Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: Thank god a friend, most have it most speaking.
Speaker 3: Hello, I'm looking for a mister Buttay's first name.
Speaker 2: I'ma i'm a nobody's been named that in like one
Speaker 2: hundred years. And as for the rest, why don't you
Speaker 2: double check that name? Try saying it out loud?
Speaker 4: I'm a butt face.
Speaker 2: I'm mistakes to how we learn now, young fellow, good
Speaker 2: luck in your your journey into adulthood.
Speaker 5: Hey, this is Jesse Carmichael from Room five. Hi, this
Speaker 5: is Phil Margo of the Tokens.
Speaker 3: Hello, it's Nicole Atkins on the Rock and Roll History Show.
Speaker 6: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Rock and Roll History
Speaker 6: Show and Hudson River Radio. I'm Brian Horowitz. This week
Speaker 6: we're talking disc tracks songs that kind of poke fun
Speaker 6: at other people. We'll get into that in just a moment,
Speaker 6: but as always, before we get into it all, allow
Speaker 6: me to introduce all the cranbones joining us here this evening.
Speaker 6: First and foremost from the Richter Observatory. He's always got
Speaker 6: two or three puns about Motown. Ready to go four tops?
Speaker 6: Neil Richter is back.
Speaker 5: I didn't see where that was going. That was a
Speaker 5: good one, how you doing, Everybody.
Speaker 6: And the host of Paranormally Yours. She adopted a dog
Speaker 6: from a blacksmith. As soon as she got him home,
Speaker 6: he made a bolt for the door. Cal Nuklem has
Speaker 6: said Hello, And from the silver Screen. She learned from
Speaker 6: walking into a bar that having two or three shots
Speaker 6: of whiskey per day can significantly reduce your risk of
Speaker 6: giving a crap. Mercedes Kent is back.
Speaker 7: Yes, it's so true.
Speaker 1: Who looks every time?
Speaker 6: Hey?
Speaker 1: Everybody?
Speaker 6: And last but not least, the host of Shaving Cream.
Speaker 6: She learned that stormtroopers use iPhones because they can't find
Speaker 6: the droings that, Oh, I messed it up. They can't
Speaker 6: find the droids they were looking for. Har reveal this.
Speaker 7: Year it's never the droids you're looking.
Speaker 6: I know that would have been better if I didn't
Speaker 6: screw it up.
Speaker 7: That's okay. I appreciate a good nerd joke. You know
Speaker 7: you know me all too well.
Speaker 6: Yeah, stumbling out of the gate, I'm already two cups
Speaker 6: of coffee behind. So we're gonna see how it goes.
Speaker 6: But tonight we're talking diss tracks, so basically songs that
Speaker 6: make fun of other bands, other artists locations something in society.
Speaker 6: Probably best known in like the hip hop rap world now,
Speaker 6: but they have been around forever. We've talked about them
Speaker 6: in classical music, They've been in jazz. They have been
Speaker 6: around for a very very long time. So I have
Speaker 6: no idea where it's going to go tonight, But let's
Speaker 6: find out when don't we hop right in and Neil
Speaker 6: is going to lead us off tonight?
Speaker 5: Well, I got a little bit of this and a
Speaker 5: little bit of that, But let's talk about Don Henley.
Speaker 5: Don Henley who was born in nineteen forty seven and
Speaker 5: is an American musician. In nineteen seventy one, he co
Speaker 5: founded and was the drummer for the rock band The Eagles.
Speaker 5: Henley also sang lead vocals on many of the Eagles'
Speaker 5: biggest hits, including their epic Hotel California. The Eagles are
Speaker 5: the biggest selling American band in history, with over one
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty million albums sold worldwide. That's one hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty million. They had five number one singles, six
Speaker 5: number one albums, and won six Grammy Awards. Their Greatest
Speaker 5: Hits album is the best selling album in the US
Speaker 5: in history, selling over thirty eight million copies and count probably,
Speaker 5: so that's not too shabby. No. Now, after the Eagles
Speaker 5: broke up in nineteen eighty, Henley pursued a solo career
Speaker 5: and went on to sell over ten million albums on
Speaker 5: his own, winning two Grammys of his own and five
Speaker 5: MTV Video Awards as well. Henley, along with the Eagles,
Speaker 5: was introduced or inducted, i should say, into the Rock
Speaker 5: and Roll Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety eight. And again,
Speaker 5: that's not too shabby. But there is one person who
Speaker 5: didn't think so. There is one man, and that man's
Speaker 5: name was Neil Kirby McMillan Junior, better known to the
Speaker 5: world as Mojo Nixon. And if you don't know Mojo Nixon,
Speaker 5: your store could use some Fixon. Mojo Nixon was born
Speaker 5: in nineteen fifty seven. He was an American musician and actor,
Speaker 5: best known for his comedy and novelties songs that were
Speaker 5: delivered in what would best be described as psychobilly, which
Speaker 5: is sort of a blend of rockabilly and punk. Nixon
Speaker 5: began his career as a duo with his partner Skid Roper.
Speaker 5: His real name was Richard Bank, and that happened in
Speaker 5: the mid nineteen eighties, and by the late nineteen eighties,
Speaker 5: Nixon and Roper had released several satirical pieces, including that
Speaker 5: lampoon celebrities, including the song Elvis Is Everywhere, which included
Speaker 5: Michael J. Fox as the anti Elvis, Stuffin' Martha's muffin,
Speaker 5: referring to MTV VJ Martha Quinn stuffin' Martha's muffin? And
Speaker 5: who can forget Debbie Gibson is pregnant with my two
Speaker 5: headed love child. And that was the one that got
Speaker 5: him in trouble with MTV. They refused to play the video.
Speaker 7: David Gibson, that's the one that pushed it over the end.
Speaker 5: But I digress. Nixon and Rope were split up in
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty nine, and it was in the following year
Speaker 5: that Nixon unleashed a brand new round of controversy by
Speaker 5: recording the song Don Henley Must Die. This is the
Speaker 5: Sound of My Brain.
Speaker 8: Then I said, this is the sound of my brain
Speaker 8: on Don Henley.
Speaker 6: Then I said one, two, three fours.
Speaker 9: He's a tortured artists to be in the ego.
Speaker 10: Now he whine, He's like.
Speaker 5: A wounded beagle.
Speaker 10: Blow it up despair, bucked up with hot air.
Speaker 9: He's serious pretensions and not just conjet.
Speaker 11: Died.
Speaker 10: Don't let him get.
Speaker 8: Tidy to turn it up with glint dry they might die.
Speaker 10: Cut on the TV. Woo did I see.
Speaker 5: This floated?
Speaker 9: Everything went in a Grammy fast.
Speaker 11: Rocks on the list compared to what.
Speaker 10: Bunch of suono serious?
Speaker 12: And I think the man say blo.
Speaker 5: Di di.
Speaker 10: Pooto sun stick it as gott gott but playing that
Speaker 10: crondron the man, I'm only kiddy.
Speaker 7: Can't you tell.
Speaker 5: I love his sensitive.
Speaker 11: Music, idiot poetry.
Speaker 10: Swell you and your card.
Speaker 7: We're killing rock and roll.
Speaker 10: It's not because you are wealthy.
Speaker 5: Got your hat got up.
Speaker 6: Stuf, don't be afraid of loosen.
Speaker 10: Up your pony tail, be wild your friend of titch
Speaker 10: your head your.
Speaker 9: Tail start he musty, don't let it be back together
Speaker 9: with cliff ride, start.
Speaker 10: Must put him in the electric um what if the
Speaker 10: time on YouTube?
Speaker 5: Yeah, even Nixon's record company was shocked to the point
Speaker 5: to the point where they were begging radio stations not
Speaker 5: to play this song.
Speaker 4: Did you say why he so much hated Don Henley?
Speaker 5: I don't know, but I suspect that this begging the
Speaker 5: radio stations not to play the song was part of
Speaker 5: a marketing.
Speaker 4: Ploy, because, of course.
Speaker 5: Don Henley Must Die hit number twenty on the US
Speaker 5: Modern Rock chart in nineteen ninety I love it. Apparently
Speaker 5: Don Henley himself didn't mind. He was probably too busy
Speaker 5: polishing his Grammys and counting his money, because in nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety two, at a club in Austin, Texas, Henley actually
Speaker 5: joined Nixon on stage and they sang the song together.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I love it.
Speaker 5: All right, after which Nixon praised Henley for quote having
Speaker 5: balls as big as church bells come, and went on
Speaker 5: went on to ask is Debbie Gibson here too.
Speaker 7: Awesome?
Speaker 5: Nixon would go on to host a radio show on
Speaker 5: the out Country channel on Serious XM. The Eagles have
Speaker 5: reunited and reformed several times with various members over the years. Now,
Speaker 5: I once heard and this was hearsay. I don't even
Speaker 5: know where, or I don't know if I read it.
Speaker 5: I probably just heard it. But Don Henley, when credited
Speaker 5: along with the Eagles, for inventing the genre of new country, replied,
Speaker 5: whether sarcastically or not, that he was very sorry and apologized.
Speaker 5: Now the sad thing the said. The final irony here
Speaker 5: is that the song also mentions Henley's Eagles bandmate Glen Fry,
Speaker 5: who did die in twenty sixteen, and Nixon himself passed
Speaker 5: away just last year in twenty twenty four. But as
Speaker 5: of this taping, Don Henley is still alive and well,
Speaker 5: probably polishing his Grammys and counting his money. So there's
Speaker 5: the disc for you.
Speaker 6: Nice. He's one of those he just doesn't have a
Speaker 6: good reputation of being nice or pleasant to work with.
Speaker 4: John Henley.
Speaker 6: Yeah, just across the board. That's just the kind of
Speaker 6: stuff you hear. Obviously he never met him, never work
Speaker 6: with him or anything, but that's just the repute kind
Speaker 6: of like Chevy Chase, nobody want you know, he's burning
Speaker 6: bridges as he goes along kind of. It just seems
Speaker 6: to be that kind of thing. He just, you know,
Speaker 6: I don't know, I don't know how true that is,
Speaker 6: but it kind of makes sense with the song. So
Speaker 6: that was funny compared to what is my favorite line
Speaker 6: in that phone? I didn't really hear anything after that.
Speaker 6: All right, good lead off, Thank you, Neil Gail put
Speaker 6: up to you.
Speaker 4: That's a really hard act to follow.
Speaker 13: Yeah, The song I chose is by Us Osbourne, and
Speaker 13: I'm still very sad that he passed away in July
Speaker 13: of twenty twenty five this year.
Speaker 4: I knew his Parkinson's was getting bad, but I didn't
Speaker 4: know it was that bad that he was going to
Speaker 4: die what seventeen days after that last concert that he gave.
Speaker 4: That's just so sad.
Speaker 6: You kind of get the feeling that he planned it, like, yeah,
Speaker 6: that's that was.
Speaker 7: He was saying goodbye.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, you really couldn't have scripted it any better,
Speaker 5: you know, But I know, right, it was sad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was an article that he was actually strapped to
Speaker 1: chair the whole entire.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what I read that In the Throne.
Speaker 6: I also read that he had stopped a lot of
Speaker 6: his pain meds and other stuff just.
Speaker 4: Right so he could function a little more coher And yeah, again, yeah,
Speaker 4: not true, but it would make sense.
Speaker 1: That's what I read.
Speaker 4: A oh yeah, so, as many people already know, he
Speaker 4: was born John Michael Osbourne ended up with the nickname
Speaker 4: of Ozzie. He was born on the third of December
Speaker 4: in nineteen forty eight, and, as I said, passed away
Speaker 4: on July twenty second, twenty twenty five. He was an
Speaker 4: English singer, songwriter and media personality. And of course, he
Speaker 4: co founded the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath in
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty eight and they rose to prominence in the
Speaker 4: nineteen seventies and he was their lead vocalist. Now he
Speaker 4: formed his own band in the early nineteen eighties after
Speaker 4: being fired from Black Sabbath in nineteen seventy nine due
Speaker 4: to his problems with alcohol and other drugs. I did
Speaker 4: not know a band could fire its lead singer.
Speaker 5: No idea.
Speaker 6: That kind of shows you how bad things got.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say yeah.
Speaker 4: And of course he was accused by the Christian Right
Speaker 4: of promoting Satanism and no he didn't. It's like crazy.
Speaker 4: He reunited with Black Sabbath on a number of occasions.
Speaker 4: He rejoined from nineteen ninety seven to two thousand and five,
Speaker 4: and then again in twenty twelve. During this second reunion,
Speaker 4: he sang on the band's last studio album, called thirteen,
Speaker 4: which coincidentally came out in twenty thirteen, before they embarked
Speaker 4: on a farewell tour that ended in twenty seventeen. Now,
Speaker 4: on the fifth of July twenty twenty five. This year,
Speaker 4: Osborne performed his final show at the Back to the
Speaker 4: Beginning concert in Birmingham, having announced that it would be
Speaker 4: his last due to health issues, and as we know,
Speaker 4: those health issues took him seventeen days later. During his career,
Speaker 4: he adopted the title Prince of Darkness. Now, the song
Speaker 4: we're going to talk about and listen to is called
Speaker 4: miracle Man. And that was a pointed barb aimed at
Speaker 4: televangelist Jimmy Swaggert, who, in my opinion, deserves it.
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 4: He had long been critical of Osborne's music and live
Speaker 4: performances before he himself was involved in a nineteen eighty
Speaker 4: eight prostitution scandal.
Speaker 7: Lest he be judged, Yeah, lest.
Speaker 6: He be caught because ye did not admit ye anything
Speaker 6: till ye was caught. Yeah, and then be sorry.
Speaker 4: Thinking of Jim Baker.
Speaker 5: Oh no, they did that.
Speaker 6: No, Swagger did that too. He had his little, perfectly staged,
Speaker 6: perfectly lit meltdown.
Speaker 5: I remember that.
Speaker 4: That's oh yeah, I'm I'm a church lady, and I
Speaker 4: think they're all hypocritesis.
Speaker 6: I agree. You know whose cousin is right? No, no, Neil,
Speaker 6: Do you know whose cousin.
Speaker 5: Is the man who married his cousin, correct, his other No,
Speaker 5: Jerry Lee.
Speaker 6: Lewis Lewis's cousin.
Speaker 5: Who married his fourteen year old cousin, correct, not Jimmy
Speaker 5: Swagger's right.
Speaker 6: So to me, there's a lot of similarities. It's just
Speaker 6: that Jerry Lee leaned into it and Jim me so.
Speaker 5: It was probably yeah, he yeah, Jerry lead. It was unapologetically,
Speaker 5: you know, exactly the killer come out.
Speaker 6: They took Danno lessons together as kids and stuff.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So anyway, The song miracle Man is from the fifth
Speaker 4: solo studio album by Ozzy Astbourne, which is called No
Speaker 4: Rest for the Wicked, and that was released in October
Speaker 4: of nineteen eighty eight, reissued on in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 4: in August, and again on the twenty fifth of June
Speaker 4: and two thousand and two. I guess they just liked
Speaker 4: it so much they kept re releasing it. The album
Speaker 4: was certified gold in December nineteen eighty eight and since
Speaker 4: has gone double platinum. It peaked at number thirteen on
Speaker 4: the Billboard two hundred. It was the first album to
Speaker 4: feature guitarist Zach Wild, keyboardist Johnson Lair, and the first
Speaker 4: to feature bassist Bob jays Licin's part at the Moon.
Speaker 4: So let's have a lassen.
Speaker 10: I don't know why, don't know, you don't know where
Speaker 10: it's all. Why that man? I can't be seen as a.
Speaker 12: Gobble with the bust fire candlements, not a double.
Speaker 4: Pretty much anything he did rocks like crazy. I just
Speaker 4: loved his music. Ozzie Osbourne sold more than one hundred
Speaker 4: million albums between his solo work and Black Sabbath releases.
Speaker 4: He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Speaker 4: Fame as a member of Black Sabbath in two thousand
Speaker 4: and six and as a solo artist in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: Now one of my favorite things that he's done. In
Speaker 4: the two thousands, he became a reality television star when
Speaker 4: he appeared in the MTV reality show The Osbourns from
Speaker 4: twenty two thousand and two to two thousand and five
Speaker 4: along Sharon. Alongside Sharon and two of their children, Kelly
Speaker 4: and Jack, he co starred with some of his family
Speaker 4: in the television series Ozzie and Jack's World Detour twenty
Speaker 4: sixteen to twenty eighteen and my all time favorite The
Speaker 4: Osbourns want to believe twenty twenty to twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4: I want to get a shirt that has a picture
Speaker 4: of him saying ball Lightning show the show. Now, his
Speaker 4: son Jack is a known paranormal investigator. So the basis
Speaker 4: of the Osbourne's want to believe was that Jack would
Speaker 4: show different video clips of paranormal things or supposedly paranormal,
Speaker 4: whether it was a UFO or somebody that appeared out
Speaker 4: of nowhere, or items that moved by themselves or whatever,
Speaker 4: and nine times out of ten, as he would say
Speaker 4: ball Lightning.
Speaker 5: That was his Yeah, that was his explanation for it. Yes,
Speaker 5: pretty much everything.
Speaker 4: And Sharon's explanation was usually dolphins and they had their
Speaker 4: dogs on set with it. It was I loved that show.
Speaker 4: It was so much fun. And he was just in
Speaker 4: his later years. He was just this cute, little doddering
Speaker 4: old man. He was adorable. So that's my story and
Speaker 4: I'm sticking to it that I.
Speaker 5: Can tell you something shocking. Would you like to hear
Speaker 5: something really shocking? Okay, I never saw aw Ozsy or
Speaker 5: Black Sabbath. I am shocked. I was supposed to. I
Speaker 5: was supposed to. It was they were supposed to show
Speaker 5: up at a festival. The festival I talked about it here.
Speaker 5: It was in nineteen seventy two. They were supposed to
Speaker 5: show up and they never showed up. So technically I
Speaker 5: almost did, but they had they had other plans. So
Speaker 5: there you go.
Speaker 1: We are all appropriately shocked.
Speaker 5: See, I have to balance it out. You know, I've
Speaker 5: seen I never saw Black Sabbath, never saw Ozzie, and
Speaker 5: I'm kind of sorry I didn't know, but yeah, definitely, yeah.
Speaker 6: He's you know, it's amazing how they tried to demonize
Speaker 6: all that, and I thought it was funny.
Speaker 5: And he was known.
Speaker 6: There were a bunch of stories of you know, people
Speaker 6: hanging out outside his hotel with candles and sitting around
Speaker 6: and you know, being missed, and he would just go
Speaker 6: out and blow the candles out because he's trying to
Speaker 6: go to sleep.
Speaker 4: A little bit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so all right, that was awesome.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Gail.
Speaker 6: We're gonna take a real quick break and be back
Speaker 6: with more right after this. Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 14: It beats listening to nothing.
Speaker 4: This concludes the first part of this cassette.
Speaker 1: Please turn the cassette over and begin again on side too.
Speaker 1: This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 6: Ay and welcome back, Mercedes. We're up to you all right?
Speaker 1: So I had a sex Pistols song all picked out
Speaker 1: and for the show, and it was funny and good,
Speaker 1: and there was an answer song after it from another band,
Speaker 1: which Neil clued me into. But after re listening and
Speaker 1: reading the lyrics, I realized it had the F word
Speaker 1: in it, and not the one that rhymes with duck,
Speaker 1: but the one that rhymes with maggot. And I couldn't
Speaker 1: do it. Definitely, no, No, I couldn't do it, So
Speaker 1: off to find another song. I used to work for
Speaker 1: Select Records as the production manager in nineteen eighty seven
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight. Select was an early rap label mostly
Speaker 1: remembered for Chub Rock, Utfo, Kidn't Play, and the Real Roxanne.
Speaker 1: I arrived at Select just after the Roxanne Wars, which
Speaker 1: were described as a public lyrical rap battle that became
Speaker 1: a defining moment in early hip hop history. Also one
Speaker 1: of raps music's first dish record and perhaps the most
Speaker 1: answer records in history. Utfo, which as I said, was
Speaker 1: on Select, put out a single titled Hanging Out in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. The song did not do very well,
Speaker 1: but the B side, Roxanne Roxanne, a song about a
Speaker 1: woman who would not respond to their advances, gained much
Speaker 1: attention on airplay. As the story goes, soon after, fourteen
Speaker 1: year old Lolita Chante Gooden was walking outside of the
Speaker 1: Queensbridge Housing Project in New York City when she heard
Speaker 1: Tyrone Williams, Discjackie Mister Magic, and record producer Marley Marril
Speaker 1: talking about how UTFO would cancel to show that the
Speaker 1: men had promoted. Gooden offered to record a hip hop
Speaker 1: song that would exact revenge on UTFO. The original street
Speaker 1: version was entirely freestyled by Gooden in one seven minute
Speaker 1: long take and recorded on BHS tape in Marl's apartment.
Speaker 1: The beats were copied from an instrumental version of Roxanne Roxanne.
Speaker 1: The recording was pressed onto one hundred initial copies that
Speaker 1: were rushed into distribution on the street in late nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, with Gooden billed as Roxanne Shante. It was
Speaker 1: grabbed up by Select Records because nobody does that better
Speaker 1: than Fred, and re recorded without the profanity. It became
Speaker 1: an instant hit and peaked at number twenty two on
Speaker 1: the hot R and B hip hop song chart. In
Speaker 1: answer to its popularity, Utfo and Full Force released The
Speaker 1: Real roxand their own antwer record. This response song became
Speaker 1: a hit and caused a flood of Roxanne related hip
Speaker 1: hop record releases. It was not directly aimed at Roxanne Chante,
Speaker 1: but used Elease Jack as the real Roxand this title
Speaker 1: was soon turned over to an Adelaide Adelaida Martinez. And
Speaker 1: here's a quote from the Real Roxand aka Adelaida Martinez.
Speaker 1: Ironically enough, I met I briefly met doc Ice and
Speaker 1: Kangle at the Albee Square Mall in Brooklyn, and like
Speaker 1: Roxanne Shanty, I paid them no mine when they tried
Speaker 1: to get their rap on. All this was taking place
Speaker 1: while Paul Anthony and I were just becoming friends. Full
Speaker 1: Forest was looking for someone to play the permanent role
Speaker 1: of Roxanne, even though they had already cut the track
Speaker 1: with someone they picked out of a club that would
Speaker 1: have been at least Jack, whom, by the way, had
Speaker 1: absolutely no rap experience. They utilized her for an answer
Speaker 1: back to outbage Roxanne's Shanta's track. It seemed that while
Speaker 1: they tried to create this character, they were having issues
Speaker 1: with this individual and her mother. So I was told that.
Speaker 1: That's when I was told, and that's when I asked.
Speaker 1: Was asked by Paula Anthony if I would audition for
Speaker 1: the guys, and I said sure, and I did, and
Speaker 1: from there I kept on walking in the shoes of
Speaker 1: the Real Roxanne. So some of these answer songs in
Speaker 1: the Roxanne Wars were Sparky's Turn, Roxanne, Ye're Through by
Speaker 1: Sparky De Roxanne's Doctor, The Real Man by Doctor fresh Do,
Speaker 1: The Roxanne by Doctor rox and Company. The Parents of
Speaker 1: Roxanne by gigelow Tony and Lacey Lace. I'm Lil Roxanne
Speaker 1: by Tanganika Yo, My Little Sister, Roxannes Brothers by Crush Groove,
Speaker 1: Wrappin' Roxy Roxanne's Sister by d w and The Party
Speaker 1: Crew featuring roxy Ice, Roxanne by Little Ice, Roxanne's a Man,
Speaker 1: The Untold Story Final Chapter by Ralph rol. The Roxanne
Speaker 1: Wars mostly ended with the release of the final word
Speaker 1: no More Roxanne, Please by the East Come by the
Speaker 1: East Coast Crew, who pled for the artists to seize
Speaker 1: the trend. The Roxanne Wars created the careers of many rappers,
Speaker 1: including Roxanne Shante, The Real End, The Real rock san
Speaker 1: and Sparky d so uh so so. Well, let's hear
Speaker 1: the song this is. Let me just say that it's long.
Speaker 1: It's a rough recording. I fuck with Brian over this
Speaker 1: because he dipally played this version. It's pretty hard to
Speaker 1: listen to. We don't have to listen to the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and you'll see why.
Speaker 15: Video Music Box continues with one of the hottest lady
Speaker 15: rappers on the music scene. He is rock sand Shante
Speaker 15: and rock Sands Revenge.
Speaker 13: Well, my name is back band.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I just abackau funny and I do
Speaker 3: this said I'm gonna see you guys, and you know
Speaker 3: it's to let me tell you and explain them all
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 10: I'm gonna just do with the.
Speaker 7: Name of a hen. I didn't even walk away.
Speaker 6: I didn't.
Speaker 9: You don't know that.
Speaker 3: But then he got real man, and he got a
Speaker 3: little tired. If he wasn't for me too, you know,
Speaker 3: he would be fined. He wouldn't a can't go and
Speaker 3: that is cute, But he ain't like that money, and
Speaker 3: he ain't got the lute. And every time that I
Speaker 3: see him, he's always abegging at all the other girls
Speaker 3: that he's always trying.
Speaker 8: To leg it.
Speaker 3: Every time that I see him, he said, rose, he
Speaker 3: compared to me, just we compared to mine. Every time
Speaker 3: that I know that, I am saying, it's the profession
Speaker 3: in any charactery.
Speaker 6: I can see this the best.
Speaker 3: At every time that I said that ain't nothing. And
Speaker 3: let you and everybody you know I will with think
Speaker 3: God said. And after that and the educated rapper, this
Speaker 3: thing is started to slam them in my hands like
Speaker 3: a flam But every time that I see him, everything
Speaker 3: he say, he rockets to the beata and he come
Speaker 3: to this pa. He said that, yeah, you know, your
Speaker 3: mother's a name is Mary.
Speaker 7: Everywhere I've heard because your father is up there.
Speaker 3: But every time I see him, he's saying it's something new.
Speaker 7: But let me explain to him what you should do.
Speaker 3: You should be like me if I MC don't never
Speaker 3: have the bite, will always write, I have the Fascius
Speaker 3: mom that I do recite and after that again know
Speaker 3: what's true.
Speaker 1: But let me tell you. So that was the start
Speaker 1: of the Roxanne Wars. And that was Roxanne Shade. The
Speaker 1: Roxanne that I worked with that Select Records was the
Speaker 1: real Roxanne aka Adelaida Martinez. She was very young and
Speaker 1: very pretty, and she was a girl from the hood.
Speaker 1: She had two children at a very early age. The
Speaker 1: art director had Select and my best friend there took
Speaker 1: Roxanne under her wing and acted as her stylist for
Speaker 1: photo and video shoots. And I called my friend Amy
Speaker 1: Lys and I just to check some details that I
Speaker 1: was confused about, because this is confusing. I wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure I had the right Roxanne in all these
Speaker 1: different scenarios. And two hours later, we're still talking and
Speaker 1: now we're getting together. So I'm glad I decided to
Speaker 1: use this song. The real Roxanne aka Adelaida Martinez went
Speaker 1: on to record many records on Select, one single being
Speaker 1: respect which sampled the Arretha Franklin song, and also Rodney
Speaker 1: Dangerfield and another popular so I actually played that a
Speaker 1: long long time ago on this show. And another one
Speaker 1: which was Bang Zoom Let's Go Go with hit Man
Speaker 1: Howie Tea that peaked at number twenty four on the
Speaker 1: R and B charts, and that was the Roxanne Wars.
Speaker 6: I think that was fascinating, and I think that minute
Speaker 6: clip was more than enough of.
Speaker 5: I was going to say that that was the audio
Speaker 5: equivalent of a Migraine headache.
Speaker 4: Yea, her voice is just a tad Yeah, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: I just love the fact that it's so raw, and
Speaker 1: I love the fact that she's fourteen. And if she
Speaker 1: did that in one take, that's pretty impressive because it
Speaker 1: goes on a lot longer than we listen to it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I would say she's very talented. Yeah, I could
Speaker 7: never do that, do that and without flubbing over my
Speaker 7: own words. Oh yeah, there's no way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but she she's not the real rock Sande. It
Speaker 1: was the one that I knew who has better voice,
Speaker 1: but a little bit older and more mature at that point.
Speaker 6: All right, cool, thank you, Mercedes Barbara. What do you
Speaker 6: have for us?
Speaker 7: Something almost exactly like what you've heard? No kidding? Oh
Speaker 7: all right, Well, my song choice for tonight's topic is
Speaker 7: pop hates the Beatles but Alan Sherman, And I gotta say,
Speaker 7: there's a crime taking place here, and the crime is
Speaker 7: that I don't really have to tell you who the
Speaker 7: Beatles were, but I do have to tell you about
Speaker 7: Alan Sherman.
Speaker 5: Well, I've heard of him, but who's who are these
Speaker 5: beetle beatle these beetle guys?
Speaker 9: Really?
Speaker 7: So Sherman is mostly known for composing and performing parody
Speaker 7: and comedy music. He was born Alan Copelon on November thirtieth,
Speaker 7: nineteen twenty four. He was the son of an auto
Speaker 7: mechanic slash race car driver father who suffered from obesity,
Speaker 7: weighing over three hundred and fifty pounds. And I don't
Speaker 7: know what this means, but a.
Speaker 1: Race car, he was in a race car. Three.
Speaker 7: It was a race car.
Speaker 4: How do you even do that?
Speaker 1: Do you even get in it or out?
Speaker 7: I did not research that carefully, nor did I research
Speaker 7: nor did I research the following statement. His father died
Speaker 7: while attempting a one hundred day diet, So I don't
Speaker 7: know what that even means. And I really didn't want
Speaker 7: to go down that big ass rabbit hole there. So
Speaker 7: as a child, Sherman and family moved around a lot
Speaker 7: and attended twenty one different public schools.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 7: He eventually was admitted to the University of Illinois and
Speaker 7: contributed to a humor column on the school paper, but
Speaker 7: he was later expelled for breaking into a sobriety house.
Speaker 1: Oh my, so doesn't that happen all the time on
Speaker 1: college campuses?
Speaker 7: I guess, I guess so, Sherman devised the TV game
Speaker 7: show I've Got a Secret, which ran from nineteen fifty
Speaker 7: two to nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 7: It was broadcast live, and Sherman was fond of televising
Speaker 7: large scale stunts on the show and clashed with anyone
Speaker 7: who didn't agree with his shall we say creativity. One
Speaker 7: of these particular stunts involved the Madison Square Boys Club,
Speaker 7: seated in the studio audience and a special Easter surprise.
Speaker 7: So they were all called up on stage and about
Speaker 7: one hundred bunnies were released.
Speaker 4: Oh Man.
Speaker 7: Chaos ensued, but show host Gary Moore took it upon
Speaker 7: himself to ensure the safety of the bunnies good and
Speaker 7: nearly all the boys ended up giving the rabbits back. So.
Speaker 7: Sherman began writing song parodies in nineteen fifty two, but
Speaker 7: did not achieve much success until he was invited to
Speaker 7: perform them at parties thrown by his next door neighbor
Speaker 7: Harpbow Marx.
Speaker 4: Oh, how nice.
Speaker 7: I have to tell you how much I enjoyed researching this.
Speaker 7: I've feature Alan Sherman numerous times on my show, and
Speaker 7: I always get a kick out of all these little
Speaker 7: fact toys and all these details and I'm so happy
Speaker 7: to read this and share this with you all. So
Speaker 7: these parties were attended by Marx's show business friends, and
Speaker 7: after one particular performance, party goer George Burns made a
Speaker 7: phone call to an executive at Warner Brothers and convinced
Speaker 7: him to sign Sherman to a contract. This resulted in
Speaker 7: the nineteen sixty two release of Sherman's first album, My Son,
Speaker 7: the Folk Singer, my very first comedy album. I was
Speaker 7: gifted it by my aunt when I was about six
Speaker 7: years old, and I listened to it over and over
Speaker 7: and over again. I got in trouble in he was
Speaker 7: school for singing Glory, Glory, Harry Lewis. Let's just leave
Speaker 7: it there. So. Sherman's second album, My Son the Nut,
Speaker 7: featured the famous track Hello mauta hella Fata, which most
Speaker 7: of us know, and this particular song reach number two
Speaker 7: for three straight weeks on the Billboard Hot one hundred.
Speaker 7: In nineteen sixty three. Sherman himself was parodied by performer
Speaker 7: Stanley Ralph Ross, who released an album called My Son
Speaker 7: the Copycat, featuring an album cover depicting a crossed out
Speaker 7: picture of Sherman. By nineteen sixty four, Sherman's success began
Speaker 7: to decline, largely due to the British invasion. His answer
Speaker 7: to this was to record Pop Hates the Beatles, the
Speaker 7: first track on side too of the nineteen sixty four
Speaker 7: album for Swinging Livers Only.
Speaker 1: That'll stop all this nonsense, so let's check it out.
Speaker 16: My daughter needs a new phonograph. She wore out all
Speaker 16: the needles. Besides, I broke the old one in half.
Speaker 16: I hate the Beatles, she says. They have a Liverpool beat.
Speaker 16: She says they used to play there, four nice kids
Speaker 16: from off of the street. Why didn't they stay there?
Speaker 16: What is all the screaming about fainting and swooning? Sounds
Speaker 16: to me like their guitars could use a little tuning.
Speaker 16: The boys are from the British Empire. The British think
Speaker 16: they're keen, if that is what the British desire. God
Speaker 16: saved the Queen. No daughter of mine can push me
Speaker 16: around in my house. I'm the master. But when the
Speaker 16: Beetles came into town, gad, what a disaster. Little girls
Speaker 16: and sneakers and jeans destroyed the terror Tory. Twas like
Speaker 16: some of the Gorrier scenes from West Side story. Of course,
Speaker 16: my daughter had to go there.
Speaker 17: The tickets are.
Speaker 6: Cheap, she hollers.
Speaker 16: I was able to pick up a pair for forty
Speaker 16: seven dollars. When the beetles come on the stage, they
Speaker 16: scream and shriek and cheer them. Now I know why
Speaker 16: they're such a rage. It's impossible to hear them. Ringo
Speaker 16: is the one with the drum. The uh there's all
Speaker 16: play with them. It shows you what a boy can
Speaker 16: become without a sense of rhythm. There's be little books
Speaker 16: and t shirts and rings and one thing and another.
Speaker 16: To buy my daughter all of these things. I had
Speaker 16: to sell her brother. Back in seventeen seventy six, we
Speaker 16: fought the British. Then, folks, parents of America, It's time
Speaker 16: to do it again, folks. When they come back. Here's
Speaker 16: how we'll begin. We'll throw them in Boston Harbor. But please,
Speaker 16: before we toss them all in, let's take them to
Speaker 16: a barber.
Speaker 7: Okay, well, first off, forty seven dollars, am I right?
Speaker 5: That's cheap?
Speaker 6: Test Imaginally that's a drink. Couple bok's a drink.
Speaker 11: I look this up.
Speaker 7: Okay, so you and have to thank me later. Forty
Speaker 7: seven dollars by today's standards, forty seven dollars in nineteen
Speaker 7: sixty four today is four hundred and eighty seven dollars
Speaker 7: and thirty eight cents.
Speaker 6: That's pretty accurate.
Speaker 1: And that's for two tickets.
Speaker 7: That's for two tickets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it actually sounds still chap.
Speaker 7: It's such about right actually to see the bills, to
Speaker 7: see well, if he knows bleed seats whatever you know
Speaker 7: in nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 10: So.
Speaker 7: Unfortunately, Sherman's recordings from nineteen sixty four on never charted,
Speaker 7: and he was released from his contract by Warner Brothers.
Speaker 7: In nineteen sixty six, he performed live in Australia and
Speaker 7: sang a parody of Molly Malone, not realizing that his
Speaker 7: use of the word but butt in the song would
Speaker 7: go over the heads of his audience members, who use
Speaker 7: the term bomb instead. However, he did sign it, end
Speaker 7: up signing at least one autograph. In nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 7: Sherman wrote the book, book and the lyrics for the
Speaker 7: flop Broadway musical The fig Leaves Are Falling, which starred
Speaker 7: Barry Nelson, Dorothy Louden, and David Cassidy. In nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 7: He was the voice of Doctor Seuss's The Cat in
Speaker 7: the Hat for the animated TV special and later for
Speaker 7: Doctor Seuss on the Loose. Unfortunately, Sherman's health began to
Speaker 7: deteriorate due to alcoholism, weight gain, diabetes, and lung disease,
Speaker 7: and he died on November twentieth, nineteen seventy three, just
Speaker 7: ten day shy of his forty ninth birthday, while entertaining
Speaker 7: friends at his Los Angeles home. Although Sherman's success, like
Speaker 7: his life, was fleeting, Sherman inspired many modern day parody artists,
Speaker 7: like Weird Al, who paid tribute to Sherman on his
Speaker 7: self titled first album, on the cover of which can
Speaker 7: be seen a cartoon awl, and an Alan Sherman record album.
Speaker 7: Sherman and his work have been referenced in popular culture
Speaker 7: like The Simpsons, and his songs have been covered by
Speaker 7: bands such as The Misfits and The Capitol Steps, thus
Speaker 7: leaving behind a lasting legacy. I Love you, Alan Sherman.
Speaker 5: Was great.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was funny. Poor ringo.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 6: All right, thanks Bob. One more quick break and we
Speaker 6: have one more selection to go, so stick around.
Speaker 10: Hudson Riverradio dot.
Speaker 6: Com Hudson Riverradio dot Com. All right, so mine is
Speaker 6: super short this week, so let's just jump in. I
Speaker 6: went with Stuck in the Middle with You by Steelers
Speaker 6: Wheels sometimes just known as Stuck in the Middle. Steelers
Speaker 6: Wheels were a Scottish folk rock band formed by Jerry
Speaker 6: Rafferty on guitar and vocals and Joe Egan on keyboards
Speaker 6: back in nineteen seventy two. Their lineup by the time
Speaker 6: they got a record contract included Paul Pilnick on lead guitar,
Speaker 6: Rod Koombs on drums, and Tony Williams on bass. Tony
Speaker 6: Williams also played bass for Jethro Tull, which I was
Speaker 6: gonna tease John about, but he's not here tonight, so
Speaker 6: we'll have to make up some Jethro tell something later.
Speaker 6: This song was their only big hit. They had a
Speaker 6: few couple blips after, but they wound up splitting up
Speaker 6: in nineteen seventy five and they each went on to
Speaker 6: successful solo careers. Rafferty would later be known for his
Speaker 6: solo career hits Baker.
Speaker 4: Street and I Love that song, oh My, and.
Speaker 6: Right down the Line, which I think I might actually
Speaker 6: like better.
Speaker 4: Oh I Love that idea.
Speaker 6: Yeah. He died of liver failure back in twenty eleven
Speaker 6: after just a lifetime of heavy drinking. He was sixty three.
Speaker 6: Egan died just last year, twenty twenty four, after having
Speaker 6: a stroke. He had already left the music business by
Speaker 6: the nineteen nineties. Stuck in the Middle was least in
Speaker 6: nineteen seventy three and was a top ten hit in
Speaker 6: the US and the UK and many other countries around
Speaker 6: the world. It sold over a million copies. It was
Speaker 6: produced by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoler, names that we
Speaker 6: should recognize. They wrote and produced a ton of early
Speaker 6: rock and roll hits like Hound Dogs, stand By Me,
Speaker 6: Kansas City, and the list goes on and on and on.
Speaker 6: So I would say the magic touch probably had something
Speaker 6: to do with the success of the song. The song
Speaker 6: itself got a second life when Quentin Tarantino used it
Speaker 6: in the nineteen ninety two film Reservoir Dogs. I could
Speaker 6: not make it past the first ten minutes of I
Speaker 6: am just not a Quentin Tarantino fan. It just does
Speaker 6: not click with me.
Speaker 5: I'm probably I was going to say that this group,
Speaker 5: that's what the song reminds me of the scene that
Speaker 5: they play this.
Speaker 6: And yeah tortures.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 6: Just I don't know, and now you guys feel about it.
Speaker 6: I just I've tried pulp fiction was okay, which I
Speaker 6: might get beat up for saying that, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Not here.
Speaker 6: Yeah you agree, Yeah, you're the resident movie expert, so yeah,
Speaker 6: give me your opinion. But yeah, I'm just yeah, not
Speaker 6: my thing. So what is Stuck in the Middle actually about. Well,
Speaker 6: the song is a spoof about being stuck at a
Speaker 6: music industry cocktail party where you are the center of attention.
Speaker 6: Clowns to the left of me, jokers.
Speaker 17: To the right.
Speaker 6: Here, I am stuck in the middle with you. That's amazing, right,
Speaker 6: references being getting worried about being so drunk you're going
Speaker 6: to fall down the stairs, worried about people just wanting
Speaker 6: stuff from you. The line please please please in the
Speaker 6: middle of the song, it's just people just coming to
Speaker 6: you because they want stuff because you're famous. Now, the
Speaker 6: singing style, well, that was a spoof on Bob Dylan.
Speaker 6: So the song is kind of a whole spoof on
Speaker 6: Bob Dylan because he was kind of known for being
Speaker 6: a little bit paranoid at these type of events. Because
Speaker 6: he was so famous and people always wanted stuff from him,
Speaker 6: and I guess he really didn't want to be there,
Speaker 6: and you can't really blame him. In fact, a lot
Speaker 6: of listeners when the song first came out, thought it
Speaker 6: was Bob Dylan singing this song, but it's not. They
Speaker 6: were just kind of spoofing on him. So let's go
Speaker 6: to a cocktail party, lift your beverage, and let's listen
Speaker 6: to Stuck in the Middle.
Speaker 14: Well, don't curio you tonight. I gotta feeling something right.
Speaker 14: I'm so scared of kids.
Speaker 4: I phone of my chair.
Speaker 14: I don't want to get down the stairs. Clowns did
Speaker 14: letting me?
Speaker 4: Joke us to the right here.
Speaker 14: I am stucking middle with you. You so I'm stuck
Speaker 14: in middle with you. Want what it is I should do?
Speaker 14: It's so hard to keep the smile from my face,
Speaker 14: lose some joey am.
Speaker 11: All over the place. Clowns to the left of me.
Speaker 14: Joke is to the right here.
Speaker 11: I am not getting middle with you.
Speaker 5: We just dying.
Speaker 14: I would not let your bother tell myself it now.
Speaker 11: And your family I'll go sad me I'm a bag and.
Speaker 18: Say trying to make some sense of it all, but
Speaker 18: I can see here is no sense at all?
Speaker 10: Is it cool?
Speaker 17: The wall steep bottom block, and I'm saying that I can.
Speaker 11: Take anymore.
Speaker 17: Clowns to the letting me joke gets to the right here.
Speaker 1: I am stuck getting riddle with you.
Speaker 11: I just started.
Speaker 14: I was loving and your brother you're selling now.
Speaker 2: And your family.
Speaker 11: I was coming save I'm a back.
Speaker 4: And say.
Speaker 11: Yeah, don't I carry you to night.
Speaker 14: I had a fear.
Speaker 17: Of something right, I'm so scared. I kiss, I followed
Speaker 17: my chattle longer. Get on the stairs bos the leather
Speaker 17: Joe gets to the right here.
Speaker 11: I am can a little in you because you you,
Speaker 11: you am with you.
Speaker 6: You could hear some Dylan in there. You could see
Speaker 6: kind of.
Speaker 5: Why oh yeah, and it fit right into the what
Speaker 5: he was kind of doing. I guess around that time
Speaker 5: the sound was the same. Yeah. Yeah, But I had
Speaker 5: heard that you mentioned his pension for every creation, that
Speaker 5: that's either stealers wheel or he himself. When he was
Speaker 5: a solo, he never toured because they they couldn't get
Speaker 5: him to go because he was drunk all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I heard this. I don't know, you know if it's
Speaker 5: true or not, but this is what I was told,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 6: So right, well, it would make sense, unfortunately, Yeah, and
Speaker 6: you know, producing a whole concert even back then. Nowadays
Speaker 6: it's ten times the amount of gear and people. But
Speaker 6: even back then, you know, selling tickets and booking a
Speaker 6: venue and have your guy not show up, that's problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a you.
Speaker 1: Know, no show, showing a lot of money.
Speaker 6: Whether he shows up or not, you got to spend it.
Speaker 6: You're paying everybody, you're yeah, if you're I don't know
Speaker 6: if he would refund at that point, but I guess
Speaker 6: you would have to. What else can you do?
Speaker 1: So all right?
Speaker 6: Is that enough disan for a night? I think Ringo
Speaker 6: got Ringo and Don Henley got it the worst.
Speaker 7: I think I'm so disenchanted.
Speaker 6: We should come up with something nicer to do with
Speaker 6: some week at some point, but not yet, not yet,
Speaker 6: some other time. We'll drag things along a little bit.
Speaker 4: So I don't know where there are any songs where
Speaker 4: artists fanboy or fangirl.
Speaker 6: Oh tons, Yeah, absolutely, that's it. That's a good one.
Speaker 6: We could look into that for now. Let's pull the
Speaker 6: plug before it goes off the rails. Right, Good job, Crambones,
Speaker 6: Thank you. For your selection and all your hard work,
Speaker 6: and as always, thank you all for joining us here
Speaker 6: for the rock and Roll History Show. Don't forget to
Speaker 6: subscribe in your favorite podcast app and check out all
Speaker 6: the other shows we do at Hudson River Radio. There
Speaker 6: is something for everybody. We'll be back next week with
Speaker 6: something we don't know what yet, we will figure it
Speaker 6: out as we always do. Till then, have a great weekend,
Speaker 6: Be safe and peace out everybody.
Speaker 3: A rock cop Bottom and Cram Okay the bye
Speaker 6: Hudson River Radio dot com the best thing to happen
Speaker 6: to the Internet.