Neil Diamond "Yesterday's Songs"

When was the last time you did a Google search of your own name? One of the first times I ever Googled myself was way back before Google was used as a verb. In doing so, I discovered the remnants of an important reminder: don't screw with Neil Diamond fans. I'll explain...

Back in 2003, we taped an interview with Neil for a morning radio show I produced. The show's host decided that he'd let the female co-host conduct the interview and, once complete, we would splice in questions from the host which Neil would ultimately "ignore". The joke was that Neil didn't like the host and informed us that he would not answer questions from him during said interview. It led to an awkward-sounding back-and-forth between the host, co-host and Neil. Should've been funny, right? Wrong.

After the interview aired, his legions of fans (who heard about the interview from Neil's fan club) tuned in to hear the awkward interview via the radio station's internet stream and were furious. They accused us of faking the interview...but for reasons that weren't even valid. In the interview, Diamond, a Boston Red Sox fan, mentioned the Chicago Cubs and how exciting it was to watch the team in the playoffs (up until the infamous Steve Bartman game of 2003). Diamond's fans claimed the interview was clearly fake because Neil would never talk about the Cubs (spoiler alert: he did!). They also believed Neil would never be mean to someone in an interview (they were right about that part). In doing so, they flooded our radio station with complaint calls and emails and even posted my phone number online. For years following this incident, a simple Google search turned up rants from these angry fans. I am happy to report those pages must have come down because I no longer find it in my search results. Neil Diamond's fans clearly have moved on...

John Mellencamp & Meshell Ndegeocello "Wild Night"

Before there was Google or YouTube, radio disc jockeys all scrambled to figure out how to pronounce Meshell Ndegeocello's name.  Her vocals in "Wild Night" helped turn the song into one of John Mellencamp's biggest hits of the 90s.  

Andrew Gold - "Thank You For Being A Friend"

I produced a morning radio show in 2003 that was one of the toughest gigs of my career.  Management micro-managed the show from its inception...and for good reason.  After recognizing the show wasn't clicking (with listeners and with the hosts), they changed the direction of the show from personality-driven to a music-intensive morning show with a couple short breaks each hour for content.  We adhered to an eight-song per hour rule--meaning that we had to play eight songs every hour and, if we had time, could use the left-over time for content.

During one morning, the hosts discussed the previous night's Lifetime reunion special of The Golden Girls.  After talking about how they felt there was something missing from the TV special, it finally hit me: the famous Golden Girl's theme song was missing.  I quickly chimed in and shared my thoughts and the conversation ended.  About an hour later, a woman dialed up our station's studio line and introduced herself as Cindy Fee.  She explained that a friend of hers was listening to our station and heard us talking about her.  I told her that maybe she had our station mixed up with our sister station, The Mix, as we always received phone calls from people wanting to chime in on whatever topic The Mix was discussing.  Miss Fee said that she had the correct station and identified herself as the singer of "Thank You For Being A Friend"--more commonly known as the theme song to The Golden Girls.  I quickly Googled "Cindy Fee" to see if her story checked out, and it did.  Not only did Cindy sing the song that Andrew Gold made a hit in 1978, but she also lived in nearby Oak Park, Illinois and still performed with a jazz band.  We put Cindy on the air and she bravely belted out "Thank You For Being A Friend"...over the phone...at 8:50 A.M.  It was one of those "oh wow" moments that I'll never forget for multiple reasons--for one, I realized people outside of our tiny radio studio were actually listening.

Anthony David - "Something About You"

While sitting at my neighborhood Walgreens one rainy spring evening, a familiar song played over the loudspeaker.  I immediately recognized the song was "Something About You", but I didn't know the man's voice singing.  He almost sounded like Seal.  One quick trip to Google revealed the singer's name was R&B singer Anthony David (whose name sounds like a place you would go to get your hair done).  While the Cary Brothers successfully remade this song, add Anthony David's name to artists who also remade the '80s song without ruining it.