Roger Penney
Encyclopedia
Roger Penney is an innovative singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He pioneered a style of American psychedelic folk music in the late 60s, early 70s and is known for his inventive performances and recordings as Bermuda Triangle Band
as well as ROGER AND WENDY and EUPHORIA
.
on the jukebox. The traditional songs left their footprint on his young sensibilities.
In 1959 while at an engineering college he bought his first autoharp
from the Sears-Roebuck catalog and began experimenting with various electric pickups. After graduating with honors at the top of his class, he moved into a folk music communal house in Cambridge Mass. aptly named Old Joe Clark's for the folk /dance tune, took post grad. courses at Harvard U. and did research for NASA. He was instrumental in the design and construction of the first electromechanical harpsichord which came to be known as the Baldwin Combo Harpsichord, see Electric Piano
But the love of music insistently pulled him away from this scientific life. He once again immersed himself in traditional music at picking roundtables at the Silver Vanity folk club in Amherst Mass. People who occasionally joined in were Taj Mahal, and Buffy Saint Marie.
, New York City, the hotbed of folk music, where he formed the band Roger and Wendy with his partner, Wendy Penney
. Performing 364 nights a year in Village coffeehouses and clubs, such as Gerde's Folk City
, the Cafe Wha?
The Bitter End
and the Cafe Au Go Go
, they broke ground in what has come to be known as the Psych folk
genre. They were one of the very few American innovators to play in this style as it was primarily a British movement. Characterized as having strong roots in folk music
, it has electric and often complex or unconventional arrangements, with liberal use of effects such as phasing, wah wah or fuzz.
In 1969 Roger and Wendy formed the Sunshine Pop group EUPHORIA with two other musicians and released an album on the MGM/Heritage label titled "Euphoria" and a single "You Must Forget". Then the group disbanded. Roger and Wendy moved up from playing in clubs to touring and became the top act on the national college concert tours. They released
a folk album "Roger and Wendy" in 1971.
albums Bermuda Triangle in 1977 and Bermudas II in 1984. College concert tours continued with more than 3000 performances in the 70's and 80's.
, as well as the first person to play electric autoharp
. His style was completely unprecedented. He uses his electrified harp as the lead instrument on all his recordings. He also shapes the notes with effects and his own covert technology. What is often mistaken for electric guitar is actually the sound of his autoharp. the result of his innovations is a spatially complex and dynamic quality, at times spare and delicate, then, on other songs, musically and rhythmically dense.
other than a contact mic, which had a tinny sound. Eventually, bar magnetic pickups designed specifically for autoharp by Harry DeArmond
became available and Roger bought the first two. He ran two channels, one for each pickup, either as a straight amplified channel or to effects units.
Among the effects units he used were two Gibson Maestro G2's (the same model that reputedly Jimi Hendrix used on several recordings) which triggered wah-wah, fuzz
or distortion, percussion etc. His favorite unit in the 70's was the Eventide Clockworks phase shifter. Next was a Lexicon Primetime digital delay. An additional effect came from five 25 cent transducers that were surplus from a pinball machine. He mounted them on the autoharp and ran a line into a Linndrum sound module which allowed him the option of playing percussion/drum rhythms simultaneously with finger-picking the strings.
Bermuda Triangle Band
Bermuda Triangle Bands wild psychedelic and delicately nuanced electric autoharp and transcendental vocals grew out of the late '60s folk rock scene. With an independent attitude, eccentric style and highly unusual instrument lineup, the group was unprecedented. Psychedelic rock autoharp was...
as well as ROGER AND WENDY and EUPHORIA
EUPHORIA (band)
Euphoria was a short-lived band from 1968 to 1969, consisting of Roger Penney,on electric autoharp, Wendy Penney,on Bass guitar, Tom Pacheco,on Acoustic Guitar, and Sharon Alexander. Roger and Wendy were a folk duo performing in Greenwich Village, using the names Roger Becket and Wendy Becket...
.
Early life
Born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts, his first public performance was singing "Don't Fence Me In" at the age of five on WORC (AM), the Worcester AM radio station. Several preteen summers were spent in his cousin's Anchor Cafe, a gritty honkytonk at a port on Lake Erie filled with stevedores and merchant mariners. In the late hours of the night he would fall asleep on the bench seats as the couples danced to Hank Williams and Hank SnowHank Snow
Clarence Eugene "Hank" Snow was a Canadian-American country music artist. He charted more than 70 singles on the Billboard country charts from 1950 until 1980...
on the jukebox. The traditional songs left their footprint on his young sensibilities.
In 1959 while at an engineering college he bought his first autoharp
Autoharp
The autoharp is a musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither. -History:There is debate over the...
from the Sears-Roebuck catalog and began experimenting with various electric pickups. After graduating with honors at the top of his class, he moved into a folk music communal house in Cambridge Mass. aptly named Old Joe Clark's for the folk /dance tune, took post grad. courses at Harvard U. and did research for NASA. He was instrumental in the design and construction of the first electromechanical harpsichord which came to be known as the Baldwin Combo Harpsichord, see Electric Piano
Electric piano
An electric piano is an electric musical instrument.Electric pianos produce sounds mechanically and the sounds are turned into electrical signals by pickups. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument, but electro-mechanical. The earliest electric pianos were invented...
But the love of music insistently pulled him away from this scientific life. He once again immersed himself in traditional music at picking roundtables at the Silver Vanity folk club in Amherst Mass. People who occasionally joined in were Taj Mahal, and Buffy Saint Marie.
Roger and Wendy
In 1966 he moved to Greenwich VillageGreenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, New York City, the hotbed of folk music, where he formed the band Roger and Wendy with his partner, Wendy Penney
Wendy Penney
Wendy Penney is a singer and bass guitar player who began performing in 1966, and founded with Roger Penney the musical groups Bermuda Triangle Band, Roger and Wendy, and Euphoria .- History :...
. Performing 364 nights a year in Village coffeehouses and clubs, such as Gerde's Folk City
Gerde's Folk City
Gerdes Folk City was a music venue in the West Village in New York City. Initially opened as a restaurant called Gerdes, by owner Mike Porco, it eventually began to present occasional incidental music. It was located at 11 West 4th Street , having moved in 1970 to 130 West 3rd Street before finally...
, the Cafe Wha?
Cafe Wha?
Cafe Wha? is a club in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, New York City that has been home to various musicians and comedians. Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, The Velvet Underground, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys, Kool and the Gang, Peter, Paul & Mary, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Joan...
The Bitter End
The Bitter End
The Bitter End is a nightclub in New York City's Greenwich Village. It opened its doors in 1961 at 147 Bleecker Street under the auspices of owner Fred Weintraub. The club changed its name to The Other End during the 1970s...
and the Cafe Au Go Go
Cafe Au Go Go
The Cafe au Go Go was a Greenwich Village night club located in the basement of 152 Bleecker Street. The club featured many well known musical groups, folksingers and comedy acts between the opening in February 1964 until closing in October 1969. Originally owned by Howard Solomon who sold the club...
, they broke ground in what has come to be known as the Psych folk
Psych folk
Psychedelic folk or psych folk is a loosely defined form of psychedelic music that originated in the 1960s through the fusion of folk music and psychedelic rock...
genre. They were one of the very few American innovators to play in this style as it was primarily a British movement. Characterized as having strong roots in folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, it has electric and often complex or unconventional arrangements, with liberal use of effects such as phasing, wah wah or fuzz.
In 1969 Roger and Wendy formed the Sunshine Pop group EUPHORIA with two other musicians and released an album on the MGM/Heritage label titled "Euphoria" and a single "You Must Forget". Then the group disbanded. Roger and Wendy moved up from playing in clubs to touring and became the top act on the national college concert tours. They released
a folk album "Roger and Wendy" in 1971.
Bermuda Triangle
Renaming the band as Bermuda Triangle in 1975, they released the psych folk, folk rockFolk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
albums Bermuda Triangle in 1977 and Bermudas II in 1984. College concert tours continued with more than 3000 performances in the 70's and 80's.
Rediscovery
Due to the success in Europe the US and Asia in 2006 of a British reissued CD of the Bermuda Triangle's 1977 vinyl album, Roger and Wendy in 2007 officially reissued the album on the Winter Solstice label. 2007 also saw the release of their psych folk The Missing Tapes cd on Winter Solstice Records. A number of songs on this disc were thought to be completely lost, with no known existing copies, until tapes were unearthed in collectors' archives.Style
Roger Penney is regarded as the originator and developer of psychedelic folk autoharpAutoharp
The autoharp is a musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither. -History:There is debate over the...
, as well as the first person to play electric autoharp
Autoharp
The autoharp is a musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither. -History:There is debate over the...
. His style was completely unprecedented. He uses his electrified harp as the lead instrument on all his recordings. He also shapes the notes with effects and his own covert technology. What is often mistaken for electric guitar is actually the sound of his autoharp. the result of his innovations is a spatially complex and dynamic quality, at times spare and delicate, then, on other songs, musically and rhythmically dense.
Autoharp
In the early 60's there were no pickups to amplify the autoharpAutoharp
The autoharp is a musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither. -History:There is debate over the...
other than a contact mic, which had a tinny sound. Eventually, bar magnetic pickups designed specifically for autoharp by Harry DeArmond
Harry DeArmond
Harry DeArmond invented the first commercially available attachable guitar pickup in the mid 1930s. He established a working relationship with Horace 'Bud' Rowe's company to manufacture and develop these items...
became available and Roger bought the first two. He ran two channels, one for each pickup, either as a straight amplified channel or to effects units.
Among the effects units he used were two Gibson Maestro G2's (the same model that reputedly Jimi Hendrix used on several recordings) which triggered wah-wah, fuzz
Fuzz
Fuzz may refer to:*Vellus, a type of short, fine body hair on an animal*Tomentum, a filamentous hairlike growth on a plant*Focus , a blur effect*Fuzzbox, an electric guitar distortion effect*A derogatory slang term for the police...
or distortion, percussion etc. His favorite unit in the 70's was the Eventide Clockworks phase shifter. Next was a Lexicon Primetime digital delay. An additional effect came from five 25 cent transducers that were surplus from a pinball machine. He mounted them on the autoharp and ran a line into a Linndrum sound module which allowed him the option of playing percussion/drum rhythms simultaneously with finger-picking the strings.
Euphoria
- Euphoria MGM/Heritage Records (1969), vinyl LP
- Euphoria Heritage/Beatball Records (2007), reissued as a CD
Roger and Wendy
- Roger and Wendy Horny Records (1971)
- "Roger Penney: The Electric Autoharpist" Winter Solstice Records (2008)
- "Roger and Wendy" (Love Rog and Wem) CD Reissued on Lion Productions (2010)
Bermuda Triangle Band
- Bermuda Triangle Winter Solstice Records (1977)
- Bermudas ll Winter Solstice Records (1984)
- Bermuda Triangle unofficial reissue on Radioactive UK Records (2006)
- Bermuda Triangle Winter Solstice Records (2007), reissued as a CD
- The Missing Tapes Winter Solstice Records (2007)
- "Bermuda Triangle" Reissued 12 inch vinyl LP on Anazitisi Records (2008)
- "The Missing Tapes" vinyl LP on Anazitisi Records (2009)