"King Tut" | ||||
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Single by Steve Martin and the Toot Uncommons | ||||
from the album A Wild and Crazy Guy | ||||
B-side |
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Released | April 28, 1978 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 2:10 (Single Version) 3:40 (Album Version) | |||
Label | Warner Bros. | |||
Songwriter(s) | Steve Martin | |||
Producer(s) | William E. McEuen | |||
Steve Martin singles chronology | ||||
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Music video | ||||
Live performance of "King Tut" by Steve Martin on YouTube (3:33 minutes). Official Saturday Night Live channel,not available in all countries. |
"King Tut" is a novelty song performed by Steve Martin and the Toot Uncommons (actually members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band),about the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun and the Treasures of Tutankhamun traveling exhibit that toured seven American cities from 1976 to 1979. It was first performed on Saturday Night Live .
"King Tut" pays homage to Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun and presents a caricature of the Treasures of Tutankhamun traveling exhibit that toured seven American cities from 1976 to 1979. The exhibit attracted approximately eight million visitors.
The song was released as a single in 1978,sold over a million copies, [1] and reached number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. [2] The song was also included on Martin's album A Wild and Crazy Guy .
Martin previewed the song in a live performance during the April 22,1978,episode of Saturday Night Live . In this performance,loyal subjects appease a joyful King Tut with kitchen appliances. An instrumental solo is delivered by saxophone player Lou Marini,who steps out of a sarcophagus—painted gold—to great laughter.
Record World said of the single that "this rocking novelty could bring Martin a single hit to go with his album sales. Archaeology and top 40 may never be the same again." [3]
In the book Saturday Night:A Backstage History ofSaturday Night Live,authors Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad write that the sketch was one of the most expensive productions the show had attempted up to that point. Martin had brought the song to the show and asked if he could perform it,not expecting the production that occurred—producer Lorne Michaels put everything behind it.
The song is the subject of an analysis in Melani McAlister's 2001 book,Epic Encounters:Culture,Media,and U.S. Interests in the Middle East Since 1945. [4] It is also referenced in a dialogue in the video game The Lost Vikings (1992) at the end of one of the Egyptian themed levels of the game. [5]
Chicago radio superstation WLS-AM,which gave the song much airplay,ranked "King Tut" as the 11th biggest hit of 1978. [6] It spent four weeks at the number-one position on their chart. This was not during the time the Tut exhibition was on display at the Field Museum of Natural History near downtown Chicago,which was April 15 –August 15,1977. To this day,the song gets regular airplay on Sirius XM on their 70s on 7 station.
Martin has performed "King Tut" live in a bluegrass arrangement with the band Steep Canyon Rangers on several occasions. One of these performances was released on the 2011 album Rare Bird Alert . [7]
Howard Carter was a British archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922, the best-preserved pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings.
Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who ruled c. 1332 – 1323 BC during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Born Tutankhaten, he was likely a son of Akhenaten, thought to be the KV55 mummy. His mother was identified through DNA testing as The Younger Lady buried in KV35; she was a full sister of her husband.
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