Attilio Mineo

Space-age pop composer and arranger Attilio Mineo was born in Brooklyn, NY on August 28, 1918; after graduating high school he played piano in a series of big bands, subsequently leading his own orchestra on and off for close to three decades. Regularly writing songs with wife Toni, Mineo often accepted commissioned projects to fund his more personal work, and in 1962 he agreed to record musical accompaniment for a Seattle World's Fair attraction dubbed the Bubbelator, a transparent and spherical elevator housing up to 150 passengers. Sold alongside the Bubbelator, Mineo's resulting LP, Man in Space with Sounds, combined electronic melodies, alien sound effects and spoken-word introductions, quickly selling out its limited pressing and becoming a sought-after collectors item among exotica aficionados prior to its 1998 reissue on Subliminal Sounds.