Shoo Bop

Hey Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew is spinning a real gem for the listening audience right now, and it's Diamond Dave himself cutting loose on "Shoo Bop" from the 2003 album Diamond Dave. This track takes the old Steve Miller Band number "Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma Ma" from their 1973 album The Joker and stretches it into something psychedelic, funky, and full of that open-road jam energy. Roth and the sessions crew lay down plenty of room for the solos to breathe, turning a simple chant into a groovy ride that feels like it could go on forever without losing the spark. Recorded over at Henson Studios in Hollywood, the whole thing carries that live ensemble feel, with longtime cohorts like keyboard man Brett Tuggle and drummer Gregg Bissonette helping drive the bus on the album's bustling sessions.

Dig into the stories behind this one, and you find Roth treating Diamond Dave as a tribute to the players who shaped his ear over the years. Most of the album is covers, from Savoy Brown openers to deeper cuts by the Doors, Hendrix, and the Beatles, all updated with a mix of vintage gear and a few modern loops and samples thrown in for color. In chats around the release, Roth explained how classic rock radio had locked its playlists in stone years earlier, so he went classic on purpose to keep the music moving. He figured if the stations only played the old stuff, then that was the road to take, and he was reflecting whatever was floating around at the moment. One interviewer asked about the covers, and Roth laughed that he was the teacher showing the young ones how it is done, then wondered out loud whether the record would get the girls. The passion comes through clear enough, though, as he kept the material from going stale by recording everything as a real band playing together, which he called a rarity. "We took the meat and potatoes of the band, added in the loops, samples and turntables – all of my fascinations," he said in one of those pieces. Only "Shoo Bop" made it into the later concert sets from that album, the rest fading while this funky number held on because it had that urgency and real-thing swing in the lyrics that still moves a room.

Roth always mixed the smart with the blue in his interviews, and the Diamond Dave period shows him still having fun with the material instead of coasting. He talked about the Savoy Brown songs as the way you boogied in the sixties, even if he was never sure what the name really meant, just that it sounded great. The album mixed traditional rock instrumentation with horns and vintage keys like the Hammond, all captured with the band in the room so the chemistry stayed intact. Reviews noted how the passion kept the covers from feeling like homework, and Roth himself claimed his take on certain tunes improved on the originals with a bit of that Christ-like humility he liked to joke about. The whole project was his way of staying in the game on his own terms, even if the chart numbers stayed quiet and the solo run wrapped up there. It is the kind of deep cut the Zoo Crew loves to pull out, the one that reminds you rock and roll can still surprise when the right hands get hold of an old groove.

That same restless spark that lights up "Shoo Bop" goes all the way back to how Diamond Dave got started in the first place. Born in Bloomington, Indiana in 1954 to an eye doctor father and a teacher mother, young Dave was pure energy from the jump. The doctors labeled him hyperactive and suggested pills, but the family handled the dinner-time spikes with what they called monkey hour, letting him sing commercials, tell jokes, and burn it off at the table. His dad turned him on to Al Jolson early, and Ray Charles on the radio became a big influence too. Summers spent with uncle Manny, who ran the Cafe Wha? club in Greenwich Village, gave him a front-row look at the Village scene and the performers coming through. The family eventually moved out to Pasadena, California, where the rock and roll side started taking shape for real.

In high school Dave sang with an R and B flavored outfit called the Red Ball Jets, building the charisma and the showmanship that would become his trademark. Over at Pasadena City College he studied a little music theory and crossed paths with the Van Halen brothers, Eddie and Alex, who were already making noise in a band called Mammoth. Those early seventies backyard parties saw Dave show up in suspenders and two-tone Cuban heels, sparkling enough that the Van Halens dubbed him Diamond Dave on the spot. After a couple of auditions he joined Mammoth as the frontman, and the group switched the name to Van Halen once they learned another band already had the Mammoth tag. From the club circuit to the bigger stages, the mix of Motown soul from his youth club dances and the hard rock edge from the Van Halen side created something that stood apart. Roth has talked about those days as the start of turning monkey hour into a career, the first instruments being the voice and the dance when there was no backyard or money to spend. The Pasadena scene, the busing, the rivalries between schools, and the PA system he rented out to the brothers all fed into the legend that keeps rolling.

Dave never really stopped being that same character who could quote Groucho Marx and Wilson Pickett in the same breath, the one who treated the stage like a Technicolor circus. From the early jobs as a hospital orderly to the first gigs and the climb that followed, it all built on that foundation of energy, humor, and the refusal to sit still. The stories from interviews over the years keep circling back to those beginnings, the hyperactivity that became the show, the influences that never left, and the drive that turned a troublesome kid into the rock and roll pirate the Zoo Freaks know so well. Whether he is covering an old Steve Miller groove or telling the tale of how the nickname stuck, it all ties together in that Diamond Dave way.

You can follow the full Diamond Dave story and catch the latest from the man himself over at the official website davidleeroth.com, and stay in touch on the official pages at Facebook, Instagram, and X. For all the freeform album rock, the deep cuts, and the stories that keep the spirit alive, keep it locked right here on THE ZOO, where the Zoo Crew keeps spinning for the Freaks from coast to coast and beyond.