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.
The Chick-A-Boom Analysis
For more than 40 years, people have questioned Daddy Dewdrop, “What does chick-a-boom (don’t ya jes love it) mean? He certainly came up with a lot, but nobody ever seems to be satisfied. The fact is that everything else was just a female rushing around a corner and dropping her bikini on the ground; the three doors were merely a joke. He believed it to be a straightforward concept, but not for everyone. One day, he got a call from a disc jockey telling him that he wasn’t going to mislead him since he knew exactly what the music was saying. He was eager to share his discovery. He continued by telling Daddy Dewdrop that the party next to the first door resembled group sex.
He had never thought of that, so he was naturally interested in where this was headed. I assume that the second door led him to Africa. Daddy Dewdrop was actually considering “Doctor Livingston I presume” at this point, not this individual. Daddy Dewdrop was astounded to learn that this was an African-American hooker from the disc jockey.
What may be beyond the third door, ”She whispered so sexy and low”? He was informed by the disc jockey that the prostitute was intelligent and well-educated. He just told him after he was done that because his story was superior to Daddy Dewdrop’s, he should use it going forward. Daddy Dewdrop was certain that the disc jockey was telling the truth and was hiding something. In actuality, Dick Clark refused to play the record because he believed it was impure. He was never given the chance to discover the reason behind his belief.