www.roanoke.com

This link leads you to the BEST cover of The Swingin' Medallions' "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" ever videotaped, perhaps the best over recorded. It was shot at at a frat house at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the early 80s (the info says mid 80s but that is wrong. It was 83, at the latest; most likely 82.) This is a subject I am a quasi-expert on.

It's a video by a long-defunct band called The Catholics, and one of the supporting-actor stars is Foster Mackenzie III, aka the legendary Root Boy Slim, who was a Yale frat brother of ex-President George W. Bush's, (to say he thought ill of W would be an understatement)  and who was one of my personal heroes. I authored the original Wikipedia entry on Root Boy, which has been since improved very much by many others unknown. Nevertheless I'm very proud of it.

Root Boy is the beer /iceman in the orange-and-white checkered 7-11 shirt, driving the white van, and his first appearance in the video comes around 1:39.

Root Boy Slim onstage

Root Boy did this for two reasons: One, as a signed Warner Bros. recording act, he was THE only luminary in the then-nascent DC music scene, and he NEVER turned down a chance to help out another DC-area band or musician. Two (and he told me this personally) it tickled his amazing sense of humor. It was the first time anyone offered him a chance to play THE role in one of his favorite plays, Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Come'th. As a matter of fact, that role has never been played before, or since, and he got that cosmic joke.

Root Boy recorded a handful of classics for anybody part of the DC music scene in the late 1970s and 1980s. These include the seminal "Boogie 'Til You Puke," the self-mocking "Dare To Be Fat," the oddly prophetic "World War III," and the only video he ever made, late in his career, the haunting "Hey Mr. President." There's also live, early-career onstage video of his classic party tune "Boogie 'Til You Puke." (The music starts at 1:31).

My kids were raised on Root Boy. They grew up believing that his hilarious holiday send-up, "Christmas at K-mart," was the greatest Christmas carol ever. And for them, it still is.

Root Boy died on June 8, 1993, and the anniversary of that sad day has recently passed. When I heard the news about his death I had to leave work that day to mourn. When I showed up at home weeping, early in the day, my wife thought a relative had died, or something like that.

I attended his concert/funeral Salute to Root, at the Bayou on K Street, where his sister, then-80-some-years-old mother and I had a lengthy chat about drugs, schizophrenia, poetry and rock n' roll. Somehow, we were able to wrap all of that talk within 30 minutes, in between sets of very good Memphis blues combined with fond remembrances.

It was an extraordinary show. ALL Root Boy concerts were extraordinary.

This video was on YouTube for years, then was removed, and recently added with a few comments. It is priceless, because it captures the guy, his unbelievable stage presence and his amazing sense of humor.

Root Boy was known as the "Lenny Bruce of the blues." And he was, truly. May he continue to rest in peace.

Enjoy!

(And, btw, you will NEVER again see such an extensive Wiki entry on a musician you've never heard of before).