Rock Radio Scrapbook

AIRCHECK OF THE WEEK
For week of July 10, 2016
Edition #893

Now in both Real Audio and MP3

Talent: COUSIN BRUCIE with BENNY BELL
Station: WNBC New York
Date: 1975
Time: 25:46 (unscoped)

Description by Dan Haber

Remember the novelty tune "Shaving Cream" that was a big hit in 1975? It was resurrected by - among others - Cousin Brucie, who played it one day on WNBC as a joke. What happened next was no laughing matter. The man who co-wrote the novelty tune in the late '40s under the name "Benny Bell" (his birth name was Benjamin Samberg but he also used the nom-de-plume Paul Lynn) was suddenly hot again, and he was trying desperately to take advantage of it. Cousin Brucie invited him on the show and for the next half-hour, he interviewed the artist and played some of his other bizarre songs.

It's an unusual aircheck which was recorded from Toronto from a station more than 300 miles away. There's some fading at times as a result, but it's such a strange encounter, it's worth listening to through the occasional static. It ends with a brand-new version of Shaving Cream, featuring the names of the then-WNBC jocks.

Shaving Cream peaked at #30 on the Billboard chart, but made it to #1 for two weeks apiece on the charts of two Canadian stations: CKLW and CKOC. It was the only chart hit for Benny Bell, who continued to self-release albums until the '80s. Bell was 93 when he died July 6, 1999 in New York.
 

Enjoy Cousin Brucie with Benny Bell here.

Enjoy Cousin Brucie with Benny Bell here.
 

(The Dan Haber Collection)

More 1975 airchecks here!