Biography
Mort Garson left an indelible mark across multiple corners of popular culture throughout the 1960s and 1970s, functioning simultaneously as a creator of mainstream pop successes, a skilled orchestrator, and an early adopter of electronic instrumentation. His songwriting credits encompassed Ruby & the Romantics’ 1963 number-one single “Our Day Will Come,” while his arranging work extended to the opulent string parts on Glen Campbell’s 1968 blockbuster “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Garson also played a pivotal role in bringing the Moog synthesizer into public awareness via advertising commissions and his score for the 1969 CBS telecast of the lunar landing. Once he joined the small circle of musicians who acquired one of these costly devices, his output grew increasingly diverse, encompassing the suggestive atmosphere of 1971’s Music for Sensuous Lovers and the 1974 children’s recording The Little Prince, which earned a Grammy. Later generations came to regard his late-1960s and early-1970s album sequence as his most consequential contribution, particularly the atmospheric occult explorations of 1971’s Black Mass/Lucifer, the meditative guidance of 1975’s Ataraxia: The Unexplained, and the botanical focus of the following year’s Mother Earth’s Plantasia, all of which shaped subsequent ambient, cinematic, and new-age creators. By the 2000s these recordings had attained cult status, prompting archival reissues in the late 2010s and 2020s that finally accorded Garson recognition for his foundational role in electronic music.
Born in 1924 in St. John, New Brunswick, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Garson grew up in New York City after his family crossed the border. He began piano studies at age 11 and later received a Juilliard School of Music scholarship in composition. Shortly before his World War II military service, he worked briefly as a professional pianist and arranger; upon returning he established himself as a versatile studio musician capable of arranging, conducting, or composing on demand. Early songwriting contributions included Brenda Lee’s 1957 single “Dynamite” and Cliff Richard’s 1961 hit “Theme for a Dream.”
Garson achieved his initial major breakthrough in 1963 through his partnership with lyricist Bob Hilliard on Ruby & the Romantics’ “Our Day Will Come,” a million-selling chart-topper. Following that success, he relocated with his wife Margaret and their two children to Los Angeles to pursue further opportunities. Notable arranging and accompanying credits from this period encompass Doris Day’s 1965 albums Sentimental Journey and Latin for Lovers as well as Mel Tormé’s 1966 release Right Now!. He also scored the Sandpipers’ 1966 hit “Guantanamera” and reached a commercial peak in 1968 by supplying the string arrangement for Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Concurrently he produced and conducted easy-listening albums modeled on Les Baxter’s style, among them the Continentals’ Bossa Nova for All Ages, the Total Eclipse’s Symphony for the Soul, and Dusk ’Til Dawn Orchestra’s Sea Drift. In collaboration with Perry Botkin, Jr., he created additional easy-listening collections drawn from contemporary pop material, including two volumes of the Hollyridge Strings’ Best of the Beatles Songbook series and their Play the Hits of Simon & Garfunkel.
Alongside his mainstream arranging work, Garson pursued more experimental directions. At the 1967 Audio Engineering Society West Coast convention he encountered Robert Moog and soon purchased a modular synthesizer for his studio. Priced at $15,000 in contemporary dollars, the instrument represented a substantial commitment that redirected his creative focus. He began composing commercial jingles and effects with the Moog, which in turn inaugurated a new chapter of his discography. The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds, issued in May 1967, marked the first West Coast album recorded with the instrument; its instrumental and spoken-word pieces corresponded to the twelve astrological signs. Robert Moog himself participated in the sessions, which also featured electronic innovator Paul Beaver, spoken-word artist Jacques Wilson, folk singer Cyrus Faryar, drummer Hal Blaine, keyboardist Mike Melvoin, and additional prominent session players. The album achieved commercial success and was later cited by the Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward as an influence on Days of Future Passed; it spawned the twelve-volume Signs of the Zodiac series. The following year Garson and Wilson collaborated again on the Bernie Krause-produced The Wozard of Iz: An Electronic Odyssey, a psychedelic reinterpretation of L. Frank Baum’s classic featuring Suzi Jane Hokom as Dorothy.
Nineteen sixty-nine saw Garson’s electronic explorations intersect with major cultural milestones. For A&M he released Electronic Hair Pieces, offering Moog interpretations of songs from the Broadway musical Hair. CBS commissioned him to score its July television coverage of the moon landing; the resulting six-and-a-half-minute piece blended jazz and psychedelic elements. Two years afterward he expanded the occult motifs of earlier projects on Black Mass/Lucifer, an instrumental album steeped in Satanic imagery. Also in 1971 he partnered with performance artist Z on Music for Sensuous Lovers. Subsequent scoring assignments included Larry Hagman’s 1972 film Son of Blob, the 1974 Grammy-winning children’s album The Little Prince narrated by Richard Burton, and Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner’s 1975 animated special The 2000 Year Old Man. Garson returned to record stores in 1975 with Ataraxia: The Unexplained, an instrumental set designed to support guided meditations. The next year he issued Mother Earth’s Plantasia, conceived as a companion to the 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants (later adapted into a documentary scored by Stevie Wonder) and prompted by his wife’s houseplants; the album was initially distributed only through purchases at Los Angeles’ Mother Earth Plant Boutique or Simmons mattresses at Sears.
Described on its packaging as “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” Mother Earth’s Plantasia highlighted a gentler facet of Garson’s synthesizer work and proved to be his final album. As the decade turned, he applied his Moog to theme music for Heatter-Quigley game shows including Gambit, Runaround, and The Magnificent Marble Machine. He also composed the score for the 1983 West End musical Marilyn!, reuniting him with Jacques Wilson as lyricist. After the death of his eldest son in 1984, Garson moved with his family to France for several years, during which he scored the action films Amazon (1985) and Vultures (1987). Upon returning to the United States the family settled in San Francisco, a city Garson had grown fond of during the Plantasia period. Although new credits became sporadic, his earlier recordings began attracting renewed attention: his music appeared in the 1994 short film Arrowhead, and DJ Shadow sampled “Planetary Motivations (Cancer)” on the 1996 album Endtroducing…… In 2002 Garson composed the score for the musical When Garbo Talks, with book and lyrics by longtime collaborator Buddy Kaye; the production premiered in 2010, two years after Garson succumbed to renal failure at age 83 in a San Francisco hospital.
Until his death Garson maintained a daily composing routine, leaving behind unfinished works such as an orchestral suite depicting San Francisco neighborhoods. His stature as an overlooked synthesizer innovator continued to rise in the 2000s and 2010s as collectors rediscovered his catalog through thrift stores and online circulation, elevating the cult reputation of Ataraxia: The Unexplained and especially Mother Earth’s Plantasia. His tracks were featured in the HBO series High Maintenance, the documentary Lil Bub & Friendz, and the podcast The Adventure Zone, while original pressings commanded hundreds of dollars by the late 2010s. Rubellan Remasters reissued Black Mass/Lucifer and Ataraxia: The Unexplained in 2018. Sacred Bones, whose founder Caleb Braaten had first encountered Garson’s music while working at a Denver record store in the early 2000s, launched its own reissue program with Mother Earth’s Plantasia the following year. Additional Sacred Bones editions appeared in late 2020, encompassing remastered versions of Black Mass/Lucifer and Ataraxia: The Unexplained, the rarities compilation Music from Patch Cord Productions, and Didn’t You Hear?, the soundtrack to a 1970 experimental film that included one of Gary Busey’s earliest screen roles. A&M reissued Electronic Hair Pieces in 2022. In July 2023, coinciding with what would have been Garson’s 99th birthday and the moon-landing anniversary, Sacred Bones released Journey to the Moon and Beyond, another compilation containing the lunar-landing score alongside music for the 1974 film Black Eye, a 1970 National Geographic television special, and various advertising cues.
Born in 1924 in St. John, New Brunswick, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Garson grew up in New York City after his family crossed the border. He began piano studies at age 11 and later received a Juilliard School of Music scholarship in composition. Shortly before his World War II military service, he worked briefly as a professional pianist and arranger; upon returning he established himself as a versatile studio musician capable of arranging, conducting, or composing on demand. Early songwriting contributions included Brenda Lee’s 1957 single “Dynamite” and Cliff Richard’s 1961 hit “Theme for a Dream.”
Garson achieved his initial major breakthrough in 1963 through his partnership with lyricist Bob Hilliard on Ruby & the Romantics’ “Our Day Will Come,” a million-selling chart-topper. Following that success, he relocated with his wife Margaret and their two children to Los Angeles to pursue further opportunities. Notable arranging and accompanying credits from this period encompass Doris Day’s 1965 albums Sentimental Journey and Latin for Lovers as well as Mel Tormé’s 1966 release Right Now!. He also scored the Sandpipers’ 1966 hit “Guantanamera” and reached a commercial peak in 1968 by supplying the string arrangement for Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Concurrently he produced and conducted easy-listening albums modeled on Les Baxter’s style, among them the Continentals’ Bossa Nova for All Ages, the Total Eclipse’s Symphony for the Soul, and Dusk ’Til Dawn Orchestra’s Sea Drift. In collaboration with Perry Botkin, Jr., he created additional easy-listening collections drawn from contemporary pop material, including two volumes of the Hollyridge Strings’ Best of the Beatles Songbook series and their Play the Hits of Simon & Garfunkel.
Alongside his mainstream arranging work, Garson pursued more experimental directions. At the 1967 Audio Engineering Society West Coast convention he encountered Robert Moog and soon purchased a modular synthesizer for his studio. Priced at $15,000 in contemporary dollars, the instrument represented a substantial commitment that redirected his creative focus. He began composing commercial jingles and effects with the Moog, which in turn inaugurated a new chapter of his discography. The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds, issued in May 1967, marked the first West Coast album recorded with the instrument; its instrumental and spoken-word pieces corresponded to the twelve astrological signs. Robert Moog himself participated in the sessions, which also featured electronic innovator Paul Beaver, spoken-word artist Jacques Wilson, folk singer Cyrus Faryar, drummer Hal Blaine, keyboardist Mike Melvoin, and additional prominent session players. The album achieved commercial success and was later cited by the Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward as an influence on Days of Future Passed; it spawned the twelve-volume Signs of the Zodiac series. The following year Garson and Wilson collaborated again on the Bernie Krause-produced The Wozard of Iz: An Electronic Odyssey, a psychedelic reinterpretation of L. Frank Baum’s classic featuring Suzi Jane Hokom as Dorothy.
Nineteen sixty-nine saw Garson’s electronic explorations intersect with major cultural milestones. For A&M he released Electronic Hair Pieces, offering Moog interpretations of songs from the Broadway musical Hair. CBS commissioned him to score its July television coverage of the moon landing; the resulting six-and-a-half-minute piece blended jazz and psychedelic elements. Two years afterward he expanded the occult motifs of earlier projects on Black Mass/Lucifer, an instrumental album steeped in Satanic imagery. Also in 1971 he partnered with performance artist Z on Music for Sensuous Lovers. Subsequent scoring assignments included Larry Hagman’s 1972 film Son of Blob, the 1974 Grammy-winning children’s album The Little Prince narrated by Richard Burton, and Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner’s 1975 animated special The 2000 Year Old Man. Garson returned to record stores in 1975 with Ataraxia: The Unexplained, an instrumental set designed to support guided meditations. The next year he issued Mother Earth’s Plantasia, conceived as a companion to the 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants (later adapted into a documentary scored by Stevie Wonder) and prompted by his wife’s houseplants; the album was initially distributed only through purchases at Los Angeles’ Mother Earth Plant Boutique or Simmons mattresses at Sears.
Described on its packaging as “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” Mother Earth’s Plantasia highlighted a gentler facet of Garson’s synthesizer work and proved to be his final album. As the decade turned, he applied his Moog to theme music for Heatter-Quigley game shows including Gambit, Runaround, and The Magnificent Marble Machine. He also composed the score for the 1983 West End musical Marilyn!, reuniting him with Jacques Wilson as lyricist. After the death of his eldest son in 1984, Garson moved with his family to France for several years, during which he scored the action films Amazon (1985) and Vultures (1987). Upon returning to the United States the family settled in San Francisco, a city Garson had grown fond of during the Plantasia period. Although new credits became sporadic, his earlier recordings began attracting renewed attention: his music appeared in the 1994 short film Arrowhead, and DJ Shadow sampled “Planetary Motivations (Cancer)” on the 1996 album Endtroducing…… In 2002 Garson composed the score for the musical When Garbo Talks, with book and lyrics by longtime collaborator Buddy Kaye; the production premiered in 2010, two years after Garson succumbed to renal failure at age 83 in a San Francisco hospital.
Until his death Garson maintained a daily composing routine, leaving behind unfinished works such as an orchestral suite depicting San Francisco neighborhoods. His stature as an overlooked synthesizer innovator continued to rise in the 2000s and 2010s as collectors rediscovered his catalog through thrift stores and online circulation, elevating the cult reputation of Ataraxia: The Unexplained and especially Mother Earth’s Plantasia. His tracks were featured in the HBO series High Maintenance, the documentary Lil Bub & Friendz, and the podcast The Adventure Zone, while original pressings commanded hundreds of dollars by the late 2010s. Rubellan Remasters reissued Black Mass/Lucifer and Ataraxia: The Unexplained in 2018. Sacred Bones, whose founder Caleb Braaten had first encountered Garson’s music while working at a Denver record store in the early 2000s, launched its own reissue program with Mother Earth’s Plantasia the following year. Additional Sacred Bones editions appeared in late 2020, encompassing remastered versions of Black Mass/Lucifer and Ataraxia: The Unexplained, the rarities compilation Music from Patch Cord Productions, and Didn’t You Hear?, the soundtrack to a 1970 experimental film that included one of Gary Busey’s earliest screen roles. A&M reissued Electronic Hair Pieces in 2022. In July 2023, coinciding with what would have been Garson’s 99th birthday and the moon-landing anniversary, Sacred Bones released Journey to the Moon and Beyond, another compilation containing the lunar-landing score alongside music for the 1974 film Black Eye, a 1970 National Geographic television special, and various advertising cues.
Albums
Black Eye
2023
Journey to the Moon and Beyond
2023
Music from Patch Cord Productions
2020
Mother Earth's Plantasia
1976
The Unexplained
1975
Didn't You Hear?
1970
Electronic Hair Pieces
1969
Singles
