Tales of the Rat Fink Ed "Big Daddy" Roth

Tales of the Rat Fink, the story about Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, becomes available this week on DVD. It's the tall tale about the wild man who shifted America's love affair with customized cars and souped-up hot rods into high gear in the fifties and sixties.

The Rat Fink character, America's alternative rodent, was a fixture on most of Roth's plastic model cars that I built as a kid, but my favorite memory is the music from that era. There was an actual album, which had this kooky concept of being "hairy," but had some outrageously great music that was generally associated with the whole customized car craze.

While I don't have the actual track listing, I can just imagine crankin' up these tunes along for the ride...

The Ventures were a staple of this era with songs like "Telstar, Apache and Walk Don't Run," but their biggest hit was probably with the TV theme to "Hawaii Five-O."

Chuck Berry's version of "Route 66" was a classic tune that took us down that famous highway, most likely in a Corvette, like the guys in the TV show of the same name did.

Duane Eddy did a killer version of Peter Gunn, which was always a great song to cruise down the street to. The bass line in E just nails this track down into a solid groove.

The Beach Boys were crusin' along the California beaches in their 409, a cherry customized Woody, complete with surf boards and eight-track stereo. They also had the Little Deuce Coupe and the T-Bird, you know the one that daddy took away.

Jan and Dean's biggest hit "Dead Man's Curve" involved a Corvette StingRay and a Jaguar XKE.

GTO was a hit for Ronny and the Daytonas, even if they did try to sound like the Beach Boys.

Wilson Pickett's Mustang Sally became a classic standard because the Ford Mustang was just the coolest car when it first came out. My Aunt and Uncle had a white '64 with a black vinyl roof. Later on, my Cousin had a red '68 model with a stick shift. Hot cars always had a cool soundtrack to go along with the ride, and these are some of my favorites.

The animated DVD documentary features the voice talents of John Goodman, Ann-Margret, Jay Leno, Brian Wilson, Matt Groening, Tom Wolfe, Steve Austin, Robert Williams, Paul LeMat, Billy F Gibbons and The Smothers Brothers.

Special Features on the DVD include:
Big Daddy Lives! - Rare Interviews with Ed "Big Daddy" Roth
Rat Fink Reunion - Painting Jam with Ed Roth and Von Dutch
Big Daddy's Garage - Virtual Art Gallery
Interview with Director Ron Mann
Deleted Scenes
Theatrical Trailer
Sadies music video

WinMedia & QuickTime Preview Trailer

Related Tags: Music, Rock and Roll, Classic Rock, Cars, Hot Rods, CybersMusic

Posted by Mike