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.

Their impact today

Though Perrey and Kingsley never enjoyed tremendous commercial success, their music inspired a generation of musicians and was used (and still is used) extensively in advertising. Moog Indigo, a Jean-Jacques Perrey solo album from 1970 featured a cut called "E.V.A." This slow, funky track is one of the most sampled in hip hop and rap music history. In the US, it's currently being used in a TV ad for Zelnorm, a prescription medication for, of all things, irritable bowel syndrome. The same album produced "The Elephant Never Forgets" which is used as the theme of the Spanish Televisa comedy, "El Chavo Del Ocho." Even the Beastie Boys used both the title and cover art of the first album for their own In Sound From Way Out! album in 1996, while Smash Mouth borrowed the opening riff from "Swan's Splashdown" for their 1997 hit, "Walking On The Sun." Gershon Kingsley's biggest contribution to mainstream pop music came in the early 1970s as the composer of "Popcorn," the single biggest hit of the German phantom-band "Hot Butter" led by American Stan Free.

Related Topics:
Hip hop - Rap - Zelnorm - Televisa - Beastie Boys - Smash Mouth - Popcorn - "Hot Butter" - Stan Free

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Their work for Vanguard is available on a three-CD set called The Out Sound From Way In! The Complete Vanguard Recordings. The bonus CD features two remixes of "E.V.A." by Fatboy Slim, remixes of "Winchester Cathedral" and "Lover's Concerto" from Kaleidoscopic Vibrations as well as "Electronic Can-Can" and "Unidentified Flying Object," each by techno artists Eurotrash.

Related Topics:
Fatboy Slim - Techno - Eurotrash

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Perrey has recorded two fairly recent CDs, Eclektronics" - recorded in 1997 (Basta, 2000), and Circus of Life - recorded in 1999 (PHMP, 2000). He is currently recording a new CD entitled The Happy Electropop Music Machine with musician and arranger Dana Countryman. Information and sound samples can be found at http://www.jeanjacquesperrey.com/jjp/news/news.html

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Perrey lives in France.

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Gershon Kingsley lives in New York City, and is semi-retired, but is still passionate about music.

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