Inspired by the season and the December 9 birthdays of Donny Osmond, Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, The Rutles’ Neil Innes, Joan Armatrading, Dan Hicks, Donald Byrd, Uffie, Sylvia, Jessie Hill and Cybotron’s Juan Atkins.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (11-30-20)
Inspired by the season and the November 30 birthdays of June Pointer, Allan Sherman, Billy Idol, Whodini’s Jalil, Shuggie Otis, Des’ree, Luther Ingram, The Runaways’ Cherie Currie, and Dick Clark.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (10-5-20)
Inspired by the October 5 birthdays of Steve Miller, Sweet’s Brian Connolly, Sparks’ Russell Mael, The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy, Mrs. Miller, The Boomtown Rats’ Bob Geldof, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s Kip Berman, Glynis Johns, William Tabbert, Madness’ Lee Thompson, Billy Riley, The Chantels’ Arlene Smith and Girls Aloud’s Nicola Roberts.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (9-28-20)
Inspired by the September 28 birthday of Ben E. King, St. Vincent, Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild, Jeezy, Koko Taylor, Moon Unit Zappa, Janeane Garofalo, and The Farm’s Peter Hooten.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (9-8-20)
Inspired by the September 8 birthdays of P!nk, The Cars’ Benjamin Orr, Patsy Cline, Aimee Mann, Neko Case, Peter Sellers, The Beau Brummels’ Sal Valentino, Wiz Khalifa, Slim Thug and Bob & Earl’s Earl Nelson.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (4-9-20)
Inspired by the April 9 birthdays of Tom Lehrer, Carl Perkins, My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way, Jazmine Sullivan, Lil Nas X, Paul Robeson and Paper Lace’s Phil Wright.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (3-20-20)
Inspired by the March 20 birthdays of Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, Fabulous Thunderbirds’ Jimmy Vaughan, Carl Palmer, and Carl Reiner, and International Day of Happiness; and the March 19 birthdays of Ruth Pointer, The Specials’ Terry Hall, and Clarence “Frogman” Henry.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (3-14-20)
Inspired by the March 14 birthdays of Quincy Jones, Este Haim, Taylor Hanson, Michael Martin Murphey, Colby O’Donis and Billy Crystal.
Hanukkah!
Putting together a Hanukkah playlist isn’t easy, I tell ya, especially when one wishes to avoid THAT SONG. Beck’s Hanukkah entry, “The Little Drum Machine Boy,” remains absent from Spotify, so you’ll need to go elsewhere to learn about the holiday robot funk and the Hanukkah pimp. All in all, this isn’t a bad batch of tunes celebrating the holiday. Enjoy!
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Der Fuehrer’s Face
“Der Fuehrer’s Face” was the first hit song for Spike Jones and His City Slickers, a pre-rock & roll Ylvis. The wacky recording, on which Hitler gets razzed, was written for an Academy Award-winning Walt Disney cartoon originally entitled Donald Duck in Nutzi Land. The song hit #3 on the pop charts in 1942.
I was introduced to the song by Dr. Demento, whose radio show initially existed to present rare old recordings, but morphed into a showcase for novelty records after listeners requested such tunes repeatedly.
Jones’ orchestra is best-remembered for their Christmas evergreen “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth,” written by an elementary school teacher named Donald Gardner, who upon asking his students what they want for Christmas noticed that most of them were missing teeth.
Jones, who passed away in 1965, was born on this day in 1911.Today’s playlist is inspired by him and includes other songs that were popular on The Dr. Demento Show with some stand-up comedy thrown in.