Inspired by this duck voice, Dees wrote “Disco Duck,” and he hired the guy from the gym to do the duck voice on the song.ĭees, as you have probably already figured out, was not a musician. But no: Dees heard a guy doing a duck voice while he was working out at his local gym. The Donald Duck impression is literally the only thing that anyone remembers about the song. “Disco Duck” sounds like the sort of song that you only write if you have a decent Donald Duck impression. Rick Dees was not the duck on “Disco Duck.” This blew my mind. But then again, this was “Disco Duck.” Can you blame the station? If you’re a local radio station, and one of your DJs suddenly has a hit single shooting up the national charts, you can probably get away with letting him play the damn song. Today, this all seems more than a little ridiculous. Dees’ station manager heard him, and he fired Dees on the spot. But one morning on the air, Dees casually mentioned that this song he’d recorded might hit #1, and he also noted that he wasn’t allowed to play it. So “Disco Duck” was basically taking off everywhere except Memphis. Other Memphis stations wouldn’t play the song, either they didn’t want to promote their competition. WMPS wouldn’t let Dees play the song they figured it would violate FCC rules about conflict of interest. He’d recorded “Disco Duck” as a sort of side-hustle goof, but the song had taken off. At the time, Dees was working as a DJ on the Memphis AM station WMPS.
In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.įive days before his song “Disco Duck” hit #1, Rick Dees was fired.
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