Hang On Sloopy

You probably have heard this song many times on the radio and have utterly no clue what this song is about.

You're not the only one. In fact, almost everyone who's ever heard this song has scratched their heads wondering what this song is about.

For example, here's the opening lyrics:

Hang on, Sloopy
Sloopy, hang on
Hang on, Sloopy
Sloopy, hang on
Sloopy lives in a very bad part of town
And everybody, yeah, tries to put my Sloopy down
Sloopy, I don't care what your daddy do
'Cause you know, Sloopy, girl, I'm in love with you....

HUH?

Sloopy?

Now wait a minute. OK, the song is about a poor girl who "lives in a very bad part of town"

But Sloopy?

Was it a typo? And she was really Sleepy? Or Sloppy? Or even a vague reference to Snoopy, the Peanuts comic dog? Or even Soupy, as in the comedian Soupy Sales?

But even if it was, the song would still be way off. Certainly not the most charming way to seduce a poor girl in even the very worst part of town (try it and see.)

Sloopy?

There aren't any girls whatsoever I can recall even nicknamed "Sloopy". And even fewer who would put up with a guy who would call her that without filing a court order.

Why Sloopy?

So it was finally time to get answers once and for all.

Dorothy Sloop...also known as Dottie Sloop, was an American jazz pianist. She was born in Steubenville, Ohio and went by the nickname "Sloopy". During her performing years, she was best known as a pianist with a number of all (or mostly) female jazz bands in the New Orleans area, primarily from the 1930s through the 1950s.

She recorded an album, "Sloopy Time" Featuring Dixie and Sloopy, in 1957 with Yvonne "Dixie" Fasnacht, a jazz vocalist and clarinetist.

The LP was released on Golden Crest Records. Golden Crest released many albums from C and D List stars as well as countless high school choral and marching band records in the 1950s to the 1970s. It ended as a classical label before folding in 1982.

"Dixie" Fasnacht operated a bar called Dixie's Bar of Music on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It was there that Dorothy's acquaintance and co-writer of "Hang On Sloopy" Bert Berns-Russell found the inspiration for the song. During problems with the sound equipment and a crowd getting rowdy, he heard a regular call out to her "Hang on, Sloopy!"

However, The McCoys weren't the first to record this song. It was originally recorded by The Vibrations in 1964 and titled "My Girl Sloopy". It's been performed by hundreds of rock acts, under both titles.

The Vibrations' version charted in the Top 30. After The McCoys version topped the charts, The Ohio State University Marching Band adopted "Hang On Sloopy" as it's theme song (Dorothy Sloop was also an OSU alum.)

Years later Sloopy earned a master's in English from the University of Florida, and taught special needs children in St. Petersburg. After retiring, Sloopy moved to Pass Christian, Miss., near her daughter Jane in Biloxi. A 1983 newspaper interview said her "saloon days" were over, but she still played gigs on occasion.

Dorothy "Sloopy" Sloop died in 1998. She never earned a penny in royalties from "Hang On Sloopy" and never sought out publicity from the song. Tragically, her personal memorabilia were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.

More On "Hang On Sloopy"
  

"Up Up and Away" Rajput & The Sepoy Mutiny (1968)

 

 

In the late 1960s, to bolster your hippie credentials, one needed an album of South Asian sitar music.

But alas, Ravi Shankar records (as well as good pot) were hard to find in Heartland America. So leave it to Design Records, a subsidiary of the budget record label giant Pickwick Records and the biggest purveyor of pure cheese this side of Kraft Foods in the 1960s to fill that niche.

Often played by Fred Norris of The Howard Stern Show when discussing or introducing a guest of South Asian heritage, this track has also appeared on the out of print Incredibly Strange Music Vol. 1 compilation CD.

Like most of Design's product, it had no musician credits, liner notes or session information.

The back cover was a typical stock back cover for most Design albums, extolling the virtues of Design's catalog, with the helpful mention "The record you hold in your hands, made to standards as critical as any set in the industry, consists of pure vinyl."

"Let the rules go hang" never really made it into the hippie vernacular.

Happy Election Day!

Christmas Music Radio Stations

 

It begins this time every year....

Certain radio stations across America and Canada begin dropping their usually Adult Contemporary, Religious or Oldies formats for all Christmas music. 

On the surface, the reason is simple enough - it's the beginning of the holiday season. And regardless if you're still nauseated from all the Halloween candy you ate this weekend and still have your pumpkin outside the front door, it's time to start planning.

But more importantly, the all Christmas music format is one of the most successful in ratings and in sales. Radio stations in this format get lots of advertising and they can charge more for it. If this format could be viable all year round, they would do it.

But by December 25th, some of us are already annoyed by the holiday music overkill and can't wait until the 26th when sanity and regular programming returns.

It's true some radio stations start this format just waaay too early. Yes, the air is getting nippy, but the first week of November is really pushing it. There should really be some breathing room between holidays. 

But the bottom line is the bottom line; It's the make or break time for last quarter profits for retail businesses. And Christmas music tends to get people in a spending mood.

Holiday music was once a staple of radio in the 1950s, but as the 1960s to the 1990s progressed, it was usually limited to December 24th and 25th. After the 9/11 attacks, the format returned en masse. We were a nation in shock and in need of comfort. And Christmas music was the perfect aural comfort blankey. It was wildly successful and began yearly traditions at many radio stations. 

With that, here's a run down of terrestrial AM and FM radio stations that have already flipped to all Christmas formats (if you really can't wait.) Most of them you can hear online or with streaming mobile.

RadioInsight Christmas Music Station List 

 

FM (NOT THE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK)

In 1978, a movie called "FM" was released.

It was a really good movie, although running on the cliché (yet true and sadly timeless) theme of a wildly successful radio station that gets interference from bean counting management, utterly clueless and indifferent to the people that made the station successful who expect their input to make the station even more successful. Which more often than not ends up trashing the station.

I'm not going to spoil it beyond that, but I would put this movie in my Netflix queue if I were you. FM was also the inspiration behind the legendary WKRP In Cincinnati.

FM also had one of the best soundtracks of any movie of the 1970s. It was a compilation loaded with original hits from the original artists on a two LP album set. In their full length album versions, not edited single versions (which besides FM radio's sound quality, the full versions of songs were also what made FM radio great in the 1970s.) And certainly not like a K-tel and Ronco record. The soundtrack was mastered by Gary Katz, the golden ears behind Steely Dan's classic '70s albums. It was truly one of the very best sounding soundtrack albums I have ever heard and MCA Records spared no expense in getting this right. 

On the flipside, budget record label Pickwick Records tried to cash in on the popularity of FM's soundtrack with their typically crummy knockoff record of incredibly LOUSY cover versions of the FM soundtrack's hit songs.

 

....and I do mean lousy. 

Listen to this hysterically bad cover of The Eagle's "Life In The Fast Lane"