Transformer

Transformer is the only album by American musician David Stoughton, released in December 1968 by Elektra Records. Produced by Stoughton, the album is a mix of folk and pop songwriting with sound collages and musique concrète. The musician had drawn influence from composer John Cage and created the group The Cambridge Electric Opera Company to explore electronic and traditionally-based music; although the group perform on the album, it was credited to Stoughton alone to avoid confusion with fellow Elektra band Earth Opera. A single, "The Sun Comes Up Each Day", was issued from the record. Music critics and listeners were challenged by the album's experimental content; Stoughton noted that people with either "extreme" or "conservative" tastes enjoyed only half the album. Transformer has seen retrospective praise and has been included on numerous magazine reference lists; it has also been re-released digitally. Background and recording David Stoughton had been a Harvard mathematician and, from the early 1960s, a performer on the Boston folk circuit, where he played guitar. In 1966, he attended an event where John Cage performed improvisations with painter Robert Rauschenberg and dancer Merce Cunningham; he credited appreciating Cage's "freedom and spirit" with inspiring him to show the composer a tape of two lengthy musique concrète pieces he had created. According to Stoughton, Cage enjoyed the work and the tapes began circulating among the avant-garde community. Additionally, under the influence of John Lennon, he bought a Stratocaster guitar and amplifier to create "Beatle-ish" tunes. Stoughton showed his electronic pieces to his friend Al Capp, who in turn introduced Stoughton to Andy Warhol, who helped inspire the musician to form a group, which he named The Cambridge Electric Opera Company. Stoughton envisioned the group as an outlet for both his electronic and more traditional-based works, and recruited his former Harvard peer Mal MecKenzie on bass, jazz drummer Joe Livolsi, singer Devi Klate, the classically trained countertenor John Nicholls and a trumpet player and flugelhorn player taken from the Harvard orchestra.