Remember When Everyone Had Pac-Man Fever?

I was able to talk to Jerry Buckner of Buckner and Garcia who performed Pac-Man Fever in 1981, and I learned things about him and that the song was missing from a video game film.

First of all, the movie PIXELS featured Pac-Man in the movie and they never used the song. Jerry said he was talking to the filmmakers and they didn't want to use it. He doesn't know why they even made a new version of the song and it didn't get used.

Jerry said his Dad was a Gospel musician and even though he wanted him to do the same thing he was supportive when things started to happen for him in the secular world. Buckner said he med up with a policeman down the road from where he lived who was also in the music business. That's how he got his start and wound up playing a session for the man who also owned a studio, and Buckner was only 13 years old!

Later on, he met up with Jerry Garcia (not the one in the Grateful Dead) and wrote pop songs with him. They came up with the video game song and it was a huge hit very fast. I asked Jerry Buckner why he didn't follow it up with some of their pop songs. He said the record label would fund a whole album for them if it was all about video games. They went to the arcade to search the most popular games and then wrote a whole album full of songs.

Jerry says he loves new music but the music he connects with is the 60s and 70s music. He told me he is working on new music, so I gave him my phone number and told him to keep in touch so we can debut the new stuff on the radio.