About Us at MGG Music

We started a record and publishing company in 1985. And to explain why we did, we would need to back up a few years. We would supply what was called “Special Music” for our church. Some church standards were performed with different singers but we would also use some of our original music.

One day a member John Johnson came to me with a song lyric and asked if I could write a melody for it. I did and the song “The Good News” was born. That song was used by our youth choir. Some people wanted copies of sheet music to perform in other churches and some would ask if we had certain songs on tape. The interest grew to a point that the idea of working in a more professional manner became necessary.

Much of our music was arranged by Fred Barovick. Fred was by special order of Congress, selected to orchestrate the official arrangement of “The Stars Spangled Banner” which was performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. We were lucky to get Jack Carroll (About Jack Carroll) to work with us on “The Good News” and “John Three–sixteen” (Which can be heard on MGG Music.com click here for the audio page). He had been performing in night clubs and had a recording contract with MGM records. Bernie Knee joined our label (About Bernie Knee). He was born in New York and now resides in Florida. He has recorded for Burt Bacharach and Frank Loesser and has had contracts as a singer with Columbia and RCA records.

John Johnson knew of an artist in the Allentown area who had a slogan, “you name it, I will paint it“. His name was Zoltan Papp (About Zoltan Papp). We commissioned him to paint promotional material for “The Good News and Moses song, “Horse and Rider”. (You can view these Paintings here)

Raul Azpiazu is a tenor who performed at the White House and Windsor castle. (Check out Raul Azpiazu and his music on our partner site Marcello Records.com) He is the son of Don Azpiazu a very notable Cuban band leader, who helped establish the Latin sound in this country. We were honored when one of Raul Azpiazu’s songs “Nana” was included in the 2nd annual Latin American Hall of Fame in Hostra University in Manhattan. He performed the song with tango dancers on a movie screen behind him. That song, Nana was orchestrated by Horace Diaz, who at the time worked for Peer Southern music. He also arranged all the songs on Raul’s album for us. You can find our bio’s in the 24th edition of Marquis Who’s Who in the East.