MOONDOG (born Louis Thomas Hardin, 26 May 1916–8 September 1999), composer, inventor, and cult figure whose musical genius flew largely under the radar during his lifetime owing to his eccentricities and rejection of the mainstream.
Moondog was born Louis Thomas Hardin in Marysville, Kansas. He was permanently blinded in an accident during adolescence, after which he concentrated on his musical education, securing a scholarship in 1942 to study at the Memphis Conservatory. After moving to New York City in 1947 he adopted the name “Moondog” (in honor of “a dog who used to howl at the moon more than any dog I knew of”) and soon became known as “the Viking of Sixth Avenue,” playing homemade instruments on the streets of midtown Manhattan while dressed in cape and tunic, sporting a horned helmet, and brandishing a spear. Moondog’s propensity for Viking attire stemmed from his desire to distance himself from the figure of Jesus Christ, traditional depictions of whom he physically resembled. Many of his peers attempted to persuade him to wear regular clothing to make himself more accessible but he refused, claiming, “I valued my freedom of dress more than I cared to advance my career.”
Moondog learned music entirely via Braille notation. One account describes his creative process: “He wouldn’t compose at a piano, but while standing on the street, he would have a Braille slate with a puncher and punch the notation into the card under his robes. To stand on Sixth Avenue and compose these rich scores is extraordinary—keeping all the voices in your mind.” Moondog’s music drew inspiration from bebop, Native American rhythms, the Renaissance, rumba, jazz, and, last but not least, Manhattan’s urban soundscape—car horns, construction noises, footsteps, etc.
In 1953 his inaugural album, Moondog and His Friends, marked his formal entry onto the music scene; more than a dozen would follow over the next decades. Moondog’s distinctive blend of spoken poetry over jazz-infused rhythms and a backdrop of street sounds resonated profoundly with Beatnik and other avant-garde artists, and the corner of 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue soon became a de rigueur pilgrimage site for serious musicians looking to broaden their horizons.
Moondog was also an inventor. He frequently played instruments of his own creation, such as a tiny triangular harp called the “oo.” Perhaps his most famous invention was the “trimba,” a multitextured percussion instrument so unusual that only one person, Moondog’s sole student, Stefan Lakatos, knew how to play it.
In 1974 Moondog moved to West Germany, after which he steered clear of America, returning only once, in 1989, for a tribute concert for him at the New Music America Festival in Brooklyn, where he conducted a performance by the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. One reviewer wrote of that concert:
He is uncomfortable with being an authority figure, so he sits to the side of the orchestra and provides the beat on a bass drum or timpani. … He said: “I see my relationship with [the orchestra members] as being first among equals, so that in a way there are 40 conductors, each in charge of his own part, and each responsible for the performance.”
Though he was essentially a street busker for most of his life, Moondog nevertheless had a wide influence on artists from all over the musical map: Janis Joplin, Leonard Bernstein, Arturo Toscanini, Frank Zappa, Julie Andrews, Benny Goodman, Igor Stravinsky, Bob Weir, Charles Mingus, and Philip Glass all cited his work. In 2023 the Kronos Quartet and Ghost Train Orchestra released a tribute album, Songs and Symphoniques: The Music of Moondog, featuring contributions from a host of musicians including Rufus Wainwright and Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker.