| Alfred Matthew “Weird Al” Yankovic, born on October 23, 1959 in Downey, California is a popular American musician, famous for his parodies of contemporary English radio hits. To a large extent, the words of his songs are based on making fun of modern popular (American) culture including TV, cinema, food, music and news in the media.
Though parodies made him famous, Yankovic also penned many humorous songs with original melodies. Some of them are stylizations (parodies of style of performance), when he chooses not to do some song for parodying but the mimics original style, peculiar to the individual performer or group. The majority of his albums include a potpourri in which a chorus from various songs are mixed and performed in Polish style accompanied by accordion.
One of his most famous parodies is on Michael Jackson, more precisely, on his song “Bad”. The parody is called “Fat”.
The only child of Nick Yankovic (June 4, 1917 - April 9, 2004, American of Serbian descent) and Mary Elizabeth (nee Vivalda, February 7, 1923 - April 9, 2004, American of Italian and English descent), Alfred was born in Downey, California and grew-up in Lynwood. Nick was born in Kansas City, Kansas and moved to California after his term in the Armed Forces during the Second World War. He believed that the “key to success” is to do anything for living, which makes you happy” and often reminded his son of this wisdom. Nick married Mary Vivalda in 1949. Mary, who moved to California from Kentucky and gave birth to Alfred after 10 years of marriage.
On October 22, 1966, just a day before his 7th birthday, Al attended his first lesson on the accordion, which determined his career in music. A direct sales representative, traveling through Lynwood, provided an opportunity to the parents of Yankovic to choose training on accordion or guitar in the local music school. Yankovic asserts that the reason for preferring accordion over guitar by his parents was that “they considered that one more Yankovic- accordionist” should be there in the world, having Frankie Yankovic in view, who had no connection whatsoever with the family. He continued attending school for three years till he started studying on his own. During that period, Frankie Yankovic and Myron Floren (accordionist on The Lawrence Welk Show) served as his role models. In the 1970s Yankovic was big fan of Elton John and says that John's album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” to some extent had helped Yankovic in learning to play Rock’ n ‘Roll on accordion”. Yankovic repeatedly played the album and attempted playing on the accordion without lagging behind. Regarding the influences on his humorous and parody music, it is necessary to mention Tom Lehrer, Stan Freberg, Spike Jones, Allen Sherman, Shel Silverstein and Frank Zappa” and all the other amazingly sick and offset actors, whom we hear on the radio-show "Dr. Demento”. Other sources of inspiration were Mad magazine, Monty Python and the parody films of Abrahams and Zuker.
Yankovic attended kindergarten a year earlier than the majority of children and missed second class. “My schoolmates thought that I was a genius and nicknamed me the “Botanist” - he recollects. Yankovic was the youngest in class for two years and was not interested in sports or in social school life. Among senior classes he was affirmed as the best student, which provided him the opportunity to be valedictorian of his class. Yankovic was fairly active in extracurricular activities including the National Forensic League (in which he “usually brought home some kind of trophy”), the yearbook (for which he wrote the majority of captions) and the Volcano Worshipper’s Club, in which it was required to absolutely do nothing. We created this club only to have our photograph published in the yearbook”. |
"Weird Al" Yankovic, the master of song parodies, is turning 50 this Friday. Since the release of his first parody song in 1979, Yankovic brought us hilarious parodies of the hit songs - "Fat", "Eat It", "Like a Surgeon", and wrote many original songs too. Weird Al sold over 12 million albums - more than any other comedy act in history. Yankovic's first top ten Billboard single ("White & Nerdy") was made nearly three decades into his career, so we think the best "Weird Al" song is yet to come! Happy Birthday, "Weird Al"!
