Why Happy Cow Music – lets let Stephen Explain!
The concept of Happy Cow Music started some 30 years ago, when I acquired my first mechanical organ, which was a French ‘Le Ludion’ hand turned organ.
Normally, monkeys or apes are associated with this sort of instrument and although actual animals are generally replaced by soft toys, I didn’t like monkeys. There is a reason for this. Aged 13 on a school trip to Chester Zoo, we managed to annoy the monkeys and quickly found their skill at launching poo with amazing accuracy! I think the expression is ‘going ape-shit!’
So instead of a toy monkey I adorned my mechanical organ with a soft toy cow.
Later I acquired a glove puppet cow and entertained the children with that. The puppet cow, Mitzi, had a big smile and soon became known as the happy cow.
When I started selling perforated music for mechanical organs, it was natural to use the happy cow as a trade mark.
About Happy Cow Music 2023- By Chris Doe
I am Chris a long time friend of Stephens – I first met Stephen when I was about 12/13 back in the early 1990’s at that time I had a 21note Trueman organ.
Stephens music was modern and lively in it’s arrangement style and quite different from the majority of the music available at the time and I acquired a large amount of books of music from him at the time.
Stephen and his wife Joy encouraged me in the hobby as a teenager and I spent a fair amount of time in Derbyshire! In later years Stephen and I would visit events in the Netherlands and Belgium together.
Stephen played my wife Jo and I down the isle on his Hesbeen organ “Marina” on my wedding day in 2009.
In later years I acquired a roll playing organ and managed to acquire a large library of Stephens 20 note rolls.
Stephen stopped making rolls and books on a commercial basis in 2005 and concentrated on music for his bigger organs and midi arrangements.
In about 2010 I discussed with Stephen about reissuing his music rolls – unfortunately I was not in a position to take on such a project at the time and the idea was shelved.
Stephen unfortunately died suddenly in 2022.
In late 2023 some of Stephens friends and fans of his music discussed restoring his roll library in his memory- Unfortunately Stephens roll patterns did not survive.
Fortunately Stephen gave James Reid his book patterns, and books can be obtained from James Reid directly.
However with the acquisition of Stephens old Deleika 20/31 from Tony Yorke in 2023 this allowed access to Stephens own roll collection, that and combined with my own collection of original rolls and very generous help from friends – using the most advanced technology available to us we have been able to recreate most of his roll catalog digitally in midi format.
There are still missing arrangements and we are looking to add these to the library – if you have one of Stephens rolls we would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact us
