Rainy Wednesday Records was a

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

created by novelty artist

Dickie Goodman Richard Dorian Goodman (April 19, 1934 – November 6, 1989), known as Dickie Goodman, was an American music and record producer born in Brooklyn, New York. He is best known for inventing and using the technique of the "break-in", an early precur ...

in 1973.

Creation

In his long career an artist and producer, Goodman released records under a slew of label names, including Luniverse (as Buchanan and Goodman in the late 50s), Rori, Mark-X, 20th Century and Cotique. In 1973, Goodman met the label's co-founder on a rainy Wednesday in New York, providing its name. Goodman started the label number at 201, the

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

of his

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

residence at the time. All but one of Rainy Wednesday's releases were in Goodman's standard "break-in" style, in which an interviewer asks a question, only to have it "answered" with a snippet of a current hit record. (The only non-"break in" recording released was a straight cover of Sheb Wooley's "The Purple People Eater", a #1 hit from 1958.) Goodman himself and

John & Ernest John & Ernest were an American novelty song ensemble, composed of Jéan Free and Ernest Smith. They scored a hit single in 1973 with the record " Super Fly Meets Shaft", which hit #31 on the Top 40. The record consisted of lines from popular song ...

(a black duo whose records consisted of soul-oriented snippets and the original funk tune "Crossover" on one the flip sides) were the only two artists to appear on Rainy Wednesday.

Discography

Later career

Dickie Goodman folded Rainy Wednesday Records in 1975, but continued to release music under several other label names, including

Cash In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins. In bookkeeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-imm ...

Mr. Jaws "Mr. Jaws" is a novelty song by Dickie Goodman released on Cash Records in 1975. This record is a parody of the 1975 summer blockbuster film ''Jaws'', with Goodman interviewing the shark (whom he calls "Mr. Jaws"), as well as the film's main char ...

", a Top 5 hit in 1975), Shark, Wacko and

Rhino Records A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...

. Goodman's last recording, "Safe Sex Report", was released on the Goodname label in 1987; he died in 1989.

References

{{Authority control Record labels established in 1973