Joey Scarbury

Joey Scarbury (born June 7, 1955) is an American singer and songwriter known for his 1981 hit song, "Theme from The Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not)".

Biography

Childhood and early music career Scarbury was born in Ontario, California. ), real chart success eluded him for the rest of the decade. He also covered The Partridge Family song from their debut album Point Me in the Direction of Albuquerque on the same label as them, Bell Records in 1971. Mike Post produced and arranged it.

1980s and The Greatest American Hero In the late 1970s, he started working for record producer and composer Mike Post. A similarly titled album, America's Greatest Hero, was also hastily produced, and it also sold well.

However, Scarbury could not follow the song's success, and after charting at number 49 (#24 CAN AC ) with a follow-up single "When She Dances," he once again disappeared from the charts.

In pop culture "Believe It or Not" was parodied on the season 8 episode of Seinfeld, titled "Susie", by Jason Alexander, playing his character George Costanza. George uses a version of the song as an outgoing answering message, with different lyrics ("Believe it or not, George isn't at home") and mistakes in the melodic line. Since Jason Alexander is an experienced singer in real life, he was told to sing as poorly as he could, after his first take of the song was judged too good to be funny. It was also used in the TV show “Til Death” season 2 episode 3 “Come Out & Play”. It was played during the faculty basketball game where the main character Eddie, who is very tall, played the game and let everybody know he wasn’t any good at it.

Discography Scarbury has released several singles starting in 1969 on Dunhill, followed by releases on Reena, Playboy, Bell, Columbia, RCA, Big Tree, Lionel, and Elektra labels.

1971 "Point Me in the Direction of Albuquerque" — — — 1971 "Mixed Up Guy" 73 — —

"Believe It or Not" 2 3 2 "When She Dances" 49 — —