To call this blog Manic Melodies and not talk about Spike Jones and his City Slickers would be a crime punishable by having to listen to Justin Bieber on fast speed (sending his already castrati voice into to chipmunk territory). Spike’s music is as manic as it comes.
Spike Jones, nee Lindley Armstrong Jones, got his nickname from being as thin as a railroad spike. At age 11 he received his first set of drums, and that percussive, rhythmic attack would be a hallmark of his arrangements for his entire career. Even in this age of DIY music and production, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone using pots, pans, and kitchen utensils like Spike did.
Spike worked his way up through the radio shows of the 1930′s. Towards 1941 Spike had started the City Slickers, which evolved out of the band The Feather Merchants. They signed a contract with RCA in 1941 and recorded a huge number of sides for them through 1955.
Spike is known for both his zany originals, like “Der Fuehrer’s Face” written for the 1943 Disney cartoon of the same name, and for his satire’s and parody songs of popular songs of the day like “Cocktails For Two” and “Ghost Riders In The Sky”.
Unlike now, when most music stars are honored to have Weird Al Yankovic skewer one of their songs, the original authors of the two previously mentioned Jones parodies were not happy with him at all. In fact, Vaughn Monroe, writer of “Ghost Riders” and large shareholder in RCA, demanded that an alternate version of Jones’s record be released in the US that removed a well-barbed dig at him at the end.
Spike’s best known recording may be “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth”. That whistling ditty that every 12 year old with two missing chompers in December has to deal with the relatives singing at him. Yes, me too.
Spike Jones also got trapped into that idea that many comedy music artists fall into sometimes. That of being taken seriously as a musician. (See Rodney Carrington). In 1946 Spike built Spike Jones and The Other Orchestra that did orchestral arrangements of dance hits. Sounds horrible now, but that was the thing then. And while they were apparently artistically successful, the public wanted to hear the goofy stuff. And like many of us caught in the love/hate trap with serious music, he started to mix the two like the recording of “Laura” which features a serious first half and a manic hilarious second half.
The 1950′s and 60′s brought a lot of changes to popular music and comedy… rock n’ roll and standup specifically. Spike adapted with nostalgia movements that take place every so often, and even did some spoken word comedy records. But overall, none of that had the impact that his earlier work did.
There’s a clear line from Spike Jones to guys like Weird Al and Frank Zappa. Top notch musicality with a biting sense of humor.
The video below is of Disney’s 1940′s propaganda cartoon of “Der Fuehrer’s Face”. It was a tough find for a long time, but interesting to watch now.
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I like to hear Spike’s music and have heard some music of him. Really his music is enthusiastic. Thanks for sharing nice information. The video is also fantastic to watch.