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2018 World Figure Skating Championships.

Regardless of when or where you were born, chances are very good you've heard at least one Eddie Money song and found yourself humming it later while you drove or did laundry or performed some other mundane task, and Eddie Money, blue collar rocker, saxophonist, and champion of the everyman, wouldn't want it any other way.

Sep 13, 2019 To honor Eddie Money's life and legacy, AXS TV will continue to air the final five episodes of his series Real Money on Thursdays at 9:30pE/6:30pP and will also air a tribute to Eddie Money this.
Real Money: With Eddie Money, Laurie Money, Jesse Money, Joe Money. Reality TV series based on the home and tour life of Eddie Money and family in Southern California.

Prior to his death of esophageal cancer and complications from a heart valve procedure at age 70, Money managed to rack up 11 Top 40 hits, including 'Two Tickets to Paradise,' 'Shakin',' 'Walk on Water,' 'Take Me Home Tonight,' and 'I Wanna Go Back.' He also garnered a loyal legion of fans who adored him not only for his talent for penning catchy tunes but his steadfast refusal to be anyone but who he was — an Irish Catholic boy from Brooklyn with humble roots and an accent you could cut with a knife.

And he kept his sense of humor to the last. The father of five was famous in his family for being the king of groan-producing puns and howlers. As he told a reporter with Rolling Stone, on the day the producers of his reality show, 'Real Money,' arranged a horseback ride for him and his kids, he couldn't resist cracking a classic dad joke: 'I'm looking at the horses and going, 'You look really depressed. Why the long face?' Read on for more about this working-class hero.

Eddie Money and the long arm of the law

Eddie Money was born Edward Joseph Mahoney in 1949 to a large family with law enforcement in its blood. Both Money's father and grandfather were New York City cops, and his brother joined the force as well. Money planned to follow in their footsteps, but he never graduated to full officer. He was on the waiting list for the police academy at the time and had spent two years as a trainee, typing up roll calls. The stumbling block to his completing his training, he told the Tolucan Times, was his hair. He wanted to grow his hair long; the powers that were wanted him to cut it. He decided to give up on his NYC cop dreams and move to California to be a singer. No one, he supposed, would insist he cut his hair there.

According to an interview he did with the Broward Palm Beach Times, Money's father was deeply disappointed in his decision to leave the force and become a singer. 'I played Madison Square Garden with Santana and Cyndi Lauper and my father comes to the show and was still pissed off I quit the police,' Money said. 'Can you believe that [expletive]? He thought rock-n-roll was a fly-by-night job.'

Eddie Money moonlighted as a bell bottoms salesman

Edward John Mahoney moved to the Bay Area in 1968 to pursue a career as a singer, and, as often happens to east coast California transplants with stars in their eyes, he struggled to find his footing. One of the first things he did was change his name to Eddie Money. Then, as he told BAM magazine in a 1999 interview, he took a job selling bell bottoms on Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue to make ends meet.

The ends did not often meet. According to this piece in Rolling Stone, a few of his nicknames from the time included 'Freddie Foodstamps' and 'Eddie No Money.' And, as he often admitted to reporters, he was doing a lot of marijuana in the early days. He even spent the night in jail with his roommate because said roommate was selling pot on the side and the landlord busted them.

In between the bell bottoms gig and stints in jail, he played the Bay Area clubs, eventually getting the attention of legendary manager and promoter Bill Graham, who signed him to his own label under the Columbia Records label. To paraphrase Mr. Money, life was finally his for the taking.

Eddie Money has a dubious honor

Money was never shy about his vodka and pot habit, and he admitted to doing quite a lot of coke in his lifetime, too. He was a rising star in the late seventies and early eighties — whaddya gonna do?

Money's mindset seemed to be that he was going to pack as much fun as he could into his rock star days and nights. He smoked, he drank, he did drugs. Women threw themselves at him. It was all very rock-n-roll, baby. In 1981, all the partying caught up with him when he unwittingly overdosed on doctored barbiturates and ended up in the hospital. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, he'd been passed out for 14 hours, lying on his side, before he received medical attention. Later, it was discovered that the drugs he'd taken were laced with fentanyl. The experience did permanent damage to his sciatic nerve and he was unable to walk for a year.

As this Rolling Stone profile points out, that long-ago nightmare actually gave Money a place in history: he became the first celebrity in America to overdose on fentanyl. Not exactly the feather he might have wanted in his cap, but five years later he was nominated for a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal performance for his song, 'Take Me Home Tonight,' so comebacks are a thing and dreams really do come true.

Eddie Money had a mouth on him

Money was known to many for his off-color comedy and his potty mouth. He lived as if he'd never heard the phrase 'politically correct.' Or maybe, after all he'd seen and done, he just didn't care to censor himself or sugarcoat anything. Regardless, he always spoke and laughed freely, and occasionally, his willingness to push the boundaries of good taste got him in trouble. Like the time he joked about being part Jewish at a talk he gave at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.

The anecdote, according to Variety, went like this: 'My wife always looks like a million bucks and she spends so much money on clothes and I hate it. It's the Jew in me.' A few members of the audience took umbrage with the remark, labeling it anti-Semitic, but Money said he would never discriminate against Jews. His mother was, after all, part Jewish. This surprised some fans, who only knew about Money's Irish-Catholic side. Fans weren't shocked, though, by the sub-par quality of the joke.

The one song Eddie Money wished he hadn't written

Money clearly relished any opportunity he had to trot out his greatest hits for his fans, and 'Take Me Home Tonight' had a special place in his heart because a) he got a Grammy nom for it and b) it gave him a chance to work with Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes. ('Be My Baby,' anyone?) There was one song he hated playing live, though. Sorry, 'Walk on Water,' fans. This diddy was a painful one for Money.

In an interview with Popculture.com, he explained why. It came down to those pesky 'na nas.' 'Everybody really likes 'Walk on Water,' he said, 'and I hate singing 'Na na na na na na na na na. I feel really silly singing the song, but you gotta go out there and do the songs that they love. [Sings] Na na na na na na na na na. I mean, come on. You try doing that for 30 years in a row. It's not even a lyric. It was supposed to be a horn part, but the horn player never showed up, so I had to do it with my mouth.'

Eddie Money proves cheaters sometimes prosper

Money started singing on the streets of Brooklyn, New York when he was 11-years-old and, according to his Washington Post obituary, he played in rock bands throughout high school in order to get dates with cheerleaders. Eddie Money for the teenage social life win? Check.

When it came to homework and grades, though, his history is a little more complicated. According to this LA Times tribute, he was kicked out of one high school for forging a report card. Eddie Money for the bad ass/class clown frontman award? Yeah, check that box, too.

Money's trouble-making ways didn't really hold him back in any substantial way. In 1967, he finally did graduate from high school — from Levittown, New York's Island Trees High School — and shortly thereafter moved to California where he must have sensed that someone with a talent for magically turning bad grades into good ones would be welcomed with open arms.

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Eddie Money's wife didn't know who he was at first

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Eddie Money's personal life is, in many ways, as colorful as his music. On Valentine's Day in 1984, he married then 24-year-old Margo Lee

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