John Valby (a.k.a. “Dr. Dirty”)

After spending an evening with John Valby, audiences find themselves wanting more and more of him. What makes Valby so unique and entertaining is his uncommon rapport with the audience and his ability to mix his musical Talent with a mad-cap variety of “Dirty Ditties”. Few people can resist laughing at songs that would have earned them a mouthful of soap when they were children. Valby’s repertoire is composed of popular songs, limericks, classical arrangements and his own original creations. Valby has made a career out of poking fun at his audiences, stretching the limits of free speech and accepted good taste and satirizing current events from behind the piano.

When he’s not playing and singing, he yells obscenities: the audience yells back and everyone has a good time. The best way to describe John Valby is to blend the following performers together. Allen Sherman, spike Jones, Lenny Bruce and Weird Al Yankovic all topped off with the dirt of Redd Foxx, only better. Valby’s background started out innocently enough. As a teen-ager, he attended McQuaid Jesuit High School in Rochester MY Where the Catholic nuns taught him how to play the piano. Valby attributes his love of music to his father Richard, an accomplished violinist.

The “Dirt singing” didn’t start until Valby got to Middlebury College in Vermont. Majoring in Philosophy, He created a few compositions for his fraternity brothers, many of which are still being sung today-as part of his Legacy. In fact, Valby’s performance status remains Legendary at college campuses throughout the country. As a trained classical pianist, Valby quickly realized that the demand was limited. He turned to his new material by accident; found a trend and went with it. That trend started in 1975 when Valby was performing the Buffalo bar circuit doing ragtime tunes and pop standards. According to Valby; “I did Three Dirty songs one night and pretty soon the power of “DIRT” pushed most everything else out. I became a mirror for the audience and the Audience turned out to be 20 times DIRTIER than me.”

Valby used to get annoyed that while he was on stage baring his soul to the audience, the crowds would yell, “sing more DIRT!” His manager named him “Dr. Dirty” and the rest is history. Valby goes on to say, “I’m performing a service. I can’t get too egotistical about what the audience should hear. I’m supposed to entertain.” And entertain he does. Valby wears a white tuxedo, derby and black bow tie, while supporting the grin of a leprechaun. He sings a slew of “DIRTY” songs, complete with references to genitals and intercourse. Nothing and no one is sacred around Dr. Dirty, but he accomplishes his act with ease and finesse. “You have to look clean, and smile a lot,” Valby once remarked few entertainers have such a one-to-one relationship with their audience. He doesn’t target one group in particular. He smiles with them, laughs with them, jokes with them, and makes everyone laugh at themselves.

Valby has recorded & produced over 30 CDs and LPs, which bear such titles as: Compact Dirt, Sit on a Happy Face, Give Me Dirt or Give Me Death, Operation F Iraq and many other titles that defy mention. He has also recorded clean material, including a Christmas CD, and the non-dirty Lily White and Burnout Blues. He has worked on a number of other projects, including a multi-era rock ‘n’ roll CD by the Krakup Quartet, some new age music, and believe it or not, a children’s album. John Valby resides in Western New York with his wife Anne and his five children. He continues to be the mainstay at comedy clubs, rock, clubs, college campuses and basically wherever people like to laugh out loud.

More About John Valby, a.k.a. “Dr. Dirty,”

Born and raised in upstate New York, John Valby, a.k.a. “Dr. Dirty,” attended school in Rochester. At age 7, he was taught to play the piano by two nuns, and by 10, knew he wanted to be a performer. (Some of his obscene act comes from the Catholic repression he experienced during this time.)

After graduating from Middlebury College, Vt., in 1966, he moved on to Duke University, earning a degree in Idealism. He briefly considered a profession as a philosophy teacher, but quickly realized it was not right for him and focused in on music. Early in his career, Valby joined various rock bands that “kept on breaking up”. Frustrated, he switched to performing a solo piano act of mostly rock and roll and honky tonk tunes. At a show in May 1974, he added some dirty songs of his own into the set. The positive response to the dirty songs led John to focus on the more adult material. He would often write new material while on the road between gigs.

Valby claimed that he was named “Dr. Dirty” by the National Entertainment Conference, a booking organization for the college circuit. He stated that he disliked the name because it “takes away from the element of surprise”. In addition to his blue comedy act, Valby has recorded and produced several pop and rock albums for himself and other artists, including Buffalo Sabres defenseman Jim Schoenfeld, with whom Valby recorded two albums, Schony (1972) and The Key is Love (1974). He also had a small role as a piano player in a Tijuana brothel in the 1983 film Losin’ It which featured an early performance by Tom Cruise.

John is married to his wife Anne; together they have six children. In August 2012 his home in Clarence, New York was burned due to suspected arson. As of 2016, he still lives in Clarence.