Rick Dees

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Rigdon Osmond "Rick" Dees III (March 14, 1950) is a radio disc jockey who is best known for his syndicated radio show Rick Dees And The Weekly Top 40 and for the novelty song "Disco Duck." Dees currently hosts the morning show at Movin' 93-9 FM in Los Angeles, along with Patti "Long Legs" Lopez, and Mark Wong.

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[edit] Bio

Rick was born in Jacksonville, Florida, but was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. Rick graduated from Greensboro Grimsley High School in 1968 and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1972. He was a member of the Tau chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha while attending college.

Dees is married to the former Julie McWhirter, a voice actress. They have a son, Kevin Dees, who is following directly in his father's steps as a DJ.

[edit] Career

[edit] Radio and parody music

Dees began his radio career in 1966 at WGBG, a Greensboro radio station while still in high school. While a student at nearby University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dees had a morning radio show on the North Carolina State University student station along with John Tesh.[1]

He worked in various radio stations throughout the southeastern United States, including WSGN in Birmingham, Alabama. Along with his 'Cast Of Idiots', Dees recorded "Disco Duck" in 1976 while working at WMPS-AM in Memphis, Tennessee, but he was expressly forbidden from playing the song on the air by station management (rival stations refused to play it for fear of promoting their competition). He was later fired on-the-spot simply for talking about the song on the air one morning - the station manager claimed conflict of interest. After a short hiatus, he went on to WHBQ-AM, also in Memphis.

The single "Disco Duck" sold over two million copies and reached number 1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart on October 16, 1976. The song can be heard in the movie Saturday Night Fever, in a brief scene in which a group of older people were learning to "move their feet to the disco beat", but the song was not included in that movie's enormously popular soundtrack album, thus depriving him of a Grammy award that the artists on the record received (for 1978's Album of the Year).

In 1979, Dees moved to Los Angeles and did mornings on KHJ (which was at the time WHBQ's sister station) during its final years as a Top 40 station. When KHJ flipped to a country format, Dees left the station. Then in 1981, Rick moved to crosstown Top 40 outlet KIIS-FM, where he served as host of Rick Dees in the Morning and was named Billboard's "Number One Radio Personality in America" for eleven consecutive years. The memorable "Did you hear what Rick Dees said this morning" advertising campaign helped propel him to number-one in the market. He was replaced on KIIS in 2004 by Ryan Seacrest. In late fall of 2006 he began hosting the morning show program on Movin 93.9 in Los Angeles along with model Patti "Long Legs" Lopez, Mark Wong and Tina the Psychic. In the fall 2007 Arbitron book, the new Rick Dees in the Morning show rose in ranking from 24th to 5th place.

He began his weekly Top 40 show, still currently in syndication, in 1983. Rick Dees' Weekly Top 40 is currently heard on over 350 radio stations in the United States, as well as in 37 other countries. The chart show is available in three different versions, Hit Radio (for contemporary hit radio stations), Hot Adult (adult contemporary radio stations) and Rhythmic (Rhythmic Contemporary/Rhythmic Adult Contemporary radio), all of which are accessible for online streaming and podcasting on his official website. Previously, there was a version for Latin music radio, Con Sabor (Spanish for "with flavor"), which was canceled after a few months streamed online.

In 1984, Dees (and his record company) made a request of Marvin Fisher, the owner of the copyright in the music of the song "When Sonny Gets Blue," for permission to use the song in a non-offensive parody of the performance by Johnny Mathis. Fisher refused to grant permission for the use. Dees decided to go ahead and do a parody even without the permission of the copyright holder, using about 29 seconds of the song in a parody album titled Put It Where the Moon Don't Shine.

Fisher sued Dees for copyright infringement. The trial court found that the parody, titled "When Sonny Sniffs Glue," was clearly intended to "poke fun" at the style of singing for which Johnny Mathis was well known, and thus was not infringing. The decision was upheld on appeal.[2]

[edit] Movies and television

Dees has appeared in movies such as La Bamba, as a voice in the Jetsons: The Movie, and has made many guest appearances on television shows such as The Love Boat, Hot Seat with Wally George, and Diagnosis: Murder. Dees served as host of two television shows, including a stint on the syndicated weekly Solid Gold and the short-lived Into the Night with Rick Dees. The latter show aired on ABC weeknights after Nightline as competition for NBC's The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. He has appeared on infomercials promoting 50s hit songs. Dees also appeared as the voice of himself in an episode of Married... with Children, as well as contributed a recipe to that series' tie-in cookbook, Pig Out With Peg, by Linda Merinoff.

Most recently, Dees co-founded the Fine Living television network. [3][4]

[edit] Awards

Rick was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1999 [5], the North Carolina Broadsters Hall of Fame in 2002 [6] and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2007. He has also received the People's Choice Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has won the Billboard's "Radio Personality of the Year" 10 times.[7] Rick is regarded one of the most listened to and influential Radio Disc Jockeys of his era.[citation needed]

[edit] Discography

  • 1977 - The Original Disco Duck
  • 1983 - Hurt Me Baby, Make Me Write Bad Checks
  • 1984 - Put It Where the Moon Don't Shine
  • 1985 - I'm Not Crazy
  • Rick Dees' Greatest Hit (The White Album)
  • 1996 - Spousal Arousal

[edit] References

  1. ^ Taylor, Chuck. "'The John Tesh Radio Show': In The Know, Raunch-Free And On The Rise", Airplay Monitors, March 19 2004. Retrieved on 2008-05-03. 
  2. ^ Fisher v. Dees 794 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1986) A reference to the text of the decision in Fisher v. Dees appears here
  3. ^ About Rick Dees. www.rick.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-12.
  4. ^ Trusso, Danielle. "Rick Dees is in Kentucky, not L.A., in the morning", LexGo.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-12. 
  5. ^ Radio Hall of Fame -Rick Dees, Network Personality. www.radiohof.org. Retrieved on 2008-06-12.
  6. ^ Curtis Media Group. www.curtismedia.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-12.
  7. ^ National Association of Broadcasters. www.nab.org. Retrieved on 2008-06-12.

[edit] External links

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