– The Washington Post

Bette Davis singing “Feliz Navidad.” Donald Duck quacking “Amazing Grace.” A jingle for American Standard toilets. Nearly anything by Slim Whitman.

All were among the recordings heard on “The Annoying Music Show,” which ran on public radio from 1996 to 2012.

Jim Nayder, 59, the program’s creator, died June 27 at his home in Chicago. The cause was a heart attack, said his daughter, Blair Nayder Botti.

Nayder’s popular five-minute program, which perversely celebrated music that irritates its listeners, had a highly accidental premiere.

When Nayder was announcing a show that didn’t air on time, his producer asked him to cue some music to fill the dead air. He played a record of the renowned country yodeler Whitman, caterwauling through the Disney song “It’s a Small World.”

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At the end of the song, Nayder announced, “Welcome to ‘The Annoying Music Show,’ ” and a new career was born.

Much of the humor in “The Annoying Music Show” came from the incongruity of singer and song.

William Shatner, the “Star Trek” actor, was a perennial program choice as he enunciated and emoted his way through the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” and Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” A chorus of the San Francisco 49ers football team did the Christmas favorite “Winter Wonderland.”

However, other selections, such as “My Bathroom Is a Private Kind of Place,” a jingle for the toilet manufacturer American Standard, reflected more of a failure of song craft — or, perhaps, subject matter.

 


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