Daddy Dewdrop
Daddy Dewdrop is a pseudonym for American songwriter Richard "Dick" Monda (born 1940, Cleveland, Ohio, United States).
Monda's family re-located from Ohio to California in the mid-1940s. He and his sister performed in Vaudeville and shows around Hollywood. As a child Monda appeared in the films The Glass Wall and Go for Broke! At thirteen he was chosen to play Eddie Cantor as a boy in the film The Eddie Cantor Story, in which he performed six songs including dance routines. At sixteen he had a featured role in The Midnight Story.
He began song writing as a young man and received a degree in mathematics.
His first production with Moonglow was "Don't Do it Some More", by "The Cindermen", credited under the pen name "Daddy Dewdrop". After Moonglow, he signed with Four Star Music publishing co. where he stayed for seven years. Most of his recorded song occurred during this period. He was signed to Verve Records as an artist and recorded his first album, Truth, Lies, Magic and Faith.
Two years later after producing music for the Saturday morning cartoon series Groovie Goolies, he released the song "Chick-A-Boom", originally written for the show.[1] Monda put together a backup band of studio musicians, including Tom Hensley, who later became the musical director for Neil Diamond, and Butch Rillera, who later became a member of the group Redbone, and recorded a version of the song, retitled "Chick-A-Boom (Don't Ya Jes' Love It)". The tune, which was distributed by Sunflower Records, became a top ten hit in the United States, peaking on the Billboard Pop Singles chart at #9 in 1971, and #3 on Cashbox.[2] Other charted records include "Fox Huntin' on the Weekend", "Chantilly Lace" and after a change of labels to "Inphasion Records" he had another chart record, "Nanu, Nanu, (I Wanna Get Funky Wich You)" and "The Real Thing".
He appeared in several underground films including, The Michael Girard directed Troma films, Oversexed Rug Suckers from Mars, Body Parts and the indie film, The Artichokes.
He recorded an album called "Or Durvs" under the alias "Lu Janis".
Discography
Albums
As Dick Monda
| Year | Album | Record label |
|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Truth, Lies, Magic, and Faith | Verve Records |
As Daddy Dewdrop
| Year | Album | Record label |
|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Daddy Dewdrop | Sunflower Records |
| 1979 | Meet the Beat | Inphasion Records |
Singles
As Dick Monda
| Year | Title | Peak chart positions |
Record Label | B-side | Album | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | Dance | |||||
| 1965 | "It Brings on the Pain" | — | — | Moonglow Records | "Days of Pleasure" | |
| 1967 | "Blues in the Night" | — | — | "Then I'll Go Peacefully" | ||
| 1969 | "River's End" | — | — | Verve Records | "The Bible Salesman" | Truth, Lies, Magic, and Faith |
| "The Bible Salesman" | — | — | "A Wandering Carpenter" | |||
As Daddy Dewdrop
| Year | Title | Peak chart positions |
Record Label | B-side | Album | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | Dance | |||||
| 1966 | "She Didn't Have to Tell Me" | — | — | Moonglow Records | "If You Treasure My Heart" | |
| 1968 | "Here Come the Judge" | — | — | Indigo Records | "Collection of Hearts" | |
| 1971 | "Chick-A-Boom (Don't Ya Jes' Love It)" | 9 | — | Sunflower Records | "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" | Daddy Dewdrop |
| "Fox Huntin' (On the Weekend)" | — | — | "The March of the White Corpuscles" | |||
| 1975 | "Goddaughter" | — | — | Capitol Records | "Dynamite Dyna" | |
| 1978 | "Nanu, Nanu, (I Wanna Get Funky Wich You)" | — | — | Inphasion Records | "The Real Thing" (Dance #62) | Meet the Beat |
References
- ↑ "Daddy Dewdrop biography". Allmusic. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
- ↑ Joel Whitburn, The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits. 7th edn, 2000