The clown prince of pop music was born today in 1959 in California. His folks called him Alfred Matthew Yankovic but the rest of us know him as Weird Al. Though he shares an instrument and a last name with legendary accordion player Frankie Yankovic they are not related.
Al is the kind of guy that could do anything he put his mind to except for getting laid in high school. He first picked up an accordion at the age of five, skipped second grade and graduated from high school as the class valedictorian at the age of 16. He would go on to earn a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from California Polytech in San Luis Obispo.
While Al was still in high school, he met Dr. Demento when the doctor visited his school. Dr. Demento hosted a syndicated radio show that specialized in novelty songs and all the weird and wild ephemera that was suitable to broadcast. Al gave Dr. Demento a copy of one of his songs and it was through Demento’s show that Al was first introduced to the world.
Success was not immediate or even apparent at the time so Al made his way to Polytech. While in college he hosted his own show on the college’s radio station. He recorded a parody of The Knack song “My Sharona” in 1979 and sent it to Dr. Demento. When the song was first aired the phone lines were flooded by callers asking about the song and Al had a minor hit on his hands. The song was heard by a member of The Knack who encouraged his record company, Capitol Records, to sign Al which resulted in Al’s first recording contract. The contract was only for six months and not much came of it.
The following year Al dropped by the Dr. Demento show and recorded another parody song live, this time lampooning the Queen song “Another One Bites the Dust” with his own “Another One Rides the Bus.” The song was a hit and led to Al’s first television appearance in 1981. In the same year Al joined Dr. Demento’s live show and started touring. He caught the attention of manager Jay Levey who encouraged Al to pursue music full-time. Al put together a proper band and recorded “I Love Rocky Road” (parody of Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll”) with none other than Ohio’s own Rick Derringer. You may remember Derringer as a member of The McCoys of “Hang on Sloopy” fame.
“I Love Rocky Road” became Al’s first top-40 hit and led to his first album, “Weird Al Yankovic”, which was released in 1983. The following year saw the release of his second album “Weird Al Yankovic in 3-D”. The first single off the album, “Eat It” (parody of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”) was a massive hit and reached #12 on the singles chart. Al continued recording through the 1980s and branched out to film with the release of his movie “UHF” in 1989. Critics hated it but the movie has since become a true cult classic.
Al has remained active through today but not without some occasional controversy. While his parody songs are legal under copyright law, he reaches out to artists before working with their material. He initially reached out to the artists’ record label to gain explicit permission but started asking the artists directly after covering Coolio’s song “Gangsta’s Paradise” with his own “Amish Paradise”. Coolio reacted rather poorly to receiving the Weird Al treatment, which is ironic as “Gangsta’s Paradise” is an unabashed rip off of the Stevie Wonder song “Pastime Paradise”. Coolio and Al have since mended fences but the incident led Al to contacting the artists directly and reinforced his practice of not releasing songs without express permission.
Weird Al has four gold albums and six platinum albums to his credit. His 2014 album “Mandatory Fun” debuted at #1 on the album chart. He has also won four Grammys for his albums, which is four more than Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Diana Ross, Patsy Cline, Buddy Holly, Guns n Roses, Chuck Berry or The Who have ever earned for their albums.
Here is Al with the original video recording of the song that started it all, “My Bologna”:
