A couple of weeks ago the Squire invited me to contribute to his upcoming Christmas podcast. We spent a great afternoon chatting about some of my favourite bad Christmas records and he introduced me to some of his. I’m not going to spoil the surprise by telling you which discs we chose, but one of the songs he played – and one I was, until then, unaware of, was by a four year-old moppet by the name of Ricky Segall. The song sounded to me as if it were being performed by Ike Broflovsky, Kyle’s adopted Canadian brother (if you don’t watch South Park you’ll not understand that reference). It was hideous.
Needless to say, I had to track down a copy of little Ricky’s one and only album. And I’m so glad that I did.
Ricky Segall and the Segalls Singing Selections from “The Partridge Family” Television Show, to give it its full title, is truly abhorrent. Ricky himself was, at the time, a four year-old child actor who had been drafted in to the hit US TV series The Partridge Family to add some light relief to the show’s final series – and hopefully distract the audience from the fact that teen heart-throb David Cassidy would soon be moving on to pastures new. Unfortunately the fourth series, the one that introduced his character (Ricky Stevens), would also become the show’s last.
All of the songs on the – thankfully short – album are written by Ricky’s dad Rick and feature Ricky’s parents prominently. Rick Senior scored a songwriting contract with Colgems, the musical arm of the giant Columbia Pictures organisation and the company behind The Monkees’ recorded output, and the album features such top-ranking musicians as noted drummers Hal Blaine and Jim Gordon. It still stinks. And why is the little urchin rising out of a giant egg on the front cover? There’s a Freudian nightmare if I’ve ever seen one.
Richard Robert Segall III was born on in New York on March 10, 1969. Now known as the Reverend Richard Segall, little Ricky is a minister at The Church On The Way in San Antonio, Texas but he still takes on the occasional acting role. He released his second album, A Time to Dance, in 1999 – described as an ‘explosive, hi-tech, electronic dance CD’. I’ll take Amazon’s word for it.
The two tracks I present for you today tell you pretty much everything you need to know about this project. Say, Hey, Willie– which opens the album and introduces Ricky’s parents to an uncaring and uninterested audience – is a ‘tribute’ to American baseball legend Willie Mays, whose nickname was the Say Hey Kid apparently. Mr President is Ricky’s stab at a protest song – at least I think that’s what it is. You decide. I’ve sat through this crap three times now this morning and my brain is starting to atrophy.
Enjoy!