April 23, 2006

Whenever You Takes a Mind To

Whatchoo fittin’ ta do? If you’re not a fan of racial humor, Southern speech patterns, weird advertisements, or wanton abuse of reverb effects, then I suggest you skip this post and just wait four months for the next update. (Just kidding about the four months.)

All I know about Queen Bee Bar-B-Q is this: In the early 1980s, ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons was playing around with a home multitrack and created a bunch of fake ads for a (possibly nonexistent) BBQ joint. He channelled a twangy, mushmoufed cast of characters for these little radio skits like some bizarre mix of Amos ‘n’ Andy and a Ying Yang CD. The tapes escaped into the tape-trading subculture, and the recordings are probably disavowed by ZZ Top’s management, due to social market forces and standard statistical variances in humor appreciation.

I first heard them on the Hound’s radio show in the early ‘90s. Champagne Wade DeWayne, a pretty man, used to work at Venus Records on St Marks Place in NYC. One time Billy Gibbons showed up at the store, and Champagne (a proud West Texan, and one of my only Republican friends) was able to charm his homeboy into delivering one of the signature lines in that “Queen Bee announcer” voice! That’s right! If only that moment could’ve been broadcast live on national television.

Anyway, this stuff may be ridiculous and a bit racially insensitive, but it’s not so far from reality, so we at Toe Stubber have also included two vintage ads from Chicago’s Big Bill Collins show to demonstrate that (gasp!) people really do talk funny. I was able to procure the Queen Bee files below (plus three more!) thanks to some fine person who created this page. Fans of true American dialects should also check out the work of Lucius Tate and (soon to be subject of his very own post) the Prophet Omega.

...So good!

Billy Gibbons – “Queen Bee Bar-B-Q ad #1”
Billy Gibbons – “Queen Bee Bar-B-Q ad #2”
Billy Gibbons – “Queen Bee Bar-B-Q ad #3”

Big Bill Collins – “City BBQ ad”
Big Bill Collins – “H&A Restaurant ad”

Rick at 11:36 am

Comments (26)

26 CommentsÈ

Ahhhh, Mister Brooks and those biscuits!

Great stuff! And the Queen Bee ads made me hongree, ‘Pankie!

I dunno who dat Cham-pag-knee Wade is, but if you see Big Daddy, tell him the Kid loves him (and Trixie, too!)

But gee-whiz, I couldn’t download ‘em onto the home computing machine…is my gizmo on the fritz—or have you done something to the files to prevent such thievery? Or am I taking stupid pills again?

Comment by Ivan Lerner Ñ April 24, 2006 @ 7:05 pm
Never mind about the download question…obviously, my MD has replaced my synthetic thyroid with extra-stupid pills…

Comment by Ivan Lerner Ñ April 24, 2006 @ 7:59 pm
Hey, I have a couple of nice Detroit radio spots along these lines that I think you would enjoy. I will digitize a few and send them your way. Have you seen the Prophet Omega movie?

Comment by Dave Cruse Ñ April 25, 2006 @ 5:17 am
Hi Rick. Where’s Johnny Reb?

Comment by Namella Ñ April 28, 2006 @ 1:27 pm
Hey! I was sho’ dat Queen Bee Bar-B-Q now had de Meskin Food!

Comment by Dr LUV Ñ May 24, 2006 @ 11:10 am
Queen Bee BBQ did in fact exist – it occupied the city of Memphis during the sixties, closing in ‘75. The Gibbons recordings (according to a lawyer for one of the Warner Brothers record companies I spoke with) were made before Tres Hombres (probably in ‘68). Whether they actually appeared on the air, I do not know.

Comment by The Universal Ben Ñ June 7, 2006 @ 8:14 pm
Language is funny. This is not about racism. The speech patterns of Ralph Cramden, Jed Clampet and Tommy Chong are funny. (Honeymooners, Hillbillies and Hippies!) If we can’t laugh at each other, we’re really in trouble. So good!

Comment by TC Ñ June 22, 2006 @ 6:57 am
You have your facts a little wrong. Billy Gibbons got the tapes from Harley David, a DJ that once worked for a country radio station in Corsicana Texas. I have the .mp3 of the phone call where Billy is asking Harley for a copy of the tapes and making suggestions for ad #3.

Queen Bee BBQ was (is?) in Corsicana, TX on the “dark side” (as Harley put it) of the tracks, and he was the only white guy that he ever knew that went there. The BBQ was great, so he came up with the ads as a humorous tribute to them.

I have had copies of the tapes since the mid-80s and made .mp3s of them (except ad#2 which I lost) a couple of years ago. I have them and can share them – 3 ads, one theme song, one made-up phone order, and the phone conversation between Billy and Harley. Email me if you want them.

Ace

Comment by JC Baker Ñ June 30, 2006 @ 7:10 am
Thanks, Ace – as much as I hate being wrong, your account has the ring of truth, especially compared to the vacuum of vagueness in the Billy Gibbons story. And the idea of a radio DJ doing them makes sense, given the professional sound of the ads and the facilities he’d have had available to him. I would love to hear those mp3s you mention, ‘cause no one to my knowledge has officially claimed credit for these masterworks.

Comment by Rick Ñ June 30, 2006 @ 10:11 pm
Do you have any more stuff from the Big Bill Collins show (or Mr. A or Babyface George)?

Thanks for posting thse.

TJ

Comment by TJ Mertz Ñ July 8, 2006 @ 7:35 am
wow, i forgot i got billy to do that.

Comment by champagne Ñ June 6, 2007 @ 10:53 am
These are hilarious! “Ooh, child!”

Comment by C Ñ June 21, 2007 @ 10:49 am
Great to see Queen Bee – I had additional recordings on tape but they were lost when my truck was stolen. Does anyone remember Queen Bee Goin South of the Border?

Comment by Mike Ñ June 29, 2007 @ 5:48 pm
“Queen Bee ….. for the south of the border delicasy!”

Comment by Mike Ñ June 29, 2007 @ 5:50 pm
I used ta hear the Queen Bee commercials on the Steve Dahl and Garry Meier show ,on WLS Chicago They had all six and I would like to hear the other three again My son-in-law literally fell off his chair listening .He’d never heard any of it except from me and he thought i was full of it Please ,please post all six if possible
Mike

Comment by Mike Ñ July 21, 2007 @ 3:53 pm
I saw a site that even had ‘Grits on a stick” but i can not find it now….....point me in the right direction

Comment by Ray Ñ July 29, 2007 @ 12:27 pm
I haven’t heard these in years. They are hilarious – Thanks for posting. Plus… I grew up near Harvey, IL and remember fittin ta git a sack a shrimps many times. Still trying to figure out what a peanut roundup is?Also, if you are evr in Chicago try a Harolds Chicken Shack – best damn fried chicken in the world. Really – before you die you gotta try!

Comment by TeeKay Ñ August 4, 2007 @ 6:01 am
I wish you had the “south of the border” ad also…”Queen Bee now serves Mes-can food.”

Comment by Jim Ñ November 21, 2007 @ 9:59 pm
Here’s the address of the authentic original QBBBQ:

Queen Bee Bar-B-Que
1724 E. 7th Ave.
Corsicana, Texas
903-872-9159

Ask for extra nakins!

Comment by Sam Taylor Ñ November 27, 2007 @ 10:33 am
Not sure if ya’ll watch King of the Hill, but Billy Gibbons was on an episode a while back, playing himself. One scene had him waking Hank with a bull horn early in the morning… what did he yell? “QUEEN BEE BAHBEQUE, NOW SERVIN’ SHRIMPS!”

Comment by Jennifer S Ñ January 3, 2008 @ 9:57 am
YES Great stuff! I remember hearing Queen Bee ads once on Dallas radio (Q102 with Redbeard) back in the late 80s and have not heard them since. Thanks so much for posting these. :)

I’m really diggin on the Bill Collins ads and would love to find more. Any hints? Man, they just don’t do radio like that anymore.

Comment by Brett Ñ January 17, 2008 @ 10:39 am
You are missing 3 of the queen bee bbq ads they are Mexican Food, Grits on a stick and cleofus jones, I have them if yo uwant them.

Comment by rob Ñ April 11, 2008 @ 12:02 pm
The real truth about Queen Bee, and all six original commercials can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM6O81YG5u0

Comment by Braindead3XL Ñ June 11, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
I friend turned me on to Queen Bee about 15 years ago. We used to “tune up” a bit and then listen to some real old cassette tapes with Queen Bee ads. We’d almost piss ourselves laughin’ so damned hard!

I’ve been trying, off and on, to find the Queen Bee ads for years! Thank you so F**ckin’ much for making these available to folks! You ROCK!

Comment by Slackman Turner Overlord Ñ September 7, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
Rob wrote:

“You are missing 3 of the queen bee bbq ads they are Mexican Food, Grits on a stick and cleofus jones, I have them if yo uwant them.”

Comment by rob ? April 11, 2008 @ 12:02 pm

**** Rob, I LOVE Queen Bee! Man, how can I get the other ads? Do you have them uploaded to a website? Please respond, now dat I gots a taste of the good good Queen Bee, I gotsta git me mo!

Comment by Slackman Turner Overlord Ñ September 7, 2009 @ 2:20 pm
“Now with Mexican food”....”Gimme one’a dem Fa-ji-ta’s”

Listened to Queen Bee BBQ ads on the Steve & Gerry show in Chicago back in the day.

“How’d da dude know where we was”....phrases I’ve used for the past twenty-some years

Comment by Mark Andrew Ñ December 9, 2009 @ 10:09 am