‘His work seems endless’: music stars pay tribute to the incredible life of Moondog
Most tourists who come to New York City for the first time seek out sights like the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and Central Park. But between the early 60s and 1972, visitors with a more adventurous nature had a different agenda. “Certain people flying into the city at that time would jump into a cab and tell the driver – ‘take me to Moondog!’” said Robert Scotto, author of a book about the eccentric musician and composer who went by that luminous name. “The driver would take them straight to 6th Avenue and 53rd Street because everyone knew that’s where he was.”
Certainly, no one who passed by that busy stretch of the city during that era could have missed him. Outfitted like a fantasy Viking, complete with a double-horned headdress, a doomy black tunic, an eight-foot spear and a long white beard, Moondog had an imposing presence to say the least. It only magnified the intensity of his appearance that he was blind, a fact he refused to hide behind dark glasses. From his reliable perch,
