Rick Dees

Influences

• David Seville — Seville created the multi-track pitch-shifting technique for The Chipmunks in 1958. Dees used this exact same variable-speed tape manipulation to create the pitched-up vocals on his own novelty hits. You can hear the direct lineage of Seville's sped-up voice tricks on every single track featuring the Cast of Idiots.
• Sheb Wooley — Wooley hit number one in 1958 with "The Purple People Eater," setting the blueprint for the sound-effect-heavy pop novelty. Dees adopted Wooley's structure of combining a driving rhythm section with recurring cartoon sound effects. You can hear this influence in the relentless, repetitive sound gags on Dees's 1984 singles.
• Dickie Goodman — Goodman pioneered the break-in record, which spliced together snippets of current hits with a mock interview. Dees borrowed Goodman's rapid-fire collage style and comedic timing for his morning show bits and early records. The frantic pace of "Disco Duck" is a direct descendant of Goodman's early cosmic radio parodies.
• The Coasters — Songwriters Leiber and Stoller wrote theatrical comedy-rock songs like "Yakety Yak" and "Charlie Brown" for The Coasters in the late 1950s. Dees took their concept of the sax-led, spoken-word humor record and updated it for the disco era. The call-and-response structure between the lead vocal and the squeaky cartoon voices on "Hurt Me Baby" is straight out of the Leiber-Stoller playbook.
• Bobby "Boris" Pickett — Pickett's 1962 smash "Monster Mash" proved that a singer could simply talk in character over a popular dance beat and sell millions of copies. Dees followed this exact vocal delivery style, relying on deadpan narration punctuated by wacky voices rather than actual singing. The rhythmic pacing of the spoken-word verses on both of Dees's Atlantic albums borrows Pickett's exact timing.