Baroque Hoedown


"Baroque Hoedown" is a song created by early Moog synthesizer pioneers Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley, also known as Perrey and Kingsley. It was first released on the album in 1967 and was once described as being a "harpsichord gone country".
The composition later became the theme song for Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade in 1972 and all of its subsequent iterations around the world, as well as for Hong Kong Disneyland's Disney Paint the Night Parade and, for a time, Walt Disney World's Electrical Water Pageant. It was also incorporated into Disneyland's Light Magic, Paint the Night Electrical Parade and Remember... Dreams Come True as a tribute to the Main Street Electrical Parade.

Perrey and Kingsley collaboration

Jean-Jacques Perrey met Gershon Kingsley in 1964 at the residence of Perrey's sponsor, Carroll Bratman, eventually becoming associates and creating music together for a period of time. Perrey and Kingsley were among the first musicians to release a single or album making extensive use of the Moog synthesizer, and, in addition to original compositions, their albums featured electronic versions of popular songs. The synthesizers used by Perrey and Kingsley imitate different acoustic instruments. In the case of "Baroque Hoedown," the synthesizer creates sounds that emulate piano, a brass section, chimes, a harpsichord, a percussion section and a kazoo.
"Baroque Hoedown" comes from the second album Perrey and Kingsley made together, Kaleidoscopic Vibrations, a follow-up to their previous album, The In Sound From Way Out. The two albums were reissued in 1988 on one compact disc entitled The Essential Perrey and Kingsley.

Use of the Moog synthesizer

In 1963, Robert Moog met German music engineer Herb Deutsch at the New York State School Music Association gathering at the Eastman School of Music. Deutsch encouraged Moog to create the first prototype of a voltage-controlled synthesizer by combining a voltage-controlled oscillator and amplifier model with a keyboard. Moog noticed he could change pitch electronically by adjusting voltage using silicon transistors, thus he created a system that altered voltage by one step in order to change the pitch by an octave. Moog didn’t call the machine he created a “synthesizer” until 1967, the same year Perrey and Kingsley used his machine to write "Baroque Hoedown."
In "Baroque Hoedown," Perrey and Kingsley used nuances and characteristics of the Baroque style, such as running lines accompanied by a basso continuo, and an ornamented cadence. Perrey and Kingsley also added swung and syncopated rhythms to achieve the "hoedown" feel. In one section of the piece, Perrey and Kingsley used the synthesizer to create a different timbre from what they had previously used, specifically of telephone buttons being pushed.
Although Perrey and Kingsley were among the first to use the Moog synthesizer, the Wendy Carlos release Switched-On Bach was the first classical album to use the Moog synthesizer that became widely popular. After Carlos, American avant-garde composer John Cage and jazz musician Sun Ra utilized the Moog synthesizer, as well as pop artists such as the Monkees, the Beatles, the Byrds, Stevie Wonder, Frank Zappa and the Beach Boys.

Legacy

"Baroque Hoedown" continues to be used as the theme song throughout the Main Street Electrical Parade at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: DreamLights! at Tokyo Disneyland. The current Magic Kingdom parade was originally created for Disneyland, debuting in 1972 and running there until 1996, and later ran at its sister park, Disney California Adventure, from 2001 to 2010. An identical parade ran at Tokyo Disneyland from 1985 to 1995 and an entirely new and technologically updated parade, Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: DreamLights!, premiered there in 2001. In 2009, the Disney California Adventure version of the parade was updated with a new soundtrack based almost entirely on the DreamLights! arrangement, while largely retaining its 1970s-era floats. This version of the parade was moved from California Adventure to the Magic Kingdom in 2010, where it ran until 2016. It returned to Disneyland for a limited time in January 2017 and is scheduled to make another limited appearance there in August 2019.
In 2014, Hong Kong Disneyland premiered its new nighttime parade, Paint the Night, a spiritual successor to the Main Street Electrical Parade featuring two recurring theme songs throughout: a Cantonese-language arrangement of Owl City's "When Can I See You Again?" and "Baroque Hoedown." With the Electrical Parade relocated to Florida indefinitely, the Disneyland Resort premiered its own version, the Paint the Night Electrical Parade, on May 22, 2015, again featuring "When Can I See You Again?" and "Baroque Hoedown."

In popular culture

The song has also been performed as a duet arranged for viola and flute, with the accompaniment of a piano, as well as by a recorder ensemble, a flute choir and solo ukulele.