Production
After hearing Yankovic's parody of his song "I Love Rock 'n' Roll", songwriter Jake Hooker suggested to "ace rock guitarist" Rick Derringer that he would be the perfect producer for the burgeoning parodist. Agreeing, Derringer used his music industry prestige and convinced Cherokee Studios to record an album's worth of Yankovic's songs gratis, to be paid from sales revenue. Then, in March 1982, "Weird Al" Yankovic stepped into a professional recording studio for the first time and recorded nine of the songs for "Weird Al" Yankovic.
The huge irony of my life; it was difficult for me to get signed to a record deal back in early 80s because all the executives were saying "Oh, you do that ... novelty music. You're gonna have maybe one hit if you're lucky and then you'll go right to oblivion. You know, nobody'll ever hear from you again."
— "Weird Al" Yankovic, speaking with Bob Boilen on All Songs Considered in 2006
After encountering difficulty picking up a record label for the first-time album, Jay Levey (a Los Angeles artists' manager) provided KIQQ-FM with a copy of "I Love Rocky Road". Impressing the program director of the Top 40 station, he played it immediately; "I Love Rocky Road" was one of the most-requested songs by the next day. At the same time, Tad Dowd—head of the new record label, Rock 'n Roll Records—had been trying to convince parent company Scotti Brothers Records to sign the 22-year-old Yankovic. The positive furor over the KIQQ playtest provided Dowd with the leverage needed to convince Scotti Bros. to offer a contract for Yankovic's first album.
Scotti Brothers Records' contract planned an April 1983 release date for a twelve-track album: "I Love Rocky Road" and eight other tracks were already recorded, "Another One Rides the Bus" would be the original 1980 live recording from The Dr. Demento Show, and the last two songs ("Ricky" and "Buckingham Blues") would be recorded at Scotti Brothers' own studios in Santa Monica, California.
Read more about this topic: "Weird Al" Yankovic (album)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.”
—Ernest Gellner (b. 1925)
“... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)