The long-lost story of Mort Garson, Saint John's electronic music pioneer and moon landing composer
CBC
On July 20, 1969, the world was watching the CBS News broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing. As Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface for the first time, the music millions of viewers heard was an otherworldly, futuristic soundtrack by Mort Garson.
Without Garson, "electronic music as we know it today would not exist," said Caleb Braaten of Sacred Bones Records, a Brooklyn, New York, label that specializes in lost and obscure recordings.
Garson wrote popular songs, including Our Day Will Come, a hit for Ruby and the Romantics, among other artists. He was an arranger on recordings by Doris Day, Glen Campbell, Mel Tormé and for The Sandpipers' 1966 hit, Guantanamera.
He also was instrumental in popularizing the Moog synthesizer.
In 1996, indie rocker Beck sampled Garson on the song Devil's Haircut.
Yet today, few people realize he grew up in New Brunswick.
Morton Samuel Garson was born in Saint John on July 20, 1924, to Frank and Emma Garson — Russian Jewish immigrants who both attended Shaarei Zedek Synagogue on Carleton Street.
"Dad talked a lot about Canada and how that was where he came from," said his only daughter, Day Garson-Darmet, of San Francisco.
In an unpublished handwritten memoir, Garson described how his father "looked up in the balcony [of Shaarei Zedek] and saw my mother Emma … He waited outside the synagogue and introduced himself. After they talked for a while, he asked her if she would like to take a ride in his car on Sunday (the next day). She was delighted and asked if she could bring her two sisters. He said, 'bring your whole family.' She did."
His parents married in 1921 and moved into a townhouse at 204 Douglas Avenue in the city's north end. Their daughter, Riva, was born in 1923. Fifteen months later, Garson came into the picture.
Frank Garson was a "junk man" who ran the New Brunswick Iron & Wrecking Co. at 151 Prince William St. Newspaper ads between 1919 and 1921 show him advertising for sale an eclectic array of machines, including second-hand mining gear, locomotives and old streetcar bodies.
"His competitor was Louis B. Mayer," Garson wrote, "who was interested in silent movie pictures — and you know the rest of the story. He moved to Hollywood and became very successful."
Mayer went on to co-found Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, MGM studios, in 1924 —the year Mort was born.
Little did his family know, he was headed for his own Hollywood success story.
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