Ralph Giese – Georgia on My Mind
1984
14K Likes
Best comments
1.“I love how everyone in the audience is staring in horrified fascination. It must be a timeless response.”
More comments
- 2.“I firmly believe the mullet is half of his whistling powers. Without it, he could not perform.”
- 3.“He had me with the mullet. My legs are wide open.”
The story
This is a man whistling Georgia on My Mind on Detroit daytime TV, and it is two and a half of the strangest minutes ever broadcast. Ralph Giese, who bills himself as the World's Greatest Whistler, doesn't pucker. He whistles open-mouthed, from the throat, rolling his tongue against the roof of his mouth so it works like a clarinet reed. The sound is enormous. His face does things faces shouldn't do. The kids in the studio audience look like they've just seen a magic trick go wrong.
It went out in 1984 on Kelly & Company, the Detroit talk show John Kelly and Marilyn Turner hosted on WXYZ, during a talent segment. The act right before him was a man trying to stack a tower of bowling balls, which did not go well. Giese was the clear winner with the crowd, and the bizarre little chat afterward is its own masterpiece of awkward.
Somebody dug it up and posted it in late 2011, and it bounced around the web for a week. Stereogum said it had been thought lost to the ages. This copy is a fan's backup, saved before the original upload was pulled. Giese, from Port Huron, Michigan, has whistled since he was about three. He's competed at the World's Whistle-Off in Nevada, been on The Tonight Show and America's Got Talent, and plays rock and roll with his band, Whistler's Muthers. His goal is to whistle the way Jimmy Page shreds a guitar. Hoagy Carmichael never saw this coming.
