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Billboard Magazine

JULY 26, 1969
Moog the Medium as Cos. Get Electronic Message
By MIKE GROSS

NEW YORK - The Moog has become the pop music industry's new fair-haired boy. A flurry of pop albums using the Moog, an electronic synthesizer that can reproduce any existing sound, have been hitting the market in the past few weeks and more companies are expected to get on the band wagon. The Moog, a computerized instrument, was created by Robert Moog.

In the offing is a pop album from Columbia which started it all last year with "Switched-On Bach," a Masterworks entry which has passed the 300,000 sales mark and hit both the classical and pop LP best-selling charts. Columbia's pop LP has the working title of "Switched-On Rock" and is being put together for Columbia by Norman Dohph, musical engineer on the Moog; Alan Foust, arranger, and Kenny Axher, keyboard operator. John McClure, director of Columbia Masterworks, is executive producer.

According to Russ Bernard, assistant to Bill Farr, Columbia's marketing vice-president, the pop Moog album will be used as a vehicle for legitimizing electronic music. Heretofore, he pointed out, only the sophisticated and/or avant-garde consumer was receptive to electronic music but since the release and acceptance of "Switched-On Bach," "we feel the average consumer is no longer afraid of electronic music." So strong are the Columbia executives on the Moog that, in addition to the pop entry, the company also has Walter Carlos on tap for a follow-up Masterworks release to his successful "Switched-On Bach."

Other labels which have been using the Moog in its pop album recordings are RCA, Command, Audio Fidelity, Vanguard, Decca, Zapple, and Limelight. RCA is out with Sid Bass' "Moog Espana" and Hugo Montenegro's "Moog Power"; Audio Fidelity has Gershon Kingsley's "Music to Moog By"; Command has "Moog, the Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman," which has sold over 125,000 copies and a single from the album, "Minotaur," which is over the 300,000 mark; Vanguard has an album forthcoming by Jean Jacques Perry which will feature the sound of the Moog synthesizer; Decca is due with "Switched-On Bacharach," featuring artist Christopher Scott and "the multiple sounds of the Moog"; Limelight has "Moog Groove" by the Electronic Concepts Orchestra, and Zapple has "Electronic Sounds" by Beatle George Harrison.

Also, Command has three new electronic music albums ready for release, "Copper Plated Integrated Circuit," produced by Walter Sear, Robert Moog's partner; "Genuine Electric Latin Love Machine" by Richard Hayman, and "The Age of Electronicus" by Dick Hyman.