Notes

The following originally appeared in the GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS:

There were, no doubt, many sniggers and snide comments elicited by the release of Regis Philbin’s 2004 album of standards, WHEN YOU’RE SMILING on Hollywood Records, but the curmudgeonly then-emcee of WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE was carrying on a long-running tradition — that of the quiz show host turned pop star.  Philbin — who also cut an album back in the late 1960s, when he was still Joey Bishop’s sidekick on that lugubrious Rat Packer’s late-night talk show — is merely the latest graduate of the game show industry to take a spin on the music industry’s wheel of fortune.

Chuck Barris, the creator of some of the crassest game shows in television history, is another.  The man who gave the world well-known programs like THE DATING GAME and THE NEWLYWED GAME (as well as some not-so-remembered — anyone recall HOW’S YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW?) cut a jazz album in 2002 called CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS SINGER – a play on the title of his autobiography CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, in which he claimed to be an assassin for the CIA (and which was adapted that same year for the Hollywood screen by actor-cum-director George Clooney).  Barris was no johnny-come-lately to the music industry, however.  The former GONG SHOW creator and host got his showbiz start writing pop songs like “Palisades Park,” a top ten hit for Freddie Cannon in 1962.

Chuck Woolery was another game show host who began in the music business.  In the late 1960s, the original host of THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE and long-time LOVE CONNECTION smirker was half of a progressive pop duo called the Avant Garde.  Along with career musician “Bubba” Fowler (who would later work with the likes of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen), Woolery grazed the lower regions of the pop charts with the single, “Naturally Stoned” — a title Woolery would resurrect more than thirty years later for a Game Show Network reality TV program.

The late Bert Convy was another performer who worked relentlessly in the music industry for years before finally finding fame as the host of shows like WIN, LOSE OR DRAW and TATTLE TALES.  In the 1950s, Convy joined with fellow actors Sally Bremer and Gil Garfield to form the Cheers, who scored a minor hit with “Bazoom (I Need Your Loving)” in 1954.  Convy also did time as a member of a vocal group called the Thunderbirds, and released several novelty singles like “Monster’s Hop” under his own name.  He also did a lot of singing as a stage actor, as when he assayed the role of Motel opposite Zero Mostel’s Tevye in the original  Broadway production of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.  Brain cancer put a premature end to the good-natured Convy in 1991.