Song of the Day 3/21: The Buckinghams, “Kind of a Drag”
In 1965 a Chicago group called the Pulsations was hired as house band for a local TV station’s music show. With the British Invasion in full swing, the show’s producers asked them to change their name to capitalize on it, and the Buckinghams were born. They recorded several songs for a local record label the next year, including one by a local songwriter that took off nationally. “King of a Drag” hit No. 1 in February 1967.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FIqSenFxEc
The band soon signed with on with manager James William Guercio, who liked the “brass-rock” sound of “Kind of a Drag” and featured it on a string of four more hits that year. The last of them, “Susan,” sounded like the others except for a disjointed psychedelic segment in the middle that was an obvious rip-off of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” This led the band to fire him, but Guercio had the last laugh. His friend, saxophonist Walt Parazaider, asked Guercio to hear his new band, the Big Thing, which also paired rock and roll with horns. Guercio liked the sound so much he convinced the band to move to Los Angeles, where its name was changed to the Chicago Transit Authority. He spent the next 10 years making Chicago one of the best-selling bands in the world.
They got their name from the Buckingham Fountain in Chicago but they hoped fans would think Buckingham Palace. Back then a lot of American groups tried to go Faux-British. The Sir Douglas Quintet was a Tex-Mex band from San Antonio. The Beau Brummels were from San Francisco but named after the British dandy and Fashionista, (spelled with 2 L’s). On the other hand the Nashville Teens (“Tobacco Road”) hailed from Weybridge, Surrey.
The first time I heard “Kind Of A Drag” on my tinny AM-only transistor radio I thought it was a soda commercial and they were singing “Canada Dry!” That’s known as a Mondegreen.
You’re the man, Jim. Buckinghams and Mondegreens.
‘”They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray
“And laid him on the green”
So Lady Mondegreen is OK? Only one person slain?
That’s how this misheard lyrics thing got started 300 years ago. (Contain your excitement.)
There’s a bathroom on the right.
I just learned more new and interesting info in 2 minutes than I’ve learned in 2 years of the Trump presidency.