The last great ding-a-ling

In the town of Americus, Georgia, Meri Edgemon, 53, was perhaps best known as a patron of the local arts, and she was greatly mourned when she was killed in a single-car accident south of town this past weekend.

To those of us with a tad more dementia in our souls, Meri Edgemon was Meri Wilson, quintessential Southern blonde, who in 1977 (the breakup of the Bell System was still more than six years away) put out one of the snarkiest 45s of all time: "Telephone Man", the story of a tech from the phone company who could put it anywhere she wanted it.

Follow-up discs didn't go anywhere (though 1980's "Peter the Meter Reader", like "Telephone Man", became a staple of the Dr Demento radio show), and Wilson dropped back into obscurity, but she was never quite forgotten — at least, not by me.

Posted at 6:59 PM to Tongue and Groove