Marty Cooper, aka "El Clod" first hit the music biz in 1961, when he
and fellow novelty musician, H.B. Barnum, wrote "Peanut Butter", a big
hit by The Marathons. A year later, when Claude King's 1962 hit,
"Wolverton Mountain" climbed the charts, Cooper went under the name,
"El Clod" (Spanish for "The Dolt"), and created a parody of the song
entitled "Tijuana Border" with Wolverton Mountain in parenthesis.
Sadly, the song didn't chart due to the Hispanic stereotypes from
Cooper. Two years later, when Lorne Greene's western ballad, "Ringo"
became number one, Cooper reemerged with yet another parody, "Gringo"
in which spicy tacos do in the title character than a blazing six-gun.
But, like "Tijuana Border", it also flopped. Marty Cooper became one of
music's long list of casualties in the novelty category. They were very
popular, but today, his songs are rarely heard on radio.
He was the second musician to make a novelty song about Claude King's
monster 1962 song, "Wolverton Mountain". Fellow musician, Jo-Ann
Campbell came first with "(I'm The Girl On) Wolverton Mountain".
He wasn't the only novelty artist to parody Lorne Greene's "Ringo."
One-hit wonder Larry Finnegan (famous for the 1962 hit "Dear One")
parodied it into "The Other Ringo (A Tribute To Ringo Starr)" as a
tribute to the Beatles' Ringo Starr. Like "Gringo" it never went to the
Billboard charts.