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All Music Guide:
Such was the influence of psychedelic music in the late '60s that even pop-based acts like the 5th Dimension, Kenny Rogers, and the Association felt obliged to put in their two cents' worth. Such was the case with the Neon Philharmonic, which was primarily a vehicle for songwriter/arranger/keyboardist Tupper Saussy. Also featuring singer Don Gant, the group had an easygoing, not-too-memorable Top 20 pop hit in mid-1969, "Morning Girl." Their debut album, The Moth Confesses, was a much stranger piece of work, sounding something like Jimmy Webb on acid. For all of its ambitious orchestral arrangements and operatic lyrical reach, it has dated in the most embarrassing and silly of fashions, sounding like the aural equivalent of the middle-class accountant who decides to take acid with his kids in a misguided attempt to get with it.
The Nashville-based Saussy's primary credit prior to the Neon Philharmonic was his contributions to The Swinger's Guide to Mary Poppins, which featured jazz renditions of songs from the children's film. This, and even the "Morning Girl" single, weren't exactly the sort of resumé credits that led one to expect an ambitious song cycle. That's what he cooked up with The Moth Confesses, however, though the bloated arrangements, Gant's white-bread vocals, and the overwrought, sentimental lyrics came closer to Rod McKuen than Van Dyke Parks. The NH did manage another album, as well as a few singles, and were active as late as 1975. Gant was a session vocalist before dying in the mid-'80s. Saussy, as befitting a man with such unpredictable interests, became an anti-tax activist, going underground to avoid Federal authorities in the 1980s.
Wikipedia:
The Neon Philharmonic (formed 1967) was an American psychedelic pop band led by songwriter and conductor Tupper Saussy and singer Don Gant. They released their only two albums (The Moth Confesses and the eponymous The Neon Philharmonic) in 1969, and they scored a Top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with "Morning Girl", when it hit the Top Forty in May of that year and rose to number 17 on the chart. The band hit the charts again with "Heighdy-Ho Princess" in 1970. The group was produced by Saussy, Gant, and Bob McCluskey, and engineered by Ronald Gant, Don's brother. The group disbanded in 1975 after releasing numerous non-album singles. Although the first album stated Borges Forever!, the group's concertmaster is really Pierre Menard, and it is not a reference to the Jorge Luis Borges story Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote - Saussy was not conscious of the connection.
The bulk of the groups' output was released by Warner Bros./Seven Arts Records. In 1972, they moved to TRX and produced another single, "Annie Poor" / "Love Will Find a Way", after which the group disbanded. The Neon Philharmonic name was sold to producer David Kastle, who put out additional singles released by MCA Records and London Records. At least one Saussy song, "Making Out the Best I Can" was recorded by this group, and engineered by Ronald Gant. Along with its flipside recording, "So Glad You're a Woman", written by Ray Williams and Ron Demmans (MCA-40158 (MC 4810), 1975), the instrumentation was limited to synthesizers, guitar and drums. These later singles have no other connection to the original group.
Shaun Cassidy, David's younger brother, did a cover version of "Morning Girl, Later" (simply titled "Morning Girl") in 1976, which did not chart in the U.S., but did well in the Low Countries. The song was also covered by The Lettermen.
The group is not to be confused with The Neon Philharmonic Orchestra, which covered Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven" and arranged many classical pieces in a similar style in the mid-1980s.
