His success at their Memphis radio station, combined with Rick’s TV appearances and hit music, motivated station owner RKO General to offer him the morning radio show in Los Angeles at 93KHJ AM. After a 45-day non-compete clause in his contract was satisfied, Dees was hired by RKO Radio to do the morning show at WHBQ AM 560 in Memphis. The tour went from Disney World to New York, NY, billed as Rick Dees and The Cast of Idiots. Chesney had done some comedic voices for Dees prior to Disco Duck. Rick did not perform the actual duck vocals on the song since he could not “talk like a duck.”The duck vocals were recorded at Shoestring Productions in Memphis, Tennessee by Ken Pruitt, who moved away before the song became popular, and the vocals for the duck were done by Michael Chesney of Memphis for the concert tour. The station manager said it was a conflict of interest. Rick was fired from WMPS when he mentioned that his song, “Disco Duck”, was almost #1, and his own radio station would not let him play it. While this platinum recording earned Rick a People’s Choice Award,and the BMI Award for record sales in one year, Rickwas expressly forbidden from playing the song on the air by station management (rival stations refused to play it for fear of promoting their competition). A group of older people were learning to “move their feet to the disco beat”. This song can be heard in Saturday Night Fever in a brief scene. During this time wrote and recorded “Disco Duck” in 1976, that sold more than 6 million copies. While working at WMPS AM 680 (“The Great 68”) in Memphis, Tennessee, during the disco craze of the mid- to late-1970s he was introduced to the international entertainment arena.
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