Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back for a very special Independence
Day celebration. Shirly Podcast episode Jason, do you know the
date that the Declaration of Independence was ratified?
Speaker 2: How about July fourth, seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wrong answer. I'm sorry, that isn't incorrect. No, there
was a big fight leading up to the declaration of independence.
I mean we had thirteen colonies, some were for voting
for independence, somewhere against it. There was a big fight.
But it was on July second, today, the day of
this podcast, July second, that it was actually some colonies
to switch their position. South Carolina was like, nope, we're
gonna vote for independence, and so on July second, seventeen
seventy six, that was the day that independence was adopted
by twelve affirmative votes and one abstention. They formally said
we are going to sever our political ties with Great Britain.
As a matter of fact, John Adams wrote to his
wife the following day and predicted that July second would
become a great American holiday. It is only because the
people didn't know until it was formally adopted two days
later on July fourth, that that became what we now
celebrate as our Independence Day, but it was actually adopted
two days before today today in celebrate July.
Speaker 2: Happy July second.
Speaker 1: Yeah, happy July second. You got your fireworks ready to go?
Speaker 2: I'm ready to blow up some crap.
Speaker 1: As the as the Bridge call it the Rebellion Day.
I don't so. I am here today not to talk
to you about the independence of the United States, but
to just bring you, guys a special episode. This is
a special edition episode. We have a great Patreon family.
If you guys are interested in becoming a part of
our Patreon family, all you have to do is go
to patreon dot com slash Shirley Podcast. For as little
as five bucks a month, you get access to all
of our special Patreon episodes where we cover one hit
wonders and other kind of novelty songs. You even managed
to sneak Mariah Carrey in there on me, which is
none too happy about, but it's still a great episode.
It is.
Speaker 3: And every every song has a story. Every song has
a story that's right, and we like telling those stories.
That's what I'm here to do today is tell a story.
What we've started doing on some of these Patreon episodes
is we you started this, You're like, Okay, d I've
got a song that I'm going to tell you about
and you have to try to guess what it is.
And it's kind of the way we do our top fives,
you know, we lead it in. And that's what I'm
gonna do with today's episode. I'm going to talk to
you about an American musician who is a chart topping
musician and is responsible for one of the most iconic
records in all of movie history, and he got no
credit for it. As a matter of fact, I would
venture to say that ninety nine percent of the people
who are familiar with this recording are not familiar with
who recorded it. And it is a great story. And
it turns out it's a guy from Oklahoma right here
where we are.
Speaker 1: All right, you bekaya? It was nineteen fifty one. Shelby
stood anxiously at the Warner Brothers recording studio, not sure
about what was going to happen next. He had only
recently moved to California in hopes of making it big,
and so far he hadn't had a whole lot of success.
He was far from home on his second marriage and
had a young boy. He had grown to a door
depending on him. But little did he know the profound
impact that this upcoming recording session would have. One hundred
years ago, the population of Eric, Oklahoma was nine hundred
and seventy one, which is about thirty eight more than
its population is today, and in April of nineteen twenty one,
that population increased by one when Bill and Aura welcomed
their third son and the World. Shelby would go on
to learn horse riding and fiddle playing from Bill and
so from a young age he would ride in rodeos,
and at fifteen he formed a band called the plain
View Melody Boys, who would periodically play on Station KASA
in Elk City, Oklahoma. When Shelby was only nineteen, he
married his first wife, Melva Miller, herself only seventeen at
the time. Shelby became close with Melva's young cousin, Roger,
taught him how to play the guitar and bought his
first fiddle. Roger Miller would grow up to become a
successful country musician himself. You probably know his song King
of the Road Pause, which was a number one Hot
Country single and reached number four on the Hot one hundred.
But this seed that shall be planted would not be
the biggest mark he would make on the world of entertainment.
Though he tried to enlist for World War Two, his
rodeo injuries kept him out of the military, so instead
he worked as a welder for oil drillers. Then in
nineteen forty six, at the encouragement of Ernest tub he
decided to leave the oil field, leave Oklahoma and pursue
his love of music. He recorded his first single, moved
to Fort Worth, Texas, and for three years he toured
the South, but was ultimately unable to hit it big.
So in nineteen fifty he brought his second wife, Edna
and her young son Gary to Hollywood in hopes of
establishing himself as an actor or a singer. But after
a year he had only had a handful of parts,
mostly uncredited, and that included the movie he was about
to record for, uncredited for the part he played in
the movie, and uncredited for his part in the audio
track that he was about to record, Yes, uncredited for
the part that would become one of the most iconic
recordings in history. Now. As it turned out, Shelby would
ultimately be a success as a singer and as an actor.
Just a year later, in nineteen fifty two, he would
land his first big role in the movie High Noon
as Ben Miller, one of the gang who would face
off against Gary Cooper. Year after that, two songs that
he had written would become hits for Teresa Brewer and
Hank Snow. Then, in nineteen fifty eight, he had two
career making events. First, he was cast as Peter Nolan
in the series Rawhide, a role he would play for
the next eight years. Second was that he had recorded
a song that would be his biggest chart topper, going
gold in just three weeks and hitting number one on
the Hot one hundred. The song it was a one eyed,
one horn flying tirple people lead one Horn. It has
sold well over one hundred million copies to date, but
I am saying today that his uncredited contribution to one
of his earliest movies surpasses even this in its impact
on the entertainment world. His acting career didn't stop with
Rawhide either. He was in more than sixty movies and
television roles, including The War Wagon with John Wayne, The
Outlaw Josie Wales with Clint Eastwood, Silverado with Kevin Klein,
Kevin Costner and Danny Glover and Hoosiers, where he was
literally sitting next to Gene Hackman on the bench helping
coach the team. He was also one of the original
cast members of Heehaw, which he wrote the theme for.
He also had quite a bit of success as a
recording artist as well. He had several more gold records.
He won a CMA in nineteen sixty eight Songwriter of
the Year in nineteen ninety two. He also won the
Western Heritage Award for nine years in a row for
his television work. But I maintain it was his nineteen
fifty one recording that will be his most lasting legacy,
and most people don't even know he was the main responsible.
So what was Shelby Woolley who went by SHEB about
to record on that faithful day? Well, he was just
one of a handful of actors they had called back
that day to do some recording they needed to finish
up the movie Distant Drums. Sheb did six different takes
and the last three ended up in the movie. Then
all six takes went into the Warner Brothers vault, only
to be used again in nineteen fifty two and in
nineteen fifty three, three times in nineteen fifty four, including
the Judy Garland version of A Star Is Born twice
in fifty five, and again and again over and over
for the next twenty years. But nobody noticed. Nobody except
a young film production grad student at USC named Ben.
In his studies, Ben had known noticed Seb's work and
was impressed, so impressed that he and his buddy Richard
would record it from A Star As Born just to
put it in their nineteen seventy four student film, The
Scarlet Blade. Ben would graduate the next year, and then
two years after that he would get his first credited
job as a sound designer. This job allowed him to
do research in several sound libraries, including the one at
Warner Brothers, where he was able to find Seb's original recordings,
and it was this discovery that led to its proliferation
in the nineteen eighties, nineties and on into the twenty
first century. His friend Richard used it in his movies
as well, including Poltergeist, Batman, Returns, Planet of the Apes,
and Madagascar. Other sound editors became aware of Schev's recordings
and used it in their films as well. Disney films
Spielberg films. Joe Dante has used it in at least
five of his films. Peter Jackson was so impressed that
he deliberately cranked the volume when Sheb's voice was used
in Lord of the Rings. And when Quentin Tarantino learned
the significance of this recording while it was being put
into Reservoir Dogs, he called a break and had his
sound crew come and listen to its first appearance way
back in Distant Drums. In fact, since Ben discovered Sheb's
recordings back in nineteen seventy seven while finding sounds for
a new movie called Star Wars, Sheb's voice has been
used in over one hundred and thirty films and television episodes,
and Ben Burt found it in a canister marked quote
man getting bit by an alligator and he screams because
it wasn't Shebb's singing voice, but his screaming voice that
he recorded on that faithful day back in nineteen fifty one.
And though Sheb played Private jessup in Distant Drums, it
was a memorable moment in a film two years later
called The Charge at Feather River, where Ben Bert first
heard Sheb's scream as another young private is shot in
the leg a young private named Willhelm, which is why,
if you haven't guessed it already, he named it the
Wilhelm Scream, and that is the story as best I
can tell.
Speaker 2: Nice, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: I know it from Star Wars for sure, Return of
the Jedi for sure, Indiana Jones, Indiana Raiders, a little
lost star, without a doubt.
Speaker 1: It's iconic.
Speaker 2: That's good man, you did some research on that.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, it was just crazy when you find
out that the guy responsible for the one eyed, one horn,
flying purple people eater and the themed Hehaw is the
guy who did the Wilhelm screen.
Speaker 2: That's incredible. It's incredible. I'm gonna have to go back
and watch Hoosias just to.
Speaker 1: Figure this guy out.
Speaker 2: So, okay, guys, that's gonna be it for our special episode.
But we hope you'll have a great Fourth of July
with your family, a safe and fun fourth of July
celebrating independence. But join us back here next week. D
We're gonna have the top five songs of nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we seventy eight was fantastic. I can't
wait to see what seventy nine brings us.
Speaker 2: A lot of great pop songs, a lot of great
rock from that era, got some country, got some disco.
It's gonna be fun. Come on back for that. We'll
see you back here next week. We ought to do
our impressions, oh man,