Benny Goodman returned to his swing band because he concluded that was what he knew best. In 1953, he said, "Maybe bop has done more to set music back for years than anything...Basically it's all wrong. It's not even knowing the scales...Bop was mostly publicity and people figuring angles." In 1949 he studied with clarinetist Reginald Kell, requiring a change in technique: "instead of holding the mouthpiece between his front teeth and lower lip, as he had done since he first took a clarinet in hand 30 years earlier, Goodman learned to adjust his embouchure to the use of both lips and
Dickie Goodman 1973), the 1973 energy crisis with "Energy Crisis '74" (#33 in 1974), and Richard Nixon with "Mr. President" (#73 in 1974). Goodman failed to chart with a different version of "Mr. President" in 1981 after Ronald Reagan became president. In addition to work under his own name, Goodman also produced for other acts. John & Ernest's "Superfly Meets Shaft" (#31 in 1973), while oriented more toward a black audience, retained Goodman's "break-in" format. An unusual act Goodman produced was the Glass Bottle; Goodman created the band primarily as an advertising ploy to promote actual glass bottles, which were going out