Short career summary on Daddy Dewdrop
Richard Monda aka Daddy Dewdrop is an American singer-songwriter and musician known for his novelty song “Chick-A-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes’ Love It).” Monda is essentially a songwriter, penning songs for other established acts. He had gone on to work as a songwriter for the animated TV seriesSabrina and the Groovy GhouliesLater on he recorded his own rendition of the song from that show, and re-titled it as “Chick-A-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes’ Love It).” It was quite a novelty stuff that landed high on the Billboard pop charts in 1971. From the peak of his “Chick-A-Boom” success, Monda — now as Daddy Dewdrop — released subsequent singles but none of them made an impression on the charts. He also recorded and released another novelty single, “Nanu Nanu (I Wanna Get Funky With You)” as a reference to the catchphrase uttered by the character Mork (from the TV series Mork & Mindy).
Richard Monda’s (Daddy Dewdrop’s) early career
Daddy Dewdrop is of course a stage name; the American songwriter, musician and sometime singer’s name on his birth certificate is Richard Monda. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1940 (no exact birth date given).
Monda is, first and foremost, a songwriter; he is known for having provided material for other artist such as Ringo Starr, Tom Jones, Kenny Rogers, Sammy Davis Jr. and Engelbert Humperdinck.
In the middle to the late 1960s, Monda also created and collaborated with the popular Los Angeles-based band the Novells whose “Age of Innocence” track was also written by him. The song appeared on the Novells’ album That Did It! which was supervised by well-known producer H. B. Barnum. The LP was released on Mothers Records. However, “Age of Innocence” was also produced by Monda. Despite rumors to the contrary, it was actually Monda who first discovered the Novells before Barnum did.
Monda went on to release singles for Verve Records and the small independent label Moonglow. However, all of these singles vanished without a trace.
Only hit single with “Chick-A-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes Love It)”
Monda was later employed as one of the songwriters for the animated series Sabrina and the Groovy Ghoulies. However, one of the songs called “Chick-A-Boom” which had already been used on the show, was written by Janis Lee Guinn and Linda Martin. He decided to form a group consisting of studio musicians. They include Tom Hensley (who went on to become Neil Diamond’s musical director), and Butch Rillera (who’d join another group Redbone later).
Together, Monda and his backing band (whom he called Torrance Cookers) recorded their own rendition of “Chick-A-Boom” which was titled “Chick-A-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes Love It).” This bubblegum pop single was billed to Daddy Dewdrop, which was Monda’s pseudonym. It was released and distributed by Sunflower Records, and later went all the way to become a top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #9 in 1971. It also reached its peak position at #3 on the Cashbox singles chart that same year.
Post-chart success and later career
After the astronomical chart success of “Chick-A-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes Love It),” Monda then issued an LP consisting of novelty songs that includes his only major hit. The follow-up single to “Chick-A-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes Love It)” was “Fox Huntin’/The March of the White Corpuscles.” But all of these releases fizzled.
In 1979 Monda (as Daddy Dewdrop once again) returned to the charts with a minor dance/club hit “The Real Thing” (at #62). He also recorded other songs under different names during the 1970s. He also recorded and released the song “Nanu Nanu (I Wanna Get Funky With You)” probably to cash in on catchphrase of Robin Williams’ character Mork from the TV sitcom Mork and Mindy.
Apart from continuing to work as a songwriter for other artists, Monda would occasionally record songs as Daddy Dewdrop. In 2010 he released a CD called This Time.