Much of rock's history is shrouded in the haze of legend, or even in danger of being forgotten. Join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' each Saturday as he reminds us why we love this music like we do ...
Thirty-five years ago this spring, the hottest act in rock might not have been a musical act at all. It might have been the "hard rock comedy" of Cheech and Chong. The duo had released a pair of albums in 1972, their self-titled debut and Big Bambu, but their breakthrough didn't happen until late in 1973 with the single Basketball Jones. Featuring an all-star backup band with George Harrison, Klaus Voorman, Jim Keltner, Billy Preston, Tom Scott, and Carole King, the record made the Top 20. The following video is labeled with the year 1975, and I haven't been able to figure out quite where it came from, but it's fun to watch regardless of its origins.
Basketball Jones appeared on the duo's third album Los Cochinos, but the next single in line came from the previous album, Big Bambu. Sister Mary Elephant was all over AM radio as 1973 turned to 1974, and its success propelled Big Bambu back up the national album chart, where it eventually reached #2.
Cheech and Chong's stoner comedy was presented in a dense, Firesign Theater style, with multiple overdubs and each performer doing several parts in the same sketch. An entire generation of teenagers had entire albums memorized, many learning a great deal of drug-oriented lingo without experiencing the drugs themselves. I was one of those teenagers -- my original copy of Big Bambu is on a shelf six feet from my desk right now, complete with the set of giant rolling papers that were included inside. And during the 1973-74 school year, kids who had copies of Big Bambu shared them, and then went out and got copies of their own. It's a wonder no adult tried to confiscate them. Take, for example, "The Bust," in which a couple of dealers flush their stash, or a radio spot in favor of the legalization of marijuana featuring a stoner named Ashley Roachclip, or a game show called "Let’s Make a Dope Deal." Although Big Bambu would give parents and school officials an attack of the vapors today, it's doubtful that it warped anybody I knew. To us, it was just funny. And an even-bigger hit was yet to come: the single Earache My Eye, from Cheech and Chong's Wedding Album, made the Top 10 late in 1974.
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