Eddie Garson’s “Mind Your Own Business” b/w “Take a Chance” (Guyden 2039) was a 1960 pop production by Mort Garson and Bob Hilliard, two highly accomplished Tin Pan Alley veterans. While not achieving any lasting success, the recording is a milestone of sorts where thorough music masters try their hand in the new world of pop music. Eventually, they had great success with Ruby and the Romantics’ “Our Day Will Come” in 1963. But for now they are exploring the novelty market, combining Eddie Garson’s accomplished crooner chops with splashes of water and the sound of crashes on “Mind Your Own Business,” the original A side. The B side, “Take a Chance,” is much more in the straight Frankie Avalon style, though he soars like the sound of a Vegas act, something many of his peers were unable to do. Eddie Garson’s name sounds like he might be related to Mort Garson but his voice shows he could make his own contribution. The production sounds like no expense was spared, a characteristic of music publishers’ making their mark in the new rock-n-roll era, as Shapiro-Bernstein, one of the classic publishers, shows here.
Mort Garson was a Canadian-born graduate of the Juilliard School of Music who composed, arranged and conducted sessions for Ed Ames, Doris Day, the Lettermen, the Sandpipers and Mel Torme. He pioneered the use of the Moog Synthesizer on Jacques Wilson’s Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds, Bernie Krause’s The Wozard of Iz -- An Electronic Odyssey that featured Nancy Sinatra (as "Suzy Jane Hokum") as Dorothy. He recorded Electronic Hair Pieces, electronic version of songs from the musical Hair and the 12-volume Signs of the Zodiac in honor of the astrological signs. He moved onto the occult with 1971's Black Mass/Lucifer and Music for Sensuous Lovers. Mort Garson died on January 8, 2008 at the age of 83.
Bob Hilliard was a prolific and respected lyricist who worked with, besides Mort Garson, Jule Styne, Les Pockris, Sammy Fain, Dick Sanford, Sammy Mysels and Milton DeLugg. Bob Hilliard died of a heart attack at the February 1, 1971 at the sadly premature age of 53.
