I sent the following email to Charles Garrett, the author of “Chinatown, Whose Chinatown? Defining America’s Borders with Musical Orientalism”:
Dr. Garrett was kind enough to take my out-of-the-blue question seriously, and his response was:
The second paragraph seems like a plausible explanation how the riff was established, although not exactly where or when. And, although he doesn’t give a specific example of the “orientalist novelty songs of the 1940s,” I’m inclined to believe that he’d be a reasonably reliable source for their existance.
I went out of my way to say, “apropos of nothing”, to make it clear that I was just providing the link for the sake of interest, and not for the purpose of trying to date anything. It was quite obviously a new composition. But you just HAD to get your digs in.
In deference to the moderator, I won’t be responding to you anymore. I hope someone comes up with more information, because I still think this is an interesting subject.
IIRC, The Move recorded a version of “Chinatown…” in about '70 or '71 for one of their last LPs, and that may have been fairly fresh in the mind of the KFF composer.
I could play you about 20 songs that riff off of this, um… riff out of my 60s rock’n’roll collection. There are a number of these songs (which are considered fairly well racist these days as opposed to simply funny or cute) on the following reprint compilations which were put together in the last decade or so:
There are a bazillion examples out there before KFF, and if you’re in the neighborhood you can stop by and I’ll play some for ya.
I suspect that the riff was in the popular imagination even before the 1920s for the same logical reason we would suspect people knew it before KFF: it’s a musical shorthand which trips associations to the Exotic Orient in the mind. We need to be cued for that sort of thing earlier in life.
I suspect there are examples of racist sheet music with riffs like this going back to about as early as Chinese immigration in the 19th century. The earliest example I could find quickly is the charmingly-titled Chong He Come from Hong Kong from 1919. Unfortunately the musical notation itself isn’t available on that page.
I imagine that “Orientalist” collectors, ethnic archives and sheet music collectors could bring this sort of thing back a lot earlier than that, and I suspect you could trace the origins of the tune we know from Scooby Doo or KFF decades before my earliest cite here.
There were dozens (maybe hundreds?) of these, mostly anti-Japanese. “Slap That Jap” and that sort of thing. I think Mel Blanc recorded a couple.
I just thought of two songs that use the variations on the riff in the ‘50s: “Ling Ting Tong” by Gene Ross and "Rockin’ China Doll" by the more familiar Buddy Knox (who you probably know from “Party Doll.”)
I’d be very interested in tracing this into the 19th century if anyone has a good archival source.
Aha. There was also an American release of the best of their last two albums combined on one LP which also has the track. That one’s a very cheap pressing with inferior sound, but easier to find in my experience in the used bins.
Could you listen to these songs, determine which ones have this specific riff, and upload an audio clip? Failing that, list as much info as possible so we can go find it ourselves? (title, artist, album, year would be great).
Remember, it’s been stipulated that we’re trying to date the earliest known occurrence of the exact riff used in “Kung Fu Fighting” and “Turning Japanese.” Similar isn’t good enough, so David Bowie’s “China Girl” (for example) would not satisfy the requirement.
A couple of days ago I thought I’d hit gold with Ella Fitzgerald’s “Sing Song Swing” from (I think) 1939, but alas, it was only a very close variation. I myself had remembered it incorrectly.
That’s going to be difficult in the case of those I have on vinyl, as my attempts to digitize my vinyl have resulted in a lot of hiss and very little signal (I may well be posting a Q in GQ on that at some point.) Some songs I already have digitized & I’ll give them a listen, determine which ones cut it and post the clips in the next couple of days. I’ll stick the URLs here when I do.
Many of the songs I’m aware of were small pressings on small labels and in many cases the compilers of the reprint compilations themselves don’t know specific dates, but you can guesstimate pretty well by style and recording quality (the main rash of them seems to have been around '59-'63.)
I should also point out that I don’t own any copies of the Chop Suey Rock series, which I should think would be the largest concentrated, er… treasure trove (?) of this material in the world.
As the OP of the thread that came just before this one (that died, alas), I’d like to thank everyone here for exerting so much effort in finding the origin of this riff.
That was the ending in the Warner Bros cartoon “Tweety and the Beanstalk”, made in 1957. Yeah, some oriental-sounding music is played when Sylvester comes crashing into China (after being landed on by the Giant), but it’s not quite the Chinese riff that’s being discussed here, but it’s close. BTW, this cartoon may not get a lot of air time due to the PC police, a la Speedy Gonzales.
Well, it just drives me nuts that nobody including me can put hands on it or answer the question. You’d think it would be a no-brainer to find this one since it’s so widespread. Or at least that’s what I thought. But then when I go back to recordings where I thought it existed, it turns out my memory has played tricks on me and it’s off by a few notes.
At this point I don’t care so much about finding the precise origin as finding a copy, any copy, older than 1974 (thus proving that we haven’t all gone senile yet). I’m officially out of ideas, so I hope Crandolph can turn up something.
OK, many hours later on a slow Monday, having listened to far more wanna-sound-Chinese trashy rock’n’roll than can possibly be healthy, I come to a surprising conclusion…
“KFF” may be the origin of that exact riff. I’ve listened to about 10 songs I thought might be the riff, but thus far all of them have been playing little pentatonic scale games around the “KFF” riff without hitting it exactly.
I’ve also discovered that the Gene Ross white late 50s rocker version of “Ling Ting Tong” is actually a cover of the same song by The Five Keys, a black doo-wop group from earlier in the decade.
The closest I’ve heard thus far are a few surf-type instrumentals which I probably can’t didgitize samples of anytime soon. But those are close-no-cigar. I have to say I’m beginning to believe that “KFF” may have been the first song with that exact riff. I say “may” because of the absence-of-evidence issue. I have about 10 more songs in my stacks of vinyl to check, but if I spend much more of Valentine’s Day doing this I’m likely in trouble … I’ll likely post a vinyl update tomorrow. Also really regretting not buying copies of Chop Suey Rock when I’ve seen them; this is our best bet.
Here is a sample of the type of thing I’ve been referring to (and this one isn’t all that close), “Chinese Junk” by Prentice Moreland on the Del-Fi label from 1960. One song that many of you could possibly have at home that comes somewhat close is The Hollies’ “Oriental Sadness” from their 1966 album Would You Believe?.
I’m down to about 5 songs I have to track down in my largish music collection, and thus far no exact KFF/Vapors riff.
Thus far the closest I’ve come is the guitar solo on “Rockin’ China Doll” by Buddy Knox (who seems to have been a fan of the exotic girl sub-genre and also recorded a hula girl track along the same lines), which was recorded c. '58. Again, though, close but not “it.”
If someone would just break down and buy the Chop Suey Rock comps online (I also recall seeing them in the Amoeba Music stores in the Bay Area) this would be the most fertile hunting ground. Some poor twisted soul has already compiled the “me Chinese. me lock’n’loll” tracks for us, and I imagine is living out the rest of his days weaving baskets as a ward of the state.
Another area to look might be the cartoon or radio sound effects CDs and LPs. I don’t have may of these, but I suspect that the riff may have been used as incidental music if not as the meatus of a whole commercially-released song. Anyone have some of that material?
Not the original song necessarily, but the same riff as KFF, a pre-'74 one at that.
The first Jungle Exotica CD has a track by The Gaylords called “Ah So!” in which a piano is rocked Jerry Lee Lewis style using “the” riff. As if that isn’t enough, the lead singer mimics tonal Chinese the whole way through. You can pretty well picture him pulling back the corners of his eyes and wearing joke shop buck teeth while this was recorded.
The Amazon page I link to has this being a release on the Crypt '60s rerelease label, but my copy came out on the similar Strip label out of Germany (these being the same people who put out the Las Vegas Grind instrumentals series.)
All of the songs in the series cam out c. 1959-1965, and the band was likely American. The only internet reference I can find is this radio playlist from a 60s-oriented show; this person’s copy of JE is also on Strip. This would be a very rare track which didn’t chart, there are no liner notes on the CD & therefore I can’t tell you what exact year this came out.
Bands like The Gaylords (if in fact they were a real band and not a studio group) were a dime a dozen at the time, and I imagine they were copying the riff from incidental music to try and string together a novelty hit. But at least you have a pre-'74 incidence.
Ha! Interesting. Thanks for doing all that work. I tend to think (and this is probably what you’re implying) that the real origins of this riff are probably pretty obscure.
Not a problem, I enjoyed it. Which is the part that makes one a geek I suppose, the enjoyment.
If I ever get a copy of Chop Suey Rock and encounter the riff again with more info, I’ll post it to Cafe Society. Incidentally there is a “Chop Suey Rock”-titled song I’ve encountered in this mess as well, but it wasn’t what we were looking for.
As far as the OP is concerned: I’m guessing somewhere out there is an incidental music library or sheet music collection with some answers. It may also be that someone at some point copyrighted the song (if only we knew a title!) and there’s a legal approach to answering the OP as well.
I don’t know if you guys came across this article yet, but it has several clips from movies that feature Asian stereotypes. It’s possible that the riff occurs as incidental music in some of these old films. If anyone has broadband and feels like watching them, here’s the site:
I already watched the Breakfast at Tiffany’s clip, which didn’t have background music in the scene at all. It took me several hours to download it, though. The files are just too large for my dialup connection.
… I’ll likely post a vinyl update tomorrow. Also really regretting not buying copies of Chop Suey Rock when I’ve seen them; this is our best bet.