Today we’re talking about one of early PC computing’s most iconic songs, “Trip Through the Grand Canyon” also known as “CANYON.MID” with none other than the composer himself, George Stone! We take a trip down memory lane and discuss how the song was written, how it ended up on millions of PCs around the world starting with Windows 3.0, and its status as a song that remains beloved to this day.
George Stone is a multi-talented jazz musician who has been active for over 35 years; he’s a performer, composer, arranger, and long-time professor at Cuesta College (Music, Recording Arts, Jazz performance/arrangement/composition). In addition to teaching and live performance, George recently did orchestration and arrangement for the 2022 film Amsterdam. After our interview, George was kind enough to send us a number of gifts that bring us joy: a signed PDF copy of CANYON.MID for Bryan and Gene to cherish (yes really), an unreleased MIDI from 1991 which we included in the show, the above charming side-by-side photo of George 30 years apart (1991 to 2021) as well as a screenshot showing some of the original musical cues he worked on way back when!
We checked our facts and sorry George, we forgot to credit you specifically in our talk at the Library of Congress, continuing the unfortunate trend (whoops). Hopefully this episode serves as a decent apology and as always, we hope our listeners enjoy the story and the music as much as we do!
Special thanks to virt (aka Jake Kaufman), “The Smash Brothers” and the band WASD for their lovely arrangements of the classic CANYON.MID
All tracks composed by George Stone unless otherwise stated
- 00:00 CANYON.MID – full title ‘Trip Through the Grand Canyon‘
- 07:40 CANYON.MID arranged by virt (YouTube)
- 20:31 Untitled cue from 1991
- 35:33 CANYON.MID (excerpt) performed at MAGFest 7 by the Smash Brothers (YouTube)
- 48:03 CANYON.MID performed by the band WASD from the album C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA
LINKS
- George Stone
- Bio on Hal Leonard website
- George Stone Big Band – on Discogs
- Other mentions mentioned
- Passport Designs – the company that started it all
- Amsterdam (film) – wiki page
- Texting and Driving – album by Dave Tull
- Libretto jazz club website in Paso Robles
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:07 — 114.7MB)