Pierre Moerlen
French drummer, percussionist, and composer Pierre Moerlen was born on October 23, 1952!
He is considered one of the most brilliant, precise and innovative melodic drummers and percussionists to emerge from Europe, the man who led the musical revolution of the band "Gong" from psychedelic space rock to virtuoso jazz-fusion based on marimbas and vibraphone under the name "Pierre Moerlen's Gong", and Mike Oldfield's rhythmic right-hand man on his greatest albums and on stages around the world. Here are 35 interesting facts about Pierre Moerlen...
1. He was born on October 23, 1952, in the city of Colmar in the Alsace region of France, the third child of five siblings in a musical family, in which all five children studied music with their parents and became professional musicians.
2. His father, Maurice Moerlen, was a lecturer in organ, piano and harmony at the Mulhouse Conservatory and served as the principal organist of the historic Strasbourg Cathedral, while his mother was a piano and music teacher in schools.
3. He took his first musical steps by studying classical piano with his father, but at the age of 14 he decided to switch to drums and percussion, instruments in which he demonstrated an extraordinary natural talent.
4. Between 1967 and 1971, he studied at the Strasbourg Regional Conservatory as an outstanding student of Jean Batigne, founder of the renowned classical and contemporary percussion ensemble "Les Percussions de Strasbourg", who gave him a rigorous classical foundation and rare mastery of the marimba, vibraphone, xylophone and timpani.
5. As early as 1969, when he was only 17 years old, he participated in the recording of the first album of his life, the debut album of the Alsatian folk-rock artist Roger Siffer, and at the same time he founded his first experimental rock band in Strasbourg, "Hasm Congélateur."
6. In the early 1970s, he met the brothers Patrice Lemoine and Jean-Philippe Lemoine from Alsace, and in January 1973, while he was in Paris looking for work in classical orchestras, the brothers told him that the Canterbury psychedelic prog-rock band "Gong" was looking for a replacement for drummer Laurie Allan.
7. He traveled to the band's house in the heart of the forest in the village of Voisines near the town of Sens in France, joined the commune of the band's founder, Daevid Allen, and his partner, Gilli Smyth, and received the legendary stage name Pierre de Strasbourg in the band.
8. Between March and May 1973, while Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth were temporarily retired from active duty, he played in the interim line-up "Paragong" alongside guitarist Steve Hillage, brass player Didier Malherbe, keyboardist Tim Blake and bassist Mike Howlett, a period documented on the archival album "Live 1973".
9. With the return of Daevid Allen, "Gong" became the rhythmic backbone of the two central parts of the "Radio Gnome Invisible" trilogy, the masterful albums "Angel's Egg" from 1973 and "You" from 1974, in which he combined complex polyrhythmics and percussion that gave the band's spatial vision a mesmerizing power.
10. Shortly after "Gong" was signed to the record company "Virgin Records" headed by Richard Branson and performed in London, the audience included the young British musician Mike Oldfield, who was deeply impressed by his playing and invited him to participate in the historic premiere concert of the piece "Tubular Bells" at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in June 1973.
11. In November 1973, he also participated in the famous live recording at the BBC studios of "Tubular Bells" alongside Mike Oldfield, guitarist Mick Taylor from "The Rolling Stones", his friend Steve Hillage, keyboardist Mike Ratledge from "Soft Machine" and members of the band "Henry Cow".
12. Between 1974 and 1975, he left and returned to the ranks of "Gong" intermittently, partly because he was invited to perform around the world with his former teacher's elite ensemble, "Les Percussions de Strasbourg", and at the same time he added his then-partner, vibraphone and marimba player Mireille Bauer, to the band.
13. In 1975 he participated in a series of seminal recordings outside his parent band, including Steve Hillage's acclaimed first solo album, "Fish Rising", the masterpiece album "Desperate Straights" by the bands "Slapp Happy" and "Henry Cow", and also contributed percussion roles to Mike Oldfield's third album, "Ommadawn".
14. After the final departure of band founder Daevid Allen in April 1975 and the retirement of Steve Hillage and Gilli Smyth, he led the band, along with bassist Mike Howlett, on the transitional album "Shamal", released in February 1976 and produced by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, an album on which he composed the prominent instrumental piece "Mandrake".
15. Following the departure of Mike Howlett and brass player Didier Malherbe at the end of 1976, he became the sole leader of the band and completely changed the face of the band, from humorous psychedelic rock to a virtuoso instrumental jazz-fusion ensemble that placed four melodic drummers and percussionists at the forefront, including his brother Benoît Moerlen, his partner Mireille Bauer and congas player François Causse.
16. In December 1976, the album "Gazeuse!" was released, released in North America under the name "Expresso", and featured British guitar virtuoso Allan Holdsworth, alongside Morlan's showcase work for percussion and marimba ensemble, "Percolations".
17. After a brief crisis in 1977, during which he stayed in the United States and replaced a drummer who had enlisted in the American Navy, where he met the virtuoso American bassist Hansford Rowe at jams, he returned to France and recorded the album "Expresso II" in March 1978, which featured guitarists Mick Taylor, Allan Holdsworth and Bon Lozaga, along with violinist Darryl Way from the band "Curved Air."
18. Starting in 1979, he officially changed the band's name to "Pierre Moerlen's Gong" at the request of the new record label "Arista Records", to distinguish his rhythmic fusion style from new projects by band founder Daevid Allen.
19. In February 1979, the successful album "Downwind" was released, the theme song of which was recorded in Mike Oldfield's private studio and produced by him, with contributions from Mike Oldfield himself and former Santana keyboardist Tom Coster.
20. While leading his band, he became Mike Oldfield's closest partner in 1978 and 1979, playing drums and vibraphone on the ambitious double album "Incantations" and the album "Platinum", and went on a huge European tour with him with a fifty-piece orchestra and choir, which was documented on the album and the masterful performance film "Exposed".
21. In 1979, he released another acclaimed studio album with his band, "Time is the Key," and also guested on the eponymous solo album of former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor.
22. After the release of the 1980 live album "Pierre Moerlen's Gong Live" and the 1981 album "Leave It Open" featuring legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie Mariano, the original lineup disbanded due to financial difficulties and the changing musical tastes of the early 1980s.
23. In 1982, he joined the lead singer and bassist of the band "Thin Lizzy", Phil Lynott, and played drums on his second solo album, "The Philip Lynott Album", and in 1980 he played timpani on the album by Sally Oldfield, Mike Oldfield's sister, "Celebration".
24. In 1983, he collaborated again with Mike Oldfield on his most commercially successful album, "Crises", and also appeared in the official music video for the huge global hit from the album, "Moonlight Shadow", performed by singer Maggie Reilly, and led the drum set at the huge performance at the Knebworth Festival.
25. In 1982, members of the Swedish prog-rock and fusion band "Tribute" met him backstage at Mike Oldfield's performance at the Roskilde Festival, and three years later, in the spring of 1985, he accepted their invitation to join the band, moved to Sweden, and recorded the albums "Breaking Barriers" and "Live!" with them.
26. In 1986, he re-formed "Pierre Moerlen's Gong" with a mostly Scandinavian lineup, and released the albums "Breakthrough" from 1986 and "Second Wind" from 1988, in which he combined synthesizers and modern production alongside melodic percussion.
27. In 1987, he played drums on Mike Oldfield's album "Islands," and a year later he collaborated with virtuoso gypsy jazz guitarist Biréli Lagrène, a fellow Alsatian, on his 1988 album "Inferno."
28. In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, he found a stable and challenging source of income in the world of international musicals, when he played for twenty months in the European and North American tour of the musical "Evita" by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
29. He later played in European productions of the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar" in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and in January 1995 he joined the orchestra of the huge production of "Les Misérables", in which he played eight three-and-a-half-hour shows each week.
30. In 1997, he was called upon to replace injured drummer Frank Katz on the European and Japanese tour of the legendary British jazz-fusion band "Brand X", alongside bassist Percy Jones and guitarist John Goodsall, and even participated in their album "Manifest Destiny".
31. That same year, 1997, he completed an exciting circle when he returned to the ranks of the original "Gong" lineup alongside Daevid Allen, Gilli Smyth, Didier Malherbe and Mike Howlett, and went on successful international tours with them that lasted until 1999.
32. In 2002, he traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia, where, together with a trio of leading Russian fusion musicians, bassist Alexei Pleschunov, keyboardist Arkady Kuznetsov, and guitarist Meehail Ogorodov, he recorded the last studio album of "Pierre Moerlen's Gong", called "Pentanine", which was released in 2004.
33. On May 3, 2005, he died suddenly in his sleep of natural causes at his home in the town of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in the Vosges Mountains near Strasbourg, and he was only 52 years old, precisely at a time when he was intensively rehearsing with a new line-up of his band in preparation for a tour.
34. His funeral was held on May 9, 2005, in his hometown of Colmar, and his death shocked the global prog and fusion community, as his bandmates "Gong" and musicians from around the world paid tribute to him as someone who brought rhythmic magic that transcended all technique.
35. In 2010, five years after his death, his brother Benoît Moerlen and his bandmates completed the recording of the materials and compositions he had been working on in his final days, and released the tribute album "Tribute" in his memory, which sealed the glorious legacy of one of the greatest drummers Europe has ever known.
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