Customer Reviews

MOOG: The Electric Eclectics Of Dick Hyman

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3 star:		(1)
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Anyone familiar with Hyman's recordings knows that this album is no throwaway. He was genuinely interested in what the Moog could do (just as he once made a credible LP based on the sound possibilities of a Lowery organ). This is good, clean fun. It's a tad too funky to be a "lounge" classic. The reason so many people love this CD is because it's so entertaining.

Bob Rixon, WFMU-FM

From circa 1968 to 1972, there were a large string of albums played on Moog synthesizers. Many of them were versions of pop and classical songs played on that big modular beast. Most of this was pretty cheesy and dated, to say the least, but interesting. Walter (Wendy) Carlos' Switched-On Bach started it. And then you got albums like Gershon Kingsley's Music to Moog By, various other Kingsley albums, and albums from Frenchman Jean-Jacques Perrey (he also released a few albums with Kingsley as well). Not to mention Beaver & Krause. Pretty soon the Moog entered rock music. Simon & Garfunkle recorded "Save the Life of my Child" who I assume featured Paul Beaver on the Moog. The Beatles gave us Abbey Road in which several songs used the Moog. Then Emerson, Lake & Palmer really got serious with the Moog by going way overboard with Keith Emerson not only giving us the big Moog III-C, but several Minimoogs, and other assorted keyboards in his setup. But before that, some guy named Dick Hyman, who pioneered the use of the Lowrey organ released this album: Moog: The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman in 1969 on the ABC/Command label. The lunar module on the cover revealed that this album must have came out around the same time as the Apollo moon landing. Musically it's really cheesy, but that's what you expect from this kind of music. He also played the Lowrey organ. Although it's been a while since I heard this, the one stick out cut is "The Minotaur". Listen to this, and then listen to "Tank" off Emerson, Lake & Palmer's debut, and tell me that this particular cut did not have an influence on Keith Emerson's playing. A lot of the same synth sounds you hear on "The Minotaur", you hear on "Tank". Coicidence? While I don't say this album is a masterpiece, like many other Moog albums released from 1968-1972, this has its appeal and worth owning if you like this stuff.

Wow I loved this album....I bought it on a whim at a garage sale (on tape) and it completed me. I listened to it all the time, got a portable tape player to play it for my friends....but some of them just didn't get it. At the time I was listening to Air and 1970's Boney M alot so this album was an excellent fit. I think you will like it if you love simple, fun and early electro music already. It is really a rare gem. Amazing

Yes, this is the same Dick Hyman who writes the scores to all of Woody Allen's films. But this doesn't sound anything like those soundtracks. Here we have an album from 1969 where he experiments with the moog synthesizer. On the first three cuts on the album, he composed actual tunes beforehand, and they have nice melodys. On the rest of the album, he improvised in the studio, and these tracks meander all over the place. One of the improvised tracks, "The Minotaur", somehow became a hit single, albeit in an edited version that was probably a lot shorter than the eight and a half minute version featured here. I think they should have included the hit single version as a bonus track, but they didn't. Instead, we get three cuts from this album's "sequel", "The Age of Electronics". Most of that album was comprised of cover versions of recent hits by other artists, and two of the three bonus tracks are indeed covers.

Check it out...there's even a raw James Brown song covered with
a synth