Now THAT’s What I Call Polka! Happy Birthday Weird Al
The Saga Begins
Alfred Matthew Yankovic was born today, October 23, 1959. Happy Birthday Weird Al.
Yankovic’s parents, Nick and Mary, were approached by a door to door salesman traveling through Lynnwood, CA
where they were living at the time. The salesman offered the Yankovic’s a choice between accordion or guitar lessons at a local music school. Al said, “his parents chose the accordion because they were convinced it would revolutionize rock.” [click images to enlarge]
Al’s first accordion lesson was on the day before his sixth birthday… and the saga began.
Weird Al aired his first comedy song in 1976. Since then he has sold more than 12 million albums, earned four Grammy Awards (with 11 more nominations), four gold records and six platinum records.
He states his influences as Tom Lehrer, Stan Freberg, Spike Jones, Allan Sherman, Shel Silverstein and Frank Zappa. But especially Dr. Demento’s Radio Show. His other sources of comedy inspiration came from Mad Magazine, Monty Python and the Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker parody movies; Airplane, TV series Police Squad, films Top Secret, Ruthless People and The Naked Gun.
When Yankovic was 16, Dr. Demento came to speak at Al’s high school. Yankovic gave Demento a homemade tape of one of his original parody songs recorded on a shoddy cheap tape recorder. The song was “Belvedere Cruisin” a joke about his family’s Plymouth Belvedere.
Demento played it on his show and got great response from his listeners. That was the launch of Weird Al’s career.
Belvedere Cruisin’ – Alfred Yankovic [Home Demo – Early 1976]
Weird Al graduated high school in 1975 and was the senior class valedictorian. In 1979, just before his senior year as an architecture student at Cal Poly, he recorded a take-off of “My Sharona” by The Knack. He took his accordion into the restroom because he liked the acoustics and recorded “My Bologna”.
Dr. Demento played the tape of “My Bologna” Al sent him to an even greater response from his listeners. Al met The Knack after a show at his college and spoke with lead singer Doug Fieger who had heard Al’s version of “My Bologna”. Doug loved the song and introduced Yankovic to Capitol Records Vice President, Rupert Perry, who signed Al to a six month recording contract. “My Bologna” was released on December 25, 1979 with “School Cafeteria” on the B-side.
Weird Al Yankovic – 1979 – My Bologna
Yankovic got his first hit on the Top 40 radio charts in 1983 with his parody of Joan Jett’s, “I Love Rock and Roll” – “I Love Rocky Road”.
The single “Eat It”, a parody of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984. The music was an uncanny shot by shot spoof of Jackson’s music video. “Eat It” was the highest charting Yankovic hit until “White and Nerdy” in 2006.
This is great. April 21, 1981, Al’s parody of “Another One Bites the Dust” is so popular he makes his first television appearance on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. Here he is doing, “Another One Rides the Bus”. Listen for Snyder’s iconic laugh.
“Weird Al” Yankovic – Another One Rides the Bus on the Tom Snyder Show
Weird Al is rooted in polka music so most of his studio albums and his live shows include a medley of contemporary songs juxtaposed for comedic affect as we hear at the top of this article. Yankovic has been known to say that converting these songs to polka was “…the way God intended”.
Rolling Stone’s Top Ten Weird Al Songs
- The Saga Begins’
- Trapped in the Drive Thru’
- Word Crimes
- I Lost on Jeopardy
- Like a Surgeon’
- Smells Like Nirvana
- White and Nerdy
- Amish Paradise
- Eat It
- Fat
A couple shots from my last Weird Al show at SummerFest, Milwaukee, 2015 with my daughter Nicki.
What I See ~ 