The Neon Philharmonic

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A psychedelic pop group founded in 1967 by Tupper Saussy and Don Gant.

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History[edit | edit source]

Founded by Tupper Saussy and Don Gant as mostly a studio group, they produced several albums and singles, including a few charting singles, along the way earning three grammy nominations. A musical style that blended classical musicians, session players, and a large production in a mix of pop, rock, and orchestral pop helped launch the project but failed to sustain the momentum.

Don Gant had a number of singles from the early-mid 60s as a singer-songwriter as well as a release only in Japan with a Nashville-based group called Don and the Argus in 1967. Tupper Saussy was a piano virtuoso with several jazz releases mostly with The Tupper Saussy Quartet, which he had started in Sewanee in the the mid-50s and had releases up to 1965. After his jazz output until 1968, Saussy worked as an ad man writing jingles which helped refine his pop sensibilities. His clients included Purity Dairies, Genesco, Union Bank, and May Hosiery Mills, according to obit-writer Tom Wood.

In 1968, contemporaneous to the founding of this group, Tupper Saussy had performed and written material for a psychedelic rock group called The Wayward Bus. Their first release was single called "The Prophet" which featured an instrumental track with a spoken word track by ESP guru David Hoy providing predictions. As 'Tupper Saussy and the Wayward Bus', they put out a follow-up 7" in 1968 called "Love Hum" whose first pressing mislabelled the song "Love Him." Both of these singles were on RCA Victor and added rock and psych rock to the previous jazz output of Tupper Saussy providing a transition into the Neon Philharmonic sound.

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Using his classical training, in 1966, Saussy wrote "The Beast with Five Heads," which was an orchestral composition commissioned by Nashville public schools to introduce children to the orchestra. In 1968 Tupper arranged and conducted several sides for Mickey Newbury, with whom Don Gant was also working extensively. Coming off of his first symphonic composition and inspired by the teamwork of Lennon-McCartney, Tupper teamed up with singer Don Gant to produce four well orchestrated demos to woo Warner Brothers, which financed the albums and several singles afterwards.

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The group released two albums, both in 1969: "The Moth Confesses" which scored a Top 20 hit with the single "Morning Girl," featuring the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and the eponymous "The Neon Philharmonic," which was recorded in Acuff-Rose's tiny studio in Nashville on Ampex by Wesley Rose.

"The Moth Confesses" was described as "A Phonograph Opera" inspired by a production of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra. According to the liner notes, a review by The New York Times panned it and Tupper wanted to see what a terrible opera looked like. An article in The Guardian recalled that the single "Morning Girl" was "as surprising, bright and fresh as a patch of speedwell. Only when you listened closer to the clavinet-led tune did the words sound less than romantic. It was about an older man deflowering a young girl, and trying not to smirk about it in front of her over breakfast the morning after.No matter, it was still the lightest, slightest thing on The Moth Confesses, the single's parent album. The lyrics were almost uniformly about loss and aimlessness." While the hit single "Morning Girl" was covered by several artists including The Lettermen, a Portuguese remake by Brazilian singer Ronnie Von in 1969, and a Japanese remake by Pink Lady in 1978, the final song of the album "Morning Girl, Later" was covered by Shaun Cassidy, David's brother, who changed a few lyrics and released it as "Morning, Girl." While Shaun Cassidy's cover did not chart in the US it did well in Europe.

Unlike the success of the first album, the second album, the self-titled "The Neon Philharmonic" failed almost immediately and lead to a few singles releases afterward and ultimately the dissolution of the project.

After the S/T album, the duo worked only on singles, including “Heighdy-Ho Princess” did receive a scattering of airplay and the only other song of theirs to chart (#94, 1970).

The group was produced by Saussy, Gant, and Bob McCluskey, and engineered by Ronald Gant, Don's brother. The group disbanded in 1975 after releasing numerous non-album singles. Most of the group's output was released by Warner Bros - Seven Arts Records imprint, and then the parent label. After the TRX recordings the name was sold and used for releases on London and MCA, which included some material written by Tupper Saussy, bot not performed by either him or Don Gant. At least one Saussy song, "Making Out the Best I Can", was recorded by this later group and engineered by Ronald Gant. Along with its flipside recording, "So Glad You're a Woman", written by Ray Williams and Ron Demmans, the instrumentation was limited to synthesizers, guitar and drums. These later singles have no other connection to the original group.

Curiosity in the group resulted in a resurgence of interest in the '90s and '00s, including two new box set compilations.


In 2004, the group's song "Mordor National Anthem" from their second album was performed on September 9th, in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, by the Netherlands Theatre Orchestra, who played an evening of music entirely dedicated to the Lord of the Rings, with Actor Christopher Lee narrating. The audience was invited to sing the Anthem, which could make the concert "a very special event," according to Jules van Hessen, Musical Director of the Theatre Orchestra. "But Mordor is a kingdom of darkness," Saussy explains. "The audience will be expected to sing with its back to stage, orchestra, and conductor."


The lyrics to the Anthem, by Saussy, are as follows:


Blest be our shadowland,

dark empty shadowland,

profane intruders keep away

or be consuméd...

Mordor our shadowland,

most noble barrenland,

with great solemnity we pledge

eternal hatred

for the Light that spoils thee.

Don Gant[edit | edit source]

Beginning his career in music in the late 1950s/early 1960s he released several singles including his 1962 “Daydream (Of You)”, his 1963 “Barbara” and his 1965 “High Hoss Baby” among man releases on both Colpix records and then afterward at Hickory Records, which was a local independent record label started by Roy Acuff and Fred Rose of the Acuff-Rose publishing firm. Before his solo stuff he was briefly a member of an Everly Brothers type duo with producer and singer-songwriter Norro Wilson; his background vocals were used for artist like John D. Loudermilk, Don Gibson and Mickey Newbury. Don worked with Tree International music publishing and then for years at Acuff Rose as a songwriter and later as an executive. Using this relationship The Neon Philharmonic had access to the Acuff Rose studio for their recordings.

Songwriter Mickey Newbury said of Gant that there are "A lot of songwriters you'd never have heard of if it wasn't for Don Gant." Gant also produced records for singers Bobby "Blue" Bland, Jimmy Buffett, Lefty Frizzell, Gene & Debbe, Eddy Raven, Ferlin Husky, the Newbeats, and Roy Orbison when he was with MGM Records and later ABC Records.

His extensive experience in the music business and ability to traverse styles with his vocals provided Gant with a range of creative outlets. In a review for "The Moth Confesses" in the Harvard Crimson, the author notes that "DON GANT sings the desperate voice. He establishes a convincing by the honest, open tone of his voice and by conveying the subtleties of the character's progress to painful self-awareness. The voice is in a different psychological state in each aria, thanks to Gant's emotional inflections, but it always belongs to a consistent individual."

As a producer at ABC, Don Gant worked with Lefty Frizzell. As music critic Bruce Sylvester noted on a box set of Lefty's output: "From an artistic standpoint, Lefty's luck changed in 1972 when he signed with ABC, where producer Don Gant fortunately used restraint with the syrupy string sections and choruses watering down so many Nashville sessions at the time. Chart success was scant, but in retrospect his ABC tracks shine. Take “I Never Go around Mirrors,” “That's the Way Love Goes” and Jimmy Buffett and Jerry Jeff Walker's co-write “Railroad Lady.” Bittersweet in its nostalgia, “Honky Tonk Stardust Cowboy” notes a few bygone C&W classics in its bridge, ending with Lefty's own “I Love You a Thousand Ways.” By this point, there was a sadness in his lyrics as well as his vocals in contrast to his early sessions' buoyancy."

He was director of ABC-Dunhill Records, and served as president of the Nashville chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. Don Gant died unexpectedly at the age of 44 in Nashville, March 15 1987, of complications following a serious boating accident in Florida.

Belmont University maintains an endowed scholarship in his name. The 'Don Gant Music Business Endowed Scholarship' provides students with financial help in their pursuit of music business degrees.

Tupper Saussy[edit | edit source]

Born Frederick Tupper Saussy III in Statesboro, Georgia in 1936, Saussy was a composer, musician, artist, art director, actor, and writer among other talents over his many decades of artistic output.

Similar to his genre-defying musical output, Saussy was also a controversial author and tax protester. When The Neon Philharmonic fell apart in 1972, Saussy turned to painting and illustrating children's books. During this time his first marriage ended and he became the subject of IRS attention, encouraging him to study tax and monetary law at the library at the University of the South, back in Sewanee. The research done during the mid to late 70s informed a play and a book. His 1977 play, "The Gimmes", openly criticized the IRS and put him more on the agency’s radar, while he was being pursued for tax evasion. His 1980 book, Miracle on Main Street, attacked the IRS from a Christian perspective, claiming to "reveal the beautiful but simple truth of how the individual in America today can restore freedom. The book is free from hatred, hostility, or revenge." His trial for tax evasion ended with three counts of wilful failure to file tax returns in 1985, but two years passed until he was ordered to surrender, during which he co-wrote the autobiography of James Earl Ray and disputing the federal version of events.

On April 10, 1987, the date he was ordered to surrender to federal authorities, he appeared at a federal Penitentiary in Georgia where he was supposed to do time and instead recorded a statement at the sidegate, which he mailed to a Nashville news station. He then disappeared for ten years, calling himself "the least wanted man in America," eventually being turned in by another felon in 1997. While serving a 14-month sentence he wrote Rulers of Evil, which "valuable new proof of a vast Roman Catholic sub-stratum of American history -- more specifically, that Jesuits played eminent and underappreciated roles in persuading New Englanders to rebel against their mother country in 1776."

In his ten years on the run, Saussy moved around frequently with supporters and friends helping to hide him and he began to wear a hairpiece. He told the Guardian, "When I lived in Seattle, I would frequent Rainier Mall, where there stood a very fine 9ft Steinway. On certain mornings, when traffic was low, I would practise the Goldberg Variations on it. Later, I was offered a job selling keyboards in another mall. I worked there three months and never sold a piano. The proprietor said I was too good; my playing intimidated people. He suggested I dumb myself down and make playing seem more possible to customers. I tried it, but felt whorish. Although my sales career was a disaster, I still made enough money to live on."

According to online progressive Christian outlet Mockingbird, Tupper "embraced his Christian and Protestant heritage big time, writing a book that basically blamed all of America’s problems on the Vatican." He came from an ancient Huguenot family, with Savannah roots, "When Saussy was betrayed by a fellow fugitive in l997, he said that his Christian faith comforted him: “A Christian is honored by betrayal.”"

His musical legacy after The Neon Philharmonic, included a return to the piano in later years. His songs have been recorded by such a diversity of artists as Shaun Cassidy, Perry Como, Chet Atkins, Al Hirt, Brenda Lee, Ray Stevens, Roy Orbison and Patti Page

Good friend R. Stevie Moore maintains an online shrine to the life of Tupper Saussy on his website.

Tupper died March 16 2007 - sadly a week before he was to perform his new album, 'The Chocolate Orchid Piano Bar,' at the Basement. "It's the ideal piano bar," he told The Guardian — a place "where only standards are played, standards nobody has ever heard before. One where the pianist sings his own songs that already seem familiar to you."

Members[edit | edit source]

Kenneth A. Buttrey - drums

Jerry Carrigan - drums

Chip Young - guitar

Don Gant - vocals

Dennis Good - trombone, brass

Rufus Long - flute, piccolo, wind

Pierre Menard - strings, "Concert Master"

Norbert Putnam - bass, rhythm

Tupper Saussy - Conductor, piano, harpsichord, keyboards

Don Sheffield - trumpet, brass

Chuck Wyatt - flute, piccolo, wind

Releases[edit | edit source]

Albums[edit | edit source]

Jan. 1969: "The Moth Confesses" on Warner Bros., cat# WS-1769

Sept. 1969: "The Neon Philharmonic" on Warner Bros., cat# WS-1804

Singles & EPs[edit | edit source]

1969:

Jan. 1969: "Morning Girl" / "Brilliant Colors" on Warner Bros. - Seven Arts Records, cat# 7621

July, 1969: "No One Is Going To Hurt You" / "You Lied" on Warner Bros. - Seven Arts Records, cat# 7311

Nov. 1969: "Clouds" / "Snow" on Warner Bros. - Seven Arts Records, cat# 7355


1970:

March 1970: "Heighdy-Ho Princess" / "Don't Know My Way Around My Soul" on Warner Bros, cat# 7380

July 1970: "Flowers For Your Pillow" / "To Be Continued" on Warner Bros. Records, cat#7419


1971:

Jan. 1971: "Something to Believe In" / "A Little Love" on Warner Bros., cat# 7457

May 1971: "Got a Feelin' in My Bones" / "Keep the Faith in Me" on Warner Bros., cat# 7497


1972: "Annie Poor " / "Love Will Find a Way" on TRX, cat# T-5039


1975:

"So Glad You're A Woman" / "Makin' Out The Best I Can" on MCA, cat# 40518

"Long Distance Love Affair" / "Makin' Out the Best I Can" on London Records, cat# 2577

"Bright Lights, Hard Nights" / "She Looked Like A Woman To Me" ‎(7", Single) on London Records, cat# L-2598


The Neon Philharmonic Featuring The Springer Bros. - "Twice As Strong" / "Don't Look Back" ‎(7", Single) on London Records cat# L-2636


unknown date:

The Association / The Neon Philharmonic - "Windy" / "Morning Girl" ‎(7") on American Pie cat# 9006

"Heighdy-Ho Princess" / "Morning Girl" ‎(7", Single) on Warner Bros. Records cat# GWB 0318, as part of the Back-to-Back Hit series

Compilations[edit | edit source]

2003: Brilliant Colors: The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings on Rhino Handmade cat# RHM2 7844

2022: To Be Continued: The Complete Warner Bros Non Album Singles And More ‎(LP, Comp) on Hanky Panky Records cat# HPR 056

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External references[edit | edit source]

https://www.discogs.com/artist/985545-The-Neon-Philharmonic

https://www.discogs.com/artist/435830-Don-Gant

http://www.45cat.com/artist/don-gant

https://www.discogs.com/artist/985543

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neon_Philharmonic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Gant

https://www.donkey-show.com/?p=2246

https://web.archive.org/web/20070324151648/http://www.tuppersaussy.com/html/music/mordor.html

https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/tupper_saussy

http://archivesofoblivion.blogspot.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/apr/21/popandrock

https://www.popsike.com/php/quicksearch.php?searchtext=TUPPER+SAUSSY

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/298345.Rulers_of_Evil

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/478678.The_Miracle_on_Main_Street

https://mbird.com/music/introducing-tupper-saussy/

https://www.nashvillepost.com/business/a-belle-meade-renegade-a-nashville-original/article_504b457b-782e-54be-a81d-6ba6204ddfd2.html

http://poprunners.blogspot.com/2018/07/psychedelic-sunshine-baroque-pop-neon.html

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/6/2/the-moth-confesses-ptupper-saussy-became/

https://www.belmont.edu/sfs/scholarships/endowed.html

https://www.feenotes.com/database/artists/gant-don-24th-october-1942-15th-march-1987/

https://www.goldminemag.com/columns/a-huge-lefty-frizzell-box-celebrates-a-1950s-honky-tonk-hero

http://www.onehitwondersthebook.com/?page_id=13951

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/9269288 Audio Obit of Tupper Saussy in 2007