Stark Reality

Probably the farthest out any children's record ever got, The Stark Reality Discovers Hoagy Carmichael's Music Shop descended on unwitting preteens in 1970, thanks to Boston's public television station WGBH and one of its producers, Hoagy Bix Carmichael. The son of America's most celebrated songwriter, Carmichael conceived a special devoted to reintroducing a new generation to his father's 1958 children's record Hoagy Carmichael's Havin' a Party. Introduced to a jazz fusion band named the Stark Reality, who'd recorded music for WGBH in the past, he allowed group leader Monty S...