''The Wozard of Iz: An Electronic Odyssey'' is a 1968 album of electronic music composed and realized by

Mort Garson Morton Sanford Garson (20 July 1924 – 4 January 2008) was a Canadian composer, arranger, songwriter, and pioneer of electronic music. He is best known for his albums in the 1960s and 1970s, such as '' Mother Earth's Plantasia'' (1976), He also ...

and conceived and written by Jacques Wilson. It

psychedelica ''Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly'' and ''Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk'' are two ''otome'' visual novel video games developed by Otomate. They were published for PlayStation Vita by Idea Factory in Japan in 2015 and 2016, and by Aksys Game ...

lly parodies the 1939 film '' The Wizard of Oz'', setting the characters in the 1960s with a

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

mindset. Throughout the story the main character, Dorothy, seeks out "where it's at". The album was released the year following another collaboration between Garson and Wilson, '' The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds'', a concept album issued by

Elektra Records Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the 1 ...

Production

In a 1969 interview, Garson admitted that he hadn't used the

Moog synthesizer The Moog synthesizer is a modular synthesizer developed by the American engineer Robert Moog. Moog debuted it in 1964, and Moog's company R. A. Moog Co. (later known as Moog Music) produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 20 ...

in "a very sophisticated way" for his 1967 album, '' The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds.'' However, by the time of ''The Wozard of Iz'', he had learned most of the techniques for using the instrument.

Cast of characters

*Dorothy - Suzie Jane Hokom *Scared Crow -

Barney Phillips Bernard Philip Ofner (October 20, 1913 – August 17, 1982), better known by his stage name Barney Phillips, was an American film, television, and radio actor. His most prominent roles include that of Sgt. Ed Jacobs on the 1950s '' Dragnet' ...

*In-man - Jay Jasin *Lyin' Coward -

*Baddy Witch - Julie Haas *Goodie Witch - Jadine Vaughn *Narrator - Jacques Wilson

Track listing

Side one

#"Prologue" - 3:05 #"Leave the Driving to Us" - 2:50 #"Upset Strip" - 2:25 #"Never Follow the Yellow-Green Road" - 2:40 #"Thing-a-Ling (Scared Crow)" - 2:21 #"In-man" - 1:28 #"Man With the Word (Lyin' Coward)" - 2:00 #"They're Off to Find the Wozard" - 1:40

Side two

#"Blue Poppy" - 6:27 #"I've Been Over the Rainbow" - 2:10 #"Big Sur" - 3:20 #"Killing of the Witch" - 3:35 #"Finale" - 1:04

Personnel

– score, electronics * Jacques Wilson – vocals * Bill Lazarus – engineering *

Tom Wilkes Thomas Edward Wilkes (July 30, 1939 – June 28, 2009) was an American art director, designer, photographer, illustrator, writer and producer-director. Life Wilkes was born in Long Beach, California and raised in southern California. Wilkes atte ...

–

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

, cover illustration * Guy Webster – photography * Bernard Krause – producer

Legacy

Kim Cooper, in the 2005 book ''Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed'', described ''The Wozard of Iz'' as "the pinnacle of the rather small genre of psychedelic ''Wizard of Oz''-themed albums", also citing ''The Wizard of Oz and Other Trans Love Trips'', by the West Coast Workshop, in this genre. Garson's album was sampled by

the Avalanches The Avalanches are an Australian electronic music group formed in Melbourne in 1997. They are known for their studio albums ''Since I Left You'' (2000), ''Wildflower'' (2016), and '' We Will Always Love You'' (2020), as well as their live and ...

for their 2016 album ''

Wildflower A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, meaning it was not intentionally seeded or planted. The term implies that the plant probably is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is in any way different from the w ...

'', and gave its name to one of the tracks on that album.

References

Notes

Citations

External links

* 1968 albums Mort Garson albums Albums conducted by Mort Garson A&M Records albums Oz (franchise) {{electronic-album-stub