Founded: b. 1938
Headquarters: New York, NY
Website Link(s):
Label(s)[]
- Warner Brothers
- Rhino
Genre(s)[]
- Novelty
RIYL[]
Member of[]
Band Biography[]
Napoleon XIV was the stage name of Jerry Samuels, a record producer who ended up having a hit with the Top 10 single "They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!" After recording a followup album with the same title, the landscape of pop and rock radio moved away from the more "anything goes" style that allowed novelty singles to flourish, to the more "rock as serious art form", which ended up squeezing out novelty songs from airplay and, of course, being Top 40 hits as they had frequently been in the past. This shift ended up killing Samuels' "Napoleon" career (after recording about half-an-album's worth of a followup LP), and he went into many different careers, some in the music industry (writing and producing songs) and some not (travelling around selling roach clips). In the mid 1990s, Rhino released a CD that had all of the Napoleon material, plus some stuff recorded specifically for it. Now, Jerry Samuels runs a business that books entertainment primarily for retirement homes.
Discography[]
Albums[]
- They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!
- The Second Coming
EPs[]
Singles[]
Appears On[]
Compilations[]
Soundtracks[]
Mix CDs[]
- Wally's Novelty Mix: She Yo-Yos Me and I Yo-Yo Her Back