The “Golden Hits Of The 70s” 

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LARRY GROCE

“JUNK FOOD JUNKIE”

(LARRY GROCE)

Warner Bros. 8165

No. 9   March 20, 1976

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Where did this junk-food junkie come from?  Before his fleeting success, Larry (guitar, mandolin) plus his

sidekicks–Berke McKelvey (bass) and the Currence brothers, Jimmie (banjo, fiddle) and Loren (guitar,

fid­dle, mandolin)–were working the backwoods bar cir­cuit.  Groce had recorded four LPs of folkie things

on tiny labels like Peaceable and Daybreak, albums that were so poorly distributed that even Larry may

not be aware of them.

 

Larry Groce was born in Dallas on April 22, 1948.  Attending W. H. Adamson High School at the same

time as Larry were future music-makers Michael Murphy, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and B. W. STEVENSON.

With school behind him, Larry and guitar moved about the states singing folk music and rhyming tales.

(Walt Disney’s Vista label issued his “Winnie the Pooh for President” as a single.)  Early in the ’70s, Groce

went to work for the National Endowment for the Arts and West Virginia’s Arts and Humanities Council.

Larry was sent to the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia to teach song­ writing.  It was there that

wild imaginations aided him in coming up with his one and only hit.  Recorded before a live audience at a

guitar shop, McCabe’s, in Santa Moni­ca, “Junk Food Junkie” touched a repressed nerve.

 

“I was raised on junk food.  Dallas, my hometown, is home to Dr. Pepper and Fritos,” said Larry, in a

public­ity handout from the record company.  “My big weak­ness is Peanut Paddies, a candy type thing only

made in Texas.  My dad is a connoisseur of them, like fine wines.”  Warner Brothers picked up the tune for

national distribution, but there was a fear in the air that some of the major makers of the junk would take

offense and pursue a legal recourse.  “I was in the publicity depart­ment at Warner, and they were worried

because they heard that local outlets of McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken had put some heat on the

local stations to drop the song from their playlist,” said Groce to authors Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo.

“Although there were a few local franchises who were upset with the song … the home offices understood

that every time their name was mentioned good things happened.”

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As the Junk Food Junkie album attests, Groce and his cohorts were capable of creating some pleasing

rural sounds, but the label felt the record-buying public wanted more novelty numbers.  Warner Bros.

issued follow-up singles with titles like “Big White House in Indiana,” “The Bumper Sticker Song,” and

“Turn on Your TV,” all to little avail.

 

Larry Groce still resides in a 120-year-old farm­ house outside of Philippa, West Virginia. Larry still sings

some, and writes a little, too.  In the late ’80s he hosted “Mountain Stage,” a national radio show.  He

proudly notes that he starred in a low-budget, video store-only flick, Paradise Park (1991).  “It’s a

humorous story of a trailer park in West Virginia;,” said Groce.  “I play a teacher who lives there and

everyone is an odd­ ball, but me.”

 

Asked about his goals in life, Larry told a publicist, “”m on the search for the ultimate junk food, one with

no natural ingredients whatsoever.”