Don Gant

Donald W. Gant (October 24, 1942 – March 15, 1987) was an American singer, songwriter and record producer.

With Tupper Saussy, in the late 1960s he formed The Neon Philharmonic. Singing vocals, with Saussy on the keyboards, they recorded five singles and two albums for Warner Bros. Records between 1969 and 1971. The albums were The Moth Confesses (1969), containing the duo's biggest hit "Morning Girl" (peaked at #17 on 7–14 June 1969), and the eponymous The Neon Philharmonic (1969).

In Nashville, Tennessee he worked at Acuff-Rose Music as a songwriter and as an executive. He wrote a number of songs himself and co-wrote with Joe Melson. 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 Jimmy Buffett, Lefty Frizzell, Eddy Raven, Roy Orbison when he was with MGM Records and others and eventually joined ABC Records.

Don Gant died unexpectedly at the age of 44 in Nashville of complications following a serious boating accident in Florida.

{snip}

The Neon Philharmonic


The 45 of the hit song, "Morning Girl"
by Neon Philharmonic from 1969.

Background information
Origin: United States
Genres: Psychedelic pop
Years active: 1967 to 1975

The Neon Philharmonic (formed 1967) was an American psychedelic pop[citation needed] band led by songwriter and conductor Tupper Saussy and singer Don Gant. They released their only two albums (The Moth Confesses and the eponymous The Neon Philharmonic) in 1969, and they scored a Top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with "Morning Girl", which featured the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, when it hit the Top 40 in May of that year and rose to number 17 on Billboard and number 15 on the Cash Box chart. The band hit the charts again with "Heighdy-Ho Princess" in 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. Although the first album stated "Borges Forever!", the group's concertmaster is really named Pierre Menard, and it is not a reference to the Jorge Luis Borges story Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, Saussy was not conscious of the connection.

{snip}

The group is not to be confused with the German group The Neon Philharmonic Orchestra, which arranged many classical pieces in medleys in a similar style in the 1980s and 1990s, and covered Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven".

{snip}

Morning Girl


Single by Neon Philharmonic

"Morning Girl" is a 1969 hit song by Neon Philharmonic. The song was a hit in Canada and the United States. The song featured a chamber-sized orchestra of Nashville Symphony Orchestra musicians. The project was headed by composer Tupper Saussy and vocalist Don Gant.

The song reached number 17 on the US Billboard Hot 100 during the spring of the year. It peaked at number 15 on the Cash Box Top 100. It was a bigger hit in Canada, where it hit number six on the RPM 100, and number two on RPM's Adult Contemporary chart.

Morning Girl - The Neon Philharmonic - 1969 -
123,235 views • Jan 5, 2012

jameycruz2
14.7K subscribers

What A Groove- Just 2 Minutes Of Magic- Love It- Love It