their second and final collaborative effort came in 1967 with the release of Spotlight On The Moog (Kaleidoscopic Vibrations). This was a similar sounding effort, but instead of all original compositions, the album had versions of popular songs of the day and was somewhat more sophisticated in its recording technique. In this album, Perrey's tape loops and effects were added in post-production after Kingsley's orchestrations were recorded, a technique used by electronic artists to this day. The album was one of the first to use the new Moog Synthesizer, a massive, complicated electronic instrument resembling an old-style telephone switchboard. The album also bore two notable singles. In fact, the Moog album was released a year and a half prior to the release of Walter (later Wendy) Carlos' ground breaking 'Switched-On Bach' album. "The Savers" would go on to fame in 1968 as the Clio Award-winning music for a television ad for No-Cal diet drinks, and in 1972 as the theme to the television game show "The Joker's Wild". About the time "The Savers" was being used on television, engineers with the Walt Disney Company were at work on a new parade at Disneyland, the "Main Street Electrical Parade." The idea was to cover floats with thousands of electronically-controlled colored lights and to set the show to music. A Disney musician Don Dorsey stumbled on a Perrey-Kingsley cut called "Baroque Hoedown," an upbeat, almost sparkling number best described as "harpsichord gone country." It would become the underlying theme of the parade for the next three decades at Disneyland and is still in use today at its new home, Disney's California Adventure.

Related Topics:
Moog - Clio Award - "The Joker's Wild" - Walt Disney Company - Disneyland - Main Street Electrical Parade - Disney's California Adventure

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Several segments of Sesame Street produced in the 1970s also made use of music from In Sound from Way Out.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~