Very often a novelty, or
incidental moment we think is insignificant, can result in much effect.
Such is the case with the
1970 eighteen- second recording by Kenny Price entitled “The Shortest Song In
The World”.
I was in Detroit, age 15,
riding with my uncle in a well- worn pick-up truck to a job site either to
build a boiler or repair a chimney when I heard on the radio a DJ introducing
this song.
While in Detroit I, of my own choice, would have been listening to CKLW the Windsor-based rock station. Never would I have heard this song if not for my uncle’s preference for country. "Her Majesty" on Abbey Road? Did they have a line of melody and arrangement but no where to go with it? Somebody knows!
But hearing the song, I
became intrigued as to who this Kenny Price was and was this sense of humor a
customary attribute or merely an ephemeral joke.
I, “rock and roll only
Mike”, became a fan of Kenny Price as I, back home in Elkhart, visited Jack’s
Records on Mainstreet and asked the store personnel if they had any “demo”
albums of Kenny Price to which I could listen.
Kenny carried a signature
country vocal along with a very Nashville kind of production that tickled my
musical fancy.
I would later watch him
on HeeHaw. His presence there confirmed his sense of humor!
So, to my poets, authors,
musicians, artists, and idea entrepreneurs, I say, if you have some brief,
short, or otherwise anomalous creation that seems not worthy of sharing, put it
to the public anyway.
I bet there’s a Mike-like
audience in the right place at the right time to become a fan. And you never
know when that fan might be a “positive change agent” in your life!
You can hear the song on
youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X30l7A8-BRM
