Burma-Shave was a popular brand of brushless shaving cream, made famous by a brilliant advertising campaign that featured a series of witty rhyming poems appearing in a sequence of roadside signs that would entertain the motorist driving down the road.
In this episode of The Route 66 Podcast, Anthony Arno interviews Clinton B. Odell, grandson of the founder of Burma-Shave. This episode begins with over twenty Burma-Shave jingles professionally recorded to give the listener a brief background of some of the earliest jingles, the most humorous, those promoting road safety, and even those that were released during the war years to unite the country.
Mr. Odell talks about the creation of the Burma-Shave company, which was originally created as a liniment product for burn victims. When the founder switched products in 1925 to brushless shaving cream, he gave his son $200 to create a marketing campaign. The result was the Burma-Shave rhyming campaign.
Clinton talks about his his father, Alan Odell, who came up with the Burma-Shave campaign.
As a high school teenager in 1958, he entered a talent show and played Jerry Lee Lewis' Great Balls of Fire. The unexpected happened.... he won and didn't know how to play any other songs.
One year later, he would call Buddy Holly's manager and ask for an audition without even having an original song to play. The unexpected happened, he got the audition and wrote the song in the back of the car on his way to the audition.
Join host Anthony Arno talk with Route 66 legend George Tomsco, founder of the Fireballs. According to Dick Clark, the Fireballs created the Surf Sound, a term that Tomsco never had even heard of.
George talks about his earliest memories along Route 66, letting fate guide his musical career, his reaction to Buddy Holly unknowingly play his guitar, having the number one song in America just before the Beatles arrived, and his latest musical pursuits.
Dylan Wallace just graduated high school in Wilmington, IL, and he’s literally made a mark along Route 66 by painting a shield on the side of Two Hounds Antique Shop along Route 66.
Author, Route 66 historian, and the voice of Sheriff or Radiator Springs in the Pixar movie Cars. The very first episode of The Route 66 Podcast features an interview with the biggest advocate of The Mother Road.
Michael talks about his earliest memories of Route 66, the many changes that the road has endured, his work with helping Pixar create a movie about Route 66, and many of the other books that he's written about western life.
The Route 66 Podcast featuring your host, Anthony Arno. In this premiere episode, Anthony tells about his teaching background and how his students bicycled 2000 miles in the back of the classroom while learning all about Route 66.