Minnie the Moocher

"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz song recorded by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra.

Related Topics:
Jazz - Cab Calloway

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The song is based both musically and lyrically on Willie the Weeper http://www.heptune.com/jazzfolk.html http://www.heptune.com/willieth.html The lyrics are remarkable in that, for a widely distributed bit of popular culture of the 1930s, the song is heavily laden with drug references. "Smokey" is described as a user of cocaine; the business about "kicking the gong around" refers to smoking opium, and the remainder of the song describes Minnie's opium dream.

Related Topics:
Willie the Weeper - Popular culture - 1930s - Drug - Cocaine - Opium - Opium dream

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Calloway first recorded the song in 1930, around that time also recording a very similar song entitled "Kickin' the Gong Around" http://www.heptune.com/kickinth.html. In 1932, Calloway recorded the song for a Fleischer Studios Talkartoon short cartoon, also called Minnie the Moocher, starring Betty Boop and Bimbo. Calloway and his band provides most of the short's score, and appear in the short themselves in both a live-action introduction. The thirty-second live-action segment is the earliest-known film footage of Calloway. In the animated section of the film, Calloway appears as an animated character (whose dance movements were rotoscoped from footage of Calloway dancing).

Related Topics:
1930 - 1932 - Fleischer Studios - Talkartoon - Betty Boop - Bimbo - Rotoscope

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"Minnie the Moocher" is most famous for its nonsensical adlibbed lyrics. During a live performance of "Minnie the Moocher", Cab Calloway forgot the lyrics the song, and simply replaced the verses that he could not remember with gibberish (for example, "Heidiheidiheidiheidihi"). These have eventually been recognized as being valid lyrics to the song.

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Much later, in 1980 Calloway performed the song in the movie The Blues Brothers. It came up again in 20th century pop culture with lyrically updated covers by both Tupac Shakur and Ol' Dirty Bastard from the Wu Tang Clan.

Related Topics:
1980 - The Blues Brothers - Tupac Shakur - Ol' Dirty Bastard - Wu Tang Clan

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