Root Boy Slim

Foster MacKenzie III (July 9, 1944 – June 8, 1993), known professionally as Root Boy Slim, was an American musician and songwriter.

He was born in Asheville, North Carolina but raised in Washington, D.C.'s Maryland suburbs.

He was an exceptionally bright child with parents who were able to afford a series of costly prep schools, and he attended Yale University.

He returned to Maryland upon receiving his bachelor's degree and was diagnosed with schizophrenia following an LSD-induced psychotic episode.

He was accepted to and attended Yale University, majoring in American studies and black history, and graduated in 1967.

He was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, where his fraternity brothers included future President George W. Bush.

MacKenzie was a year older than Bush.

While at Yale, MacKenzie formed a band with classmate and fraternity brother Bob Greenlee, who was captain of Yale's football team.

The band was named Prince La La and the Midnight Creepers.

MacKenzie's growing dislike of authority and inner inclination to play pranks and his love of shock value expanded.

Band members wore ermine capes and silver lamé hot pants and boasted that they were never invited for return engagements.

The year after MacKenzie and Greenlee graduated, they returned to the DKE house during Yale's homecoming.

Bush, who since their departure had become president of DKE, threw them out and banned them from the house.

After graduation, MacKenzie drove an ice cream truck in Washington, D.C. One day he suffered a psychotic break after a particularly high dose of LSD, and he climbed over the White House fence.

The United States Secret Service apprehended him as he ran up the White House lawn.

He told the officers he was "looking for the center of the universe."

They hauled him off to St. Elizabeths Hospital, the largest long-term mental hospital that serves Washington, D.C. That incident led to a diagnosis of schizophrenia, for which MacKenzie was medicated for the rest of his life.

Mackenzie adopted the stage name of Root Boy Slim, and formed a blues rock band, which he dubbed "Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band."

His backup singers were called the Rootettes.

The band members were stridently different than most club fare.

Root Boy was fat, had greasy hair, and almost always seemed to be in a drug- or alcohol-induced stupor.

The band was a fixture in the mid-Atlantic blues/rock scene, and favored a mix of Memphis-style boogie rock/blues.

Root Boy and company traveled the club circuit, until a self-produced recording caught the ear of some A&R representatives at Warner Bros. Records.

That song was called "Xmas At K-Mart" and it landed the band a $250,000 contract with Warner Bros. That tune and the follow-up LP demonstrated Root and the band's penchant for writing tunes relating to pop-culture.

In the 1970s, he formed his own alternative rock band (including musicians such as tenor saxophonist Ron Holloway) and an ensemble titled Crying Out Loud.

Mackenzie's group was ultimately billed as Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band and The Rootettes.

The band cultivated a dedicated fan base, largely confined to the Washington metropolitan area.

MacKenzie died in his sleep in his home in Orlando, Florida at age 48 and is buried in Fletcher, North Carolina.

Their most famous recording was "Boogie 'Til You Puke" from the debut album Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band with the Rootettes (Warner Bros. Records, 1978), which was produced by Gary Katz, best known as the producer of Steely Dan recordings from 1972 through 1980.

The debut album also featured the songs "I Used To Be a Radical", "I'm Not Too Old For You", and "(You Broke My) Mood Ring."

Most of the songs were written by MacKenzie, guitarist Ernie Lancaster, and bassist Bob Greenlee.

The lyrics often satirized society and mixed in autobiographical elements from MacKenzie's storied life.

Warner mismarketed the LP, and the band found themselves without a label—but not without having had a European tour, in which Root Boy became enamored with his forefathers' homeland: Scotland.

The band also performed the song "Boogie 'Til You Puke" in the Party Doll Lounge on 42nd St in New York in Mr. Mike's Mondo Video (1979), a satire of the Italian produced exploitation "shockumentary" Mondo Cane (1962).

The film was produced and directed by Michael O'Donoghue, the famed Saturday Night Live head writer, and also featured appearances from Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner, and Sid Vicious among others.

During the same year, the band played a date at the Varsity Grill's Back Room in College Park, Maryland, which was one of the main bars popular with students at the University of Maryland, College Park.

A riot broke out in the bar and outside on U.S. Route 1, which later led the College Park City Council to ban the band from future engagements in College Park.

He was inducted into the Washington Area Music Association Hall of Fame in 2004.

MacKenzie was an intelligent yet incorrigible youth, who was asked to leave several private D.C.-area prep schools, including Sidwell Friends School.

He finally found his niche at Saint James School in Hagerstown, Maryland, a boarding school, where along with his studies, he played varsity football.