Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Guessing Game

I have no real clue how many folks are reading the these posts, but I wanted to involve as many people as possible by asking you to guess the recording act heard on this record. Comments are always welcome, and can be shared by clicking on the comment button at the bottom of any post. 

Anyway... The Golden Age of Novelty Records (roughly 1956 through the late 1960's) is, in my opinion, well named. There is a virtually endless list of funny, odd, and downright peculiar records from that era, hits, near hits and obscurities, that were made in order to deliberately make people laugh, become confused and/or collapse into bewilderment.

Certainly a favorite of mine from that era is Rolf Harris' "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport". It was a massive hit, one of the bigger hits of any genre in 1963, and like most novelty records, would seem to be the type of thing that wouldn't really work well as a cover record or remake. 

Novelty songs as different in style and quality as "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Ha", "Witch Doctor", "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" "My Boomerang Won't Come Back" and "Tie Me Kangaroo Down" are all so unique, and uniquely tied in with their creators that to have made another version, particularly while the song was still a hit, seems ludicrous. 

But here we have just such a cover version. I would never have expected this song to be covered, and I never would have expected this recording act to have done such a record. The charm of the original is completely lost in this overblown version, with it's sound effects, unnecessary additional shout outs, such as "in memoriam", and the sheer incompetence shown by the singing of the line "watch me wallaby's feed" as "watch me wallaby's feet".

Anyway, let's play guess who made the record. Here 'tis:

Play:  

ADDENDUM, 2021 - The answer has long since been in the comments, below. Did you guess him? 

5 comments:

Erin R said...

Funny song. it sounds like Glenn Yarborough.

Stuart Shea said...

Can't be Pat Boone, is it? Wink Martindale? But boy, you're right...it's awful.

Anonymous said...

Pat Boone gets my vote. His whole sorry career has been based on slaughtering other people's music.

Bob Purse said...

PAT BOONE IT IS!!!!

gjersey said...

Late to the party again but...well done! Who WOULDN'T want to cover that song? It was probably a toss up between "Tie Me Kangaroo Down" and "Locomotion". Great find!