Album Info
| Artist: | Steve Martin And The Toot Uncommons |
| Album: | King Tut |
| Released: | Worldwide, 2024 |
Tracklist:
| A | Steve Martin, Toot Uncommons - King Tut | 2:10 |
| B1 | Steve Martin - Sally Goodin | 3:47 |
| B2 | Steve Martin - Hoedown At Alice's |
Info About Buying Vinyl From Our Record Store
- We are a small independent record store located at 91 Plenty Rd, Preston in Melbourne, Australia (North of Northcote, between Thornbury & Reservoir)
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- Happy Listening!
Description
Some records feel like a snapshot of a moment, and Steve Martin and the Toot Uncommons’ King Tut is exactly that. Spin the 7-inch and you’re back in 1978, when the touring Tutankhamun exhibition turned museums into pop culture hotspots and Martin, fresh off a run of killer stand-up sets and Saturday Night Live appearances, turned the mania into a gleeful novelty hit. It first lit up SNL in April that year, then arrived as a single on Warner Bros soon after, climbing into the Billboard Top 20 and shifting over a million copies. It also showed up on his smash live LP A Wild and Crazy Guy, which ended up taking home the 1979 Grammy for Best Comedy Album. Not bad for a tune about a pharaoh with a wicked groove.
Crucial detail for the crate diggers. The Toot Uncommons were the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band operating under a cheeky alias, and you can hear that seasoned touch all over the record. The timing is locked, the guitars sit sweet, and the rhythm section keeps things bouncy without turning it into parody funk. There is a chunky horn break that still gets a grin, and Martin leans into the vocal with that side-eyed showman’s charm that made his comedy albums fly out of shops. It is a novelty song, sure, but it is also cut with real players who knew how to make a jukebox move.
The A-side gets all the oxygen, yet the flip makes this more than a throwaway gag. The B-side, Sally Goodin, is a traditional tune rendered by the Toot Uncommons with brisk, rootsy flair. It underlines the in-joke, these weren’t a bunch of sketch-comedy ring-ins, they were road-tested pickers who could switch from joke to jam without losing their footing. If you dig Nitty Gritty’s early folk-rock or their later country polish, the lineage is obvious.
What keeps King Tut fun is the way it needles at the hype around the exhibition without sourness. Martin plays the carnival barker, winking at merch stands and museum queues while letting the band haul the song along on a crisp backbeat. It is satire you can dance to. The recording has punch on a decent copy, the snare snaps, the bass warms the edges, and the horn lines cut through like a bright ribbon. If you find King Tut vinyl in clean shape, it is a terrific party starter, and it still works on a bar turntable when the room needs a left-field singalong.
Collectors will find variations, but the standard US 7-inch is the one most of us have bumped into. In Australia it pops up less often, though it is not rare. If you trawl weekend markets or a Melbourne record store with a decent comedy and oddities section, you will see it sooner or later. For those keen to buy Steve Martin records online, it is widely listed and usually affordable, and it sits nicely alongside Steve Martin albums on vinyl like Let’s Get Small and the aforementioned A Wild and Crazy Guy. If you are building a shelf of vintage comedy and novelty sides among your vinyl records Australia finds, this single earns its spot.
Context helps. A Wild and Crazy Guy was a phenomenon, landing on charts and winning that Grammy, and King Tut became a calling card on radio and TV. The SNL performance added to the legend, but the single is the definitive way to hear it, tighter and more musical than the TV version, with that playful studio polish. The song’s chart run, peaking at No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100, proves it connected beyond comedy nerds, and its million-plus sales make it one of the era’s most successful novelty records.
Is it an album-length statement? Of course not. It is a sharp, two-song snapshot of a comedian at the height of his powers, paired with a crack band taking the joke seriously enough to make it dance. That balance is why it still lands. Drop it into a set between a bit of power pop and some country rock and watch faces light up. If you grew up with the tune, the single is a hit of pure nostalgia. If you are coming to Steve Martin vinyl through his films or later banjo work, it is a reminder that he always had a musician’s ear. Keep an eye out for a tidy copy of King Tut vinyl, slip it in a fresh sleeve, and let it do what it did in 1978, make a room of people laugh and move at the same time.
