Tim Curry’s “I Do the Rock.”
I humbly submit Carl Lewis’s song “Break it Up”
You must watch that video.
TV talk show host Art Linkletter made a maudlin, embarrassingly overwrought record about his daughter, who jumped out a window to fly while on acid. It’s called “We Love You, Call Collect.” He even breaks down at the end. I hope you never have to hear it!
Announcer Frank Gallop had a hit comedy record called “The Ballad Of Irving”, from the album “When You’re In Love, The Whole World Is Jewish.”
Bill Cosby made several music records, not the least of which were “Hooray For The Salvation Army Band,” which parodies Jimi Hendrix’ “Purple Haze,” and “Little Ole Man,” which parodies Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight.” These are from the album “Golden Throat Sings.” There’s another album in the '70s that spawned a single called “Yes Yes Yes.”
Casey Kasem made a Beatles-related record called “Dear Elaina.”
This is fun, and if I were at home, I could come up with a bunch more of these.
Tim Curry made three albums for A&M, all of which are unavailable on CD. The first one is pretty good, the second one is really good, and the third one… well, they didn’t renew his contract. It may have had something to do with all that rock he was doing.
“Well, it’s stimulating! I’m a keen student!”
Anything ‘sung’ by the Brady Bunch kids.
“Tell Me Mama What to Do” by Patty Duke (but for the love of God, spare yourself from every listening to Duke’s own renditions of songs from “Valley of the Dolls.”)
Both Lynda Carter & Cheryl Ladd sang on their respective hit 70s shows - “Wonder Woman” and “Charlie’s Angels.” (Oh, and Ladd was also one of the voices from “Josie & the Pussycats” which featured her singing.)
Oh yeah, the cast members of the UK TV series “The Young Ones” made records. On one, they do their schtick with Cliff Richard, who does a new version of “Living Doll.” And Nigel Planer did a whole album in the character of Neil, where he covered songs by Traffic (“Hole In My Shoe”) and Nazareth (“My White Bicycle” - although that’s a cover of an obscure record from the '60s), among the humorous bits.
Who could forget former US Attorney General John Ashcroft’s stirring “Let the Eagle Soar”?
I know I wish I could forget it.
George Martin’s In My Life contains some very interesting examples (mostly Beatles covers) including:
Robin Williams and Bobby McFerrin doing Come Together.
Goldie Hawn singing A Hard Days Night as a torch song (not too badly, either).
Jim Carrey singing(?) I Am The Walrus which is actually pretty damn funny.
Billy Conolly does Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite. I think he nailed it.
Sean Connery reads In My Life with gravitas (or maybe he was just really drunk).
I liked these better than some of the covers done by actual musicians, although Jeff Beck’s A Day In The Life is worth the cost of the CD by itself.
David Soul, “Don’t Give Up On Us”
NOTE: I was going to post a link to it, but it when I tried to sample it Safari crashed. Seriously.
And contains the single most cringeworthy line in any serious pop song- “I can’t put bars on my insides”. Insides? what is that, the spleen? small intestine? I get it, he wanted to say heart but it didn’t fit the brilliant couplet he had in mind, so he used this gem.
As for the OP
Benny Hill “Ernie”
Sister Janet Mead “The Lord’s Prayer”
Wink Martindale “Deck of Cards”
Cheech & Chong- various
John Travolta “Let Her In”. etc.
Rex Smith, forget the song, plus a Rachel Sweet duet
If spoken word count-
Les Crane “Desiderata”
Byron Macgregor & Gordon Sinclair “Americans”
If muppets count-
Kermit “Rainbow Connection”
Ernie “Rubber Duckie”
Granted, most of these don’t qualify as songs per se, but all made the US or UK charts
And now, for your singing and dancing pleasure,
Bob Elliott, Ray Goulding, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner
doing, on YouTube, Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?
from [Bob & Ray, Jane, Laraine & Gilda (1979)]](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0078888/).
This surely made the 1980s charts of VHS sales, and could we have the DVD of the entire show, please? I’d like to get my shoelaces ironed. (The show includes many of Bob & Ray’s greatest hits.)
John Travolta did the entire male songs and duets on the ‘Grease’ sountrack, a few of which became hits - “You’re the One that I want”, “Greased Lightning”, etc.
Eric Idle’s “One Foot In The Grave” (Theme for the BBC comedy of that name.) and “The FCC Song” are two examples.
This wasn’t a hit by any means, but it’s still the strangest case I ever saw of a guy from a non-musical background attempting a career as a singer.
Back around 1975, tennis pro Jimmy Connors got the bright idea of going into pop music. He teamed up with Paul Anka, who wrote a song just for him. And he booked himself on Howard Cosell’s short-lived variety show to make his debut.
Was he good? I don’t remember. Was the song any good? I don’t remember. All I remember, all ANYBODY remembers is that Connors pulled an Albert Brooks on live TV. I mean, I have NEVER seen such huge perspiration stains on anyone’s underarms before or since. Whether the stage was extremely hot or Connors was extremely nervous, I don’t know. All I know is, the entire viewing audience was too busy asking, “What’s the deal with his underarms” to listen to the song.
I have, on vinyl, Mae West’s Christmas album, “Mae in December.”
I also have a very strange album sung by Tony Randall (songs like “When Banana Skins are Falling, I’ll Come Sliding Home to You.”
“Dominique” by Soeur Sourire, the singing nun.
I was gonna say that, but I think she is only known for that song so I don’t think it fits the OP.
Patty Duke had a couple of top 40 hits. She says that when people ask her to sign albums even now, she cringes.
Actually, “I’m Easy” is by Keith Carradine.
David Soul had a hit with “Don’t Give Up On Me”
John Travolta had similar success with “Let Her In”
Already answered above. That’ll teach me for responding before reading the rest of the thread. :smack:
“Don’t Give Up On Us”