Rick Dees – Memphis Flyer

Today’s Music Video Monday also happens to be one of the biggest hits of the decade.

In the six months since “Uptown Funk” was released by British mega-producer Mark Ronson and Hawaiian sensation Bruno Mars, it has spent 14 weeks as number one on the American Billboard sales charts, 7 weeks atop the British charts, has set records for the number of streams in a week, and has won Single Of The Year at the Brit Awards. It’s one of those seemingly rare moments when market success and artistic success converge. You can read all about its recording at Royal Studios with Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell in this Flyer story from February. The video is simple, energetic, and awesome.

Music Video Monday: Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars

It was also the first song recorded in Memphis to hit number one since Memphis disc jockey Rick Dees’ novelty record “Disco Duck” topped the charts for one week in October, 1976. So as an added Music Video Monday bonus, here’s Dees and Duck live on The Midnight Special.

Music Video Monday: Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars (2)

If you want to see your video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.

Neverending Elvis

According to Belgian news sources, “Elvis Presley was de allereerste twerker,” while the Spanish-speaking press notes, “El ‘twerking’ lo inventó Elvis Presley.” For the English-only types, here’s the gist of this super-hot international news item: Memphis’ rock king, Elvis A. Presley, was the original twerker. The source of this stunning revelation was none other than Nashville twerk queen Miley Cyrus, standing up for her God-given right to shake but not break what Sears & Roebuck don’t make.

“Elvis, he wasn’t wearing the outfits I was wearing, but he was coming out and he was doing like the OG twerking,” Cyrus said to Australia’s Sunday Night. “Like, no one wants to admit that he was twerking, he was.”

Will Cyrus’ multiple anachronisms overshadow her underlying point that her dirty dancing has exposed some not-very-well-hidden gender biases? Can she convince percolator purists that booty-bumping is an ancient and honorable tradition reaching back at least as far as 1954? Are people in Belgium and Australia really still talking about twerking?

Dees-Licious

Memphis-raised artist Shelley Fisher, “The Down Home Diva,” brings her one-woman musical The Hebrew Hillbilly to the Jewish Community Center Thursday, September 4th. The Hebrew Hillbilly chronicles a Hollywood odyssey that begins in the “heart of the Mississippi Delta.” Singing with the Wonderland Band, Fisher scored a hit with a disco version of TV’s “Wonder Woman Theme.” Most notably she penned “Dis-Gorilla,” the jungle-themed follow-up to superstar Memphis DJ Rick Dees’ 1976 hit “Disco Duck.”

Sample lyrics: “A foxy lady in a bright red cape/ Caught my eye and really drove me ape/ All of a sudden, I was acting deranged/ My hair was growing wild/ I was looking strange/ She said I’s the one/ Who would name me thriller/ Cause she was searching for the Dis-gorilla.” They just don’t write ’em like that anymore.