Buchanan & Goodman

Pioneers of the "break-in" novelty record (and therefore godfathers of the entire concept of sampling, complete with the legal entanglements), Buchanan & Goodman were in the long run not much more than a footnote in the history of rock & roll, but their records are still fitfully amusing curios of a simpler, more low-tech time. Dickie Goodman and Bill Buchanan were struggling pop songwriters in New York in 1956 when Goodman came up with the idea of using lines from current hits of the day to comment on another mid-'50s fad, UFO sightings. Buchanan & Goodman scrounged enough studio time to record "The Flying Saucer, Parts 1 and 2," Goodman taking the role of the rat-a-tat newsman John Cameron Cameron (a running joke throughout the duo's records based on the NBC newsman John Cameron Swayze) and the pair dropping in bits of songs like Smiley Lewis' "I Hear You Knocking" and the Penguins' "Earth Angel" as the punch lines to Mad Magazine-style jokes. After being rejected by every label they could think of, Buchanan & Goodman took the record to Alan Freed at New York's WINS radio, who started playing the song nightly, getting the attention of George Goldner at Roulette Records, who signed the duo and created the Luniverse label (originally Universe until another label laid claim to the name) just for their singles. Buchanan & Goodman quickly followed up their debut Top Five hit with "Flying Saucer the 2nd," "Flying Saucer the 3rd," and even the Western parody "Flying Saucers Go West" before that well ran dry. Buchanan & Goodman were sued by 17 different record labels for copyright infringement after the success of the initial singles, suits that were eventually dismissed with the ruling that "break-in" records were parodies that did not infringe on the sales of the works...