Wendy Carlos's Moog-synthesized classics

[jtbell]

When I wrote about my recent visit to the Moogseum in Asheville NC in this thread in the General Discussion forum, I commented:

When I was in high school in the late 1960s, two of the first albums I bought were Walter/Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach and The Well-Tempered Synthesizer, which helped make Moog famous.

I bought those albums on tape cassettes, which eventually became unusable due to sticking tape reels or flaking iron oxide or whatever, probably by the 1990s. They weren't among my last remaining cassettes which I digitized in the mid to late 2000s.

So, after I returned from Asheville, I started looking for them on CD, and was surprised to learn that they're out of print, even though they were best-sellers in their day.

The original releases were on Columbia Records, one of the old-time major labels, which was bought by Sony in 1988. Carlos's contract with them apparently ended sometime in the 1990s. She remastered the recordings, and released them on CD around 2000 on the small East Side Digital label in Minneapolis.

According to her web site, she lost her distribution by ESD. According to another site, she has not made any of her music available online via download or streaming. So the only way to find the music now is via sellers of used or remaindered (leftover) recordings.

Her website has apparently not been significantly updated since 2009, except to warn visitors about an unauthorized biography of her which appeared in 2020, written by the author of the second link in the preceding paragraph.

On Amazon, I found a third-party seller with the East Side Digital CDs of my two old albums, plus two other albums which I never bought in their original versions:

• Switched-On Bach (1968)
• The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (1969)
• Switched-On Bach II (1973)
• Switched-On Brandenburgs (1980), with all six of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos

They've now arrived:

Between the remastering and the format change, I'm sure they sound a lot better than my old cassettes. They certainly bring back memories.

 

[Hornbein]

I bought a copy of her Beauty In The Beast, which I thought well worth a listen or three.

 

[dlgoff]

When I wrote about my recent visit to the Moogseum in Asheville NC in this thread in the General Discussion forum, I commented:

I love all that old equipment in your linked thread. But speaking of Moog synthesizers, I was lucky enough to attend a Electrical Engineering seminar that my University sponsored with Robert Moog explaining all the components of his first synthesizer. I was on the front row. His lecture inspired me to design a synthesizer that simulated string and percussion instruments.

 

[Tom.G]

Moog appeared on an old TV show called "To Tell the Truth" where he demonstrated an early version. The intro states that "Switched On Bach" sold over 700 000 copies.

Cheers,
Tom

p.s. My wife ran across the video a few weeks ago and pointed it out to me.

 

[jtbell]

I'm embarrassed to admit that I picked the wrong guy. All those photos I saw at the Moogseum didn't sink in enough.

 

[dlgoff]

I'm embarrassed to admit that I picked the wrong guy.

So did I.

 

[dlgoff]

Moog appeared on an old TV show called "To Tell the Truth" where he demonstrated an early version. The intro states that "Switched On Bach" sold over 700 000 copies.

Cheers,
Tom

p.s. My wife ran across the video a few weeks ago and pointed it out to me.

I'm fairly sure that's the exact synthesizer he had when he explained how it worked at my University's EE seminar.

 

[jtbell]

Incidentally, my wife and I watch the current version of To Tell the Truth, when it appears on ABC, hosted by Anthony Anderson with help from his mama Doris. The format is similar, but a bit livelier nowadays.

 

[jasonRF]

Switched-On Bach (1968)
The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (1969)

My father had those on vinyl for as long as I can remember. I definitely have fond memories of listening to them with him. Thanks for the reminder - I may need to find copies myself!

Jason