By Rick Kaempfer
STEVE KING ' S CULT 45
P
eople in Chicago know Steve King for his four-decade run as a radio DJ and talk show host ( WLS , WGN ), but before his legendary radio career began , he was doing something else entirely . “ I was a fulltime musician . That was my career in the early 60s . Even when I first got into radio ( 1966 ), If anyone had asked , I would have described myself as a musician .”
His brush with musical fame came in 1962 when he was inspired to write a song called " Satan Is Her Name ."“ Every songwriter occasionally gets a gift , a song that just sort forms itself without having to work on it . Most songs
Steve King
are not like that . For example , I have one song I ’ ve been working on for 30 years . This song came to me in a walk home from my girlfriend ’ s house on the South Side of Chicago . It was about 9 or 10 at night . By the time I got home , all I had to do was write down the words and see if the chords that I thought would work actually worked , and they did . It took the length of about an eight-block walk to form itself in my head .”
" Satan Is Her Name " was instrumental in landing a record deal with Mercury Records . “ At that time , Mercury Records was one of the five big record companies , and it was headquartered in Chicago on Wacker Drive . I did a little research , made a couple of calls . David Carroll was one of the biggest producers around ( the Platters , the Diamonds , the Crew Cuts ), and I managed to get an appointment with him . I nervously went to his office , and he couldn ’ t have been nicer . He liked a lot of the stuff , but he was particularly taken with " Satan Is Her Name ." He came out to the South Side and attended one of our rehearsals , and gave us ideas . I ultimately signed with Mercury , and they recorded our record at Universal Studios in Chicago . One of the things I ’ m most proud of is that what you hear on that record is us playing . There is not one overdub . That ’ s what the band sounded like . Even the " oh lover " you hear in the song was my girlfriend at the time , Betty . And it was all done live . I thought the group had a good sound .”
Apparently , he wasn ’ t the only one who felt that way . “ It was starting to get a lot of airplay , and the Mercury promotion department was very high on it . In Miami , it was one of the top ten requested songs . Then we heard that Dick Clark liked it and played it on the local Philadelphia version of American Bandstand . Clark was just about ready to go with our record on the national version of the showon ABC , but timing being everything , Lesley Gore also had a record with Mercury . I don ’ t know the specifics , but the way I understand it , Clark could only add one Mercury record . Lesley won out . Years later , Johnnie ( Putman , Steve ’ s wife ) and I interviewed Lesley on WGN and had a good laugh about it . If I had been chosen , my career might have gone a completely different direction , and I might not have gotten into radio or met Johnnie . It worked out for both of us .”
For decades Steve thought the story ended there , but then something extraordinary began happening . “ Sometime in the ' 90s , we found out that it had a new life in Europe . It was being re-issued on a bunch of albums there . Shortly after that , we heard a new European artist wanted to re-do the song , and some American artists did too .”
In the years since it ’ s been recorded many times by many artists in many countries . There are at least seven different versions of " Satan is Her Name " on YouTube , including one that has nearly two million views . m “ One of the first that I found was a guy I became friends with , Marcel Bontempi from Kassel Germany . He had a really interesting take on it . He ’ s a roots country artist and was in Nashville right before the pandemic . He was hesitant to respond to me at first because he thought I was after money , but I was just excited to hear someone else do the song . Holly Golightly is another artist who recorded it , and she twisted it a bit and threw in the f-bomb at the end , but I absolutely love her take on it . Michael Clarkis a producer / DJ from Detroit who has worked with Kid Rock and Insane Clown Posse , and he did a really great version of the song . I ’ ve even been contactedby a producer in Europe who wanted to use it in a play and another who wanted to use it in a commercial .” Is there a way that Steve might return to the stage and perform it again himself ?
“ It almost happened when Marcel was here . We talked about getting together , but things didn ’ t quite work out . I ’ m doing a bunch of new songs right now for an album , and I may revisit Satan is Her Name again . It could happen that I ’ d go out there and perform it again . I ’ m amazed at the life this record has had .” The record has had so much of a life ; Steve managed to sandwich a 40-year radio career in-between its bouts of popularity . Not a bad trick .
16 illinoisentertainer . com may 2021