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Buckner & Garcia

 
Artist: Buckner & Garcia
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Pop Artists

Group Members:

Gary Garcia, Jerry Buckner

Similar Artists:

Weird Al Yankovic, Dr. Demento, Barnes & Barnes

Followers:

Mike Burger
  • Genres: Rock

Biography

Buckner & Garcia are the team behind the 1982 novelty hit "Pac-Man Fever," a Top Ten single that became a ubiquitous pop culture phenomenon. In 1981, Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia were living in Atlanta, writing ad jingles, and doing voice work for radio. Struck by the emerging video game fad, the two wrote and recorded a tribute to the king of the arcade and shopped it around to various major labels. There were no takers, but the song was released locally and became an instant hit after airing on a morning show. Brisk sales followed and CBS decided to take a shot; they requested a full album within one month's time and Buckner & Garcia set about quickly learning every popular arcade game they could. Since sampling technology was unavailable, most of the album's video game sound effects were recorded in public, directly off the machines. After a bit of national media coverage, both the single and album broke in a major way; "Pac-Man Fever" sold over two million copies, accounted for most of CBS's profits that quarter, and even inspired a German-language version by Gerald Mann (titled, naturally, "Pac-Man Fieber"). The follow-up single, "Do the Donkey Kong," wasn't nearly as successful; feeling that the duo had run their course, CBS declined to issue their 1983 song "E.T. I Love You" as a single, offering it to radio stations only despite a favorable response from Steven Spielberg. Buckner & Garcia returned to Atlanta and rejoined the radio business; they wrote and recorded several more novelty ditties over the years, and began selling them as the self-produced album Now and Then off their website around the turn of the millennium. Retro-fueled interest in early video games also prompted the duo to re-record the Pac-Man Fever album for its first release on CD. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
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Wikipedia: Buckner & Garcia
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia

Buckner & Garcia is a duo consisting of Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia from Akron, Ohio. Their first collaboration was in 1980, when they wrote a novelty Christmas song, "Merry Christmas in the NFL," about Howard Cosell as Santa Claus. Performed under the pseudonym "Willis The Guard & Vigorish", the song reached #82 on the Billboard charts[1] despite limited airplay after Cosell found the song offensive. In 1981, the duo wrote a sentimental country song called "Footprints in the Sand," performed by Edgel Groves. It also wrote the lyrics for extra verses of an extended version of the WKRP in Cincinnati theme song in 1982.

However, the duo is best known for the song "Pac-Man Fever", which became a large novelty hit in 1982, peaking at #9 in the United States.[2] Later the same year, after the song became a hit, they signed a record deal with Columbia/CBS Records. According to interviews, the duo never wanted to become a novelty act known for songs based on video games, but when it signed with the label, the company insisted on a full album of video-game songs, although the duo had intended to write a more varied collection of pop music. They complied despite their misgivings and released Pac-Man Fever, a full album consisting entirely of songs about arcade video games.[3]

The rest of their band consisted of Ginny Whitaker (drums), Larry McDonald (bass guitar), Chris Bowman (lead and rhythm guitar), Rick Hinkle (lead and rhythm guitar on "Pac-Man Fever," "Mousetrap," and "Goin' Berserk"), Mike Stewart (Moog synthesizer on "Mousetrap" and "Goin' Berserk"), and David "Cozy" Cole (syndrum). Steve Carlisle and Sharon Scott provided background vocals on "Pac-Man Fever."

The duo's intended follow-up to "Pac-Man Fever" was "E.T., I Love You," which, despite permission from Steven Spielberg, was shelved by the label in favor of Neil Diamond's unauthorized "Heartlight," which brought on a lawsuit. The song was never officially released by the duo until its 1999 album Now & Then (it was, however, re-recorded and released without Buckner or Garcia's permission or knowledge by a group called the Starlight Children's Chorus on the album E.T., I Love You & Other Extra Terrestrial Songs for Children[4][5]). Another song from this period (named simply "Mr. T", but with lyrics that suggest his The A-Team persona of B. A. Baracus) went completely unreleased, except for a brief period when it was offered as a free MP3 download on their official web site.

After they faded from the spotlight, they kept busy writing songs for other performers (for example, Anne Murray's 1985 hit "On and On" was written by Jerry Buckner) and commercial jingles.

When the Pac-Man Fever album was re-released on CD in 1999, Buckner and Garcia were not allowed to access their original recordings from 1982, and Sony Music Entertainment refused to release the original album on CD. The re-release instead contains modern sound-alike re-recordings of all their songs. Furthermore, since they were unable to find a Mousetrap machine (or any of the home versions) from which to record game sounds, the re-recording of the relevant track instead featured sounds from real dogs, cats, and pigeons instead of game sounds. When the duo re-formed the band in 1999 to re-record Pac-Man Fever, Danny Jones became the group's drummer, Whitaker having died in the interim. Stewart returned as bassist; none of the other band members returned. They followed this up with Now & Then, an album released only through mp3.com that included four new songs (none based on video games but one based on Pogs), plus a new recording of "E.T., I Love You"; karaoke versions of both it and "Pac-Man Fever"; and an acoustic recording of the latter.

The pair still frequently collaborates, including writing and performing on many original songs on the Waffle House jukebox, several of which were released on a pair of albums,[6][7] as well as voiceover work, with Jerry Buckner being the more visible member of the pair. In 2007, Jerry wrote and released a solo album of instrumentals, Somewhere in Time.

Contents

Albums and track list

Pac-Man Fever

Main article: Pac-Man Fever (album)
  1. Pac-Man Fever (Pac-Man)
  2. Froggy's Lament (Frogger)
  3. Ode to a Centipede (Centipede)
  4. Do the Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong)
  5. Hyperspace (Asteroids)
  6. The Defender (Defender)
  7. Mousetrap (Mouse Trap)
  8. Goin' Berzerk (Berzerk)

Now & Then

  1. Do the Funky Broadway
  2. Pogwild (Pogs)
  3. It's Allright [sic]
  4. Hostage
  5. E.T., I Love You
  6. E.T., I Love You Karaoke
  7. Pac-Man Fever Karaoke
  8. Pac-Man Fever Unplugged

References

  1. ^ Billboard Chart Beat Chat
  2. ^ Time Magazine, 1982
  3. ^ Jawbone Radio Interview, June 2006
  4. ^ Track list and information
  5. ^ MySpace.com - Starlight Children's Chorus - DERBY, US - Big Beat / Celtique / 2-step - www.myspace.com/starlightchildren39schorus
  6. ^ Review and Track List of the 1999 album Waffle House Jukebox Favorites, Vol. 1
  7. ^ Review and Track List of the 2001 album, It's a Waffle House Christmas

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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