Vocalist Leonard Tucker
Mossy Nissan Moves You
San Diegans probably don't recognize the name, but Leonard Tucker
is as well known in this city as LT, Trevor Hoffman and Shamu. Here's
why: "Mossy Nissan moves you! Ahhaaaahaaaa!"
Tucker is the vocalist behind the Mossy Nissan jingle, and love it or
hate it, the tune, and Tucker's distinctive yell at the end of the spot,
is probably better recognized than any radio hit by locals Blink 182,
Pinback, Switchfoot or Iron Butterfly. The 20-year-old tune in its
various versions is broadcast approximately 2,000 times a month on
both radio and television (according to FM 94.9 music director Mike
Halloran, a current top-40 radio hit gets about 10,000 plays a month
nationwide.)
Recorded in either 1988 or 1989, details about the recording
are a bit fuzzy, but Tucker credits San Diego songwriter Dove Linkhorn
at Powerhouse Recording Studios with writing the song.
"They kinda just let me go with it," Tucker says. "Most of [Linkhorn's]
tracks are pretty cool. He's really great songwriter and his jingles have
a pretty fun rhythm and groove underneath them. He let me go with
my instincts. He gives you the melody of what they're looking for and
just kinda let me go for it. It was pretty easy."
As for the yell at the end of the tune, Tucker said he went with gut.
"It just kind of came out, and I've done it a time or two, and it just felt
right for the end of that tune. I don't think it was a direction from
anybody, it just kind of happened at the end," he says.
Singing commercial spots is a tough way to make a living, but Tucker,
has a successful career as a session singer, performing on a number of
well-known jingles. His voice can still be heard crooning the tag for
Smooth Jazz 98.1, and radio listeners might remember his vocals on a
radio spots for Bill Howe Plumbing and a jingle for the San Diego trolley.
And if "Mossy Nissan Moves You" could be considered the most played
tune in San Diego -- second only to Cal Worthington's "Go See Cal" --
Tucker also provided the vocals for another song known by everyone
in San Diego County.
"I also sang the San Diego Chargers song," Tucker says. "There are two
different versions. They played mine for years, and then more recently
with the Chargers having such a phenomenal season, they went back
to the original, more disco version."
The original "Super Chargers" was recorded in 1979 by a group o
session musicians under the name of Captain Q.B. and the Big Boys.
Tucker's rendition has since been retired.
"I haven't heard mine for a while. Every now and again I'll hear my
version. They played my version for a long, long time. It was the same
deal, it had to be 1980-something when we went and redid the San
Diego Super Charger song. It was pretty cool," he says.
Along with having two of the best known San Diego tunes under his
belt, Tucker, a former NASSCO employee, also sings with '60s R&B
soul legends the Fifth Dimension.
Jim Tindaro, co-owner of American Strategies Marketing, the agency
that handles advertising for Mossy, said he was looking for something
with a Latin beat back in 1988 to catch the ear of the young, urban
car buyer.
"We knew that music plays a big part in that segment and we decided
to come up with a musical signature," Tindaro says. "At the time I
knew kind of what I wanted to accomplish -- I'm a former musician
myself -- and I knew what kind of sound would resonate. At the time
it was Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. That was the
thought process. I went to the creative people and said this is what I
am envisioning for this tune."
Tindaro says he had to fight for the song to even make the airwaves.
Convinced that the jingle was a hit, he played it for the manager, a
Houston transplant, trying to convince him that a salsa-flavored theme
song would sell cars in San Diego
"The general manager, after we broke our souls doing this, he said, 'Jim,
I don't know if I rightly like that song.' I said, 'Well, with all do respect,
sir, I rightly don't care because the customers are going to like it,'"
Tindaro says.
Tindaro had a simple way to prove his point. He replied, "'Why don't we
go out on the showroom and I'll stick it in one of the cars.' We had
cassettes at the time, remember those? It was probably most scared
and audacious moment in my advertising career. I put that in a car and
I cranked it up in the showroom and you could see the reaction. I said,
'That about settles that.'"
The man who wrote the jingle, Dove Linkhorn, says isn't surprised at
the jingle's longevity.
"Mossy Nissan is Jingles 101. The essence of jingle writing is all there,"
the songwriter and producer says. "If you want to know how to write a
jingle, you listen to that one and you got it. It basically has to have a
hook. You've got to get the name out there clearly, get it out there so
people are not only listening, but singing it. It's really not much different
as trying to write a hit song."
For proof that a 60-second jingle that's supposed to sell Sentras and
Pathfinders has become a piece of local music history, look no further
than Rookie Card's frontman Adam Gimbel. The song is such a San
Diegan institution that at one point the band incorporated the jingle
into their set list.
"Everyone knows it," Gimbel says. "We opened up for ABC at the
House of Blues and opened up with [Mossy Nissan], and I swear, there
were 500 or 600 people and you could see them start to cheer. Everyone
knows it."
Currently, Mossy is currently airing new versions of the jingle featuring
the winners of its "Mossy Idol" competition. Singer Kerrie Caldwell can be
heard singing along with Tucker's original version while local rapper J.V.
wrote an entirely new hip hop track that name drops a number of makes
and models.
Who knows what the price of a gallon of gas will be 20 years from now
-- if there's any oil left -- but somehow, it's almost guaranteed that
Leonard Tucker's voice will still be heard over San Diego airwaves singing
"Mossy Nissan moves you."