Stagger Lee Saturdays - Spencer and Spencer

Here's a tie-in post. This ties in Stagger Lee with my recent series of posts on Break-In Records. Spencer and Spencer were actually Dickie Goodman, king of the break-in records, and Detroit DJ Micky Shorr.

A bit of clarification before you download: This isn't actually a break-in record per se, using song lyrics as dialogue. In fact, it only samples two records: Lloyd Price's then-current hit version of Stag, and Stan Freberg's epic takedown of Lawrence Welk. The Freberg record was still very well-known in 1959, two years after its release, and in fact this uses a few of the same jokes ("The Lemon Sisters," a similarly deadly impression of Welk, and even the same sound effect to signify the crushing of Welk's accordion). This whole thing feels like Freberg Lite to me, reusing the diction correction of Stan's "Sh-Boom" and the running back into the studio of his "Day-O." But, in all fairness, even Freberg Lite is still funnier than the SNL parodies of Welk they've been doing lately.

So, to sum up, this isn't the funniest novelty record of 1959, or the funniest version of Stag. But it's good for a few giggles, and if you're a completist of Freberg, Stagger Lee, or even Welk parodies, it's essential listening.

Spencer and Spencer - Stagger Lawrence
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Silly Sundays - John and Ernest - Superfly Meets Shaft

Remember how I was supposed to be doing a month of break-in records, right before my computer broke itself? Well, here's post #2. In 1973, some seventeen years after his first break-in release, Dickie Goodman produced (and presumably helped write and edit) this record by John and Ernest (wiki). It tells the story of Superfly, who's gone missing, and Shaft, who is called in to investigate.

I bought my own copy of this 45 long before I knew it was connected to "The Flying Saucer," on the title alone, and in fact on first listen it sounded like a familiar formula for a comedy record, but I couldn't quite place it. I didn't put two and two together until I got a cheap cheap copy of the now long-OOP Buchanan and Goodman anthology "Politically Correct?" and it was included therein.

Anyway, the samples used here are the obligatory Mayfield and Hayes, along with Billy Paul, Spinners, Four Tops, etc. (The samples are mostly identified, oddly enough, in the YouTube comments here.) Side two was a short loop of the final few seconds, which I won't be posting, but you can find it over at Jukeboxmafia, who apparently did a whole string of break-in posts a while back (at least one of which I don't currently have in my collection).

I've got at least one more post scheduled on this topic, so stay tuned, folks!

John and Ernest - Superfly Meets Shaft
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Silly Sundays - Buchanan and Goodman - The Flying Saucer

As promised back in December, this kicks off a month of themed Silly Sundays posts about break-in records. And here's the very first break-in hit.

Dickie Goodman (wiki AMG extensive bio) and Bill Buchanan (wiki AMG) only worked together for about three years (probably less in reality, but records were credited to the pair until 1959), though they both continued releasing break-in records under various names and pseudonyms for a while, with Goodman continuing until right before his death in 1989.

If you read that extensive bio linked above, you'll get a good overview of Goodman's place in the history of novelty records, and this page here will give you the script of the record and a quick review of the history involved. This record is dizzyingly fast and complex, with layers of jokes (my favorite is probably the repeated misnaming of artists and song titles).

I haven't firmed up all my plans for this month of posts yet, but there's some good stuff coming -- stay tuned.

Buchanan and Goodman - The Flying Saucer Part One
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The Flying Saucer Part Two
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