Before things get too serious here at Rock On Vinyl, I thought it might be fun to post a song / album at the end of each month, that could be categorized as being either Weird, Obscure, Crazy or just plain Korny.
Gene Moss is definitely the Weird Al Yankovic on this album. Moss wrote all the song parodies for "Dracula's Greatest Hits" along with a few original offerings and provides the vocals in a Bela Lugosi exaggerated style. Pretty funny, as well as a fun spin. The musicians ('His Monsters') were all established studio rats and as silly as the songs may be, the rats didn't short-change the music. All are pretty good.
The album artwork was created by Jack Davis of the bent Mad Magazine fame. Davis also did the artwork for albums as diverse as Homer and Jethro to The Guess Who. And it was this recognizable artwork that caused me to pause in the first place to have a better look.
Favorites include "I Want To Bite Your Hand." and "Drac The Knife", while "The New Frankenstein And Johnny Song" and "Little Black Bag" (a song about Jack The Ripper) are quite clever. Of course, all the songs on the album follow the Drac theme.
I picked this album up probably 3 or 4 years ago on a lark. I am just now checking it out. The cover looked great, plus the Beatles were getting their first big hit in America cracked on in spectacular ...Dracu-lized...style. This was 1964 after all, and everybody was trying to get their shots. The album was supposed to include 15 monster trading cards, but mine was long-gone missing. I imagine kids grabbed them up pretty quick and are pretty hard to come by. [Extract from thecollegecrowddigsme.com]
Reviews
- DRACULA'S GREATEST HITS is a delightful collection of song parodies with titles like DRAC THE KNIFE and I WANT TO BITE YOUR HAND. 'Waltzing Matilda' becomes 'Waltzing Godzilla' in "MONSTER HOOTENANNY". The Monster band is excellent. The LP was released by RCA VICTOR in 1964. Unfortunately, this wonderful album has been out of print for years and is now very hard to locate. Gene Moss made a career of his impression of The Count. He could out-Lugosi Lugosi any day!
- A fun album of monster related novelty songs released in the wake of "Monster Mash" becoming a surprise hit. These are parodies of popular songs plus a few original songs. Gene Moss does a good Bela Lugosi impersonation, with an occasional Boris Karloff impersonation thrown in for good measure.
- I had this album as a kid. It came out just after the Beatles had their hit "I want to hold your hand."
- A lovely Lugosi impersonator talk-sings horror parodies of popular songs, from the Beatles to surf music. It's a lovely piece very much in the vein of Weird Al, and anyone who loves Halloween or song parodies really needs to grab it now.
TRACKS: BITE ME !
A1 "I Want To Bite Your Hand" 2:21
A2 "Drack The Knife" 2:39
A3 "King Kong Stomp" 2:34
A4 "Monster Hootenanny" 2:13
A5 "Ghoul Days" 2:11
A6 "Frankenstein" 1:49
B1 "The New Frankenstein And Johnny Song" 2:56
B2 "Monster Goose Rhymes" 2:28
B3 "Surf Monster" 1:47
B4 "Monster Bossa Nova" 2:07
B5 "Carry Me Back To Transylvania" 2:28
B6 "Little Black Bag" 1:57
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