Songoftheday 12/10/16 - Put your glad rags on and join me hon, we're gonna have some fun when the clock strikes one...

"Swing The Mood" - Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers
from the album Jive Bunny - The Album (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's song of the day comes from the British father/son producer John and Andrew Pickles, who took a mashup of oldies rock and swing songs done by Les Hemstock, dubbed the track "Swing The Mood" and used the moniker "Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers", and redid the Elvis' tracks on the medley to get it played on the radio without copyright issues. This kind of thing goes back almost a decade, when Dutch act Stars on 45 went to #1 in the US with a similar type of mashup (named "Medley") that concentrated on the Beatles. I guess after that much time has passed, people were ready again for these shenanigans, and the low-rent animated bunny over a robotic drum machine was suddenly fab again. After going all the way to #1 in the UK and a number of countries around the world, America fell for the single, which started out with Glenn Miller's iconic swing "In the Mood" with songs from Bill Haley and the Comets, Chubby Checker, Little Richard, and the King, the latter resung by Pete Willcox...

"Swing The Mood" climbed to one rung under the American pop top ten in January in 1989. The song also went to #38 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary radio chart. Besides topping the chart in the UK, where it stayed for five weeks, the single reached #1 in Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Norway, Belgium, Austria, and New Zealand. The Jive Bunny album also made the top-40 in the U.S.

The act's next single, another medley named "That's What I Like", also topped the chart in the UK, but stalled down at #69 in the States, their last time in the chart in this country. A third record, the holiday offering "Let's Party", became their "hat trick" #1 in Britain. They would score two more top ten hits in the UK with "That Sounds Good To Me" and "Can Can You Party", which carried them through the beginning of 1990. Even though the fad was wearing then, the Jive Bunny name managed a few more moderate hits, with "Rock and Roll Dance Party" their last in 1992 at #48. Hemstock and the younger Pickles then moved to more mainstream club fare, and the "Mastermix" label has been a DJ support system for years.

Up tomorrow: Pop singer/songwriter with that hair revives an 80s hit he wrote and wins a Grammy.