Fay Dewitt’s “THROUGH SICK AND SIN” album arrived in 1961, at a time when there was great interest in edgy comedy, black (meaning darkly satiric) humor and sick comedy. The cover's odd humor seems to involve Fay not believing an apple a day should keep the doctor away. Maybe you hadda be there.
At the time, Lenny Bruce, Shelley Berman, and Jonathan Winters were all accused of crude and weird joking. Time magazine sounded the alarm with an article on the "sick comedy" trend. Tasteless remarks was something Time could not tolerate... although they did refer to Shelley Berman's face as looking "like a hastily sculptured meatball."
Tom Lehrer was the star of poor taste songs, but alarmed critics were noticing that chi-chi clubs and revues were beginning to load up on questionable songs about cocaine, Lizzie Borden and double entendres below Cole Porter's belt. When you couldn't trust Hermoine Gingold or a Julius Monk revue to maintain a wholesome standard, something was wrong! But....selling.
Major record labels began to take interest. Berman and Winters were on Verve, and Columbia signed Paul Lynde to be their sick comedy star. Warners tested the sea-sick waters with a tepid album of risque songs performed by Joan Barton (who was not exactly competition for Ruth Wallis, Faye Richmonde or Rusty Warren). Epic likewise gave the genre a try with the provocatively titled "Sick and Sin" album, although few tracks were all that sick, and there was nothing "sinful" that would cause anyone to blush.
"These Ghoulish Things," not to be confused with the parody on "These Foolish Things" that appears on Sheldon Alllman's 'Sing Along with Drac" album, is by David Rogers and Mark Bucci, who wrote the score for "Cheaper By the Dozen."
Fay is 85, still ready for work singing in cabaret or acting in sitcoms, and has a long, long resume that includes a variety of classic TV shows, including "Car 54," "McHale's Navy," "The Farmer's Daughter," "That Girl," "Gomer Pyle," "All in the Family," "The Jeffersons," "Mork and Mindy," "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," and "Good Samaritans," all done after this album arrived.
Fay's impressive stage and film credits go back to 1950 when she was in "Pardon Our French" with Olsen and Johnson, and 1951's infamous "Flahooley" with Irwin Corey. She recorded several "straight" singles on labels including GNP, Mood and Leeds. In the world of fanboy geeks and perverse trivia fans, she is known for being one of the few celebrities who killed somebody. In her case, it was her violent husband. They had divorced, but in a drunken rage he broke into her place and began beating her. She grabbed for a letter opener and fatally stabbed him in self-defense. This ghoulish thing seems to have endeared her to fame-fans who haven't heard her sing and perhaps haven't connected her to any of her vast variety of roles, which includes parts in Don Knotts movies, and in everything from "House" to "Murder She Wrote."
"Siembamba" is sort of the South African version of "Rockabye Baby." We don't mind crooning to our kids about a baby hauled into a tree, and then falling to the ground when a limb breaks. Guaranteed, baby breaks a few limbs, too.
And so in South Africa, there was an equally charming old folk song called "Siembamba." The genteel, nearly forgotten husband and wife team of Marais and Miranda recorded it, both studio and live versions.
Goodwill ambassadors for South Africa, and fluent in songs involving Dutch and African languages, Marais and Miranda popularized "We Are Marching To Pretoria," "The Zulu Warrior," and many other songs nobody knows anymore.
You can find most in the dollar bin of any record store that is still in business, and in thrift shops all over the world. Unless the owners of the shops are fearful of having their windows broken and their stuff looted because somebody decided they were selling "racist" shit by Marias and Miranda! Watch out, the world is not safe anymore thanks to violent social justice warriors.
The situation in South Africa is...well, does anyone care? Not really. The important thing is that the United States is a shit country, the only one in the world that somehow still has slavery. Its certainly a rotten place where blacks can't become President and aren't allowed to hold jobs, while Latinos are treated well, gays don't fear being killed, Jews can walk down a street without being punched, where anyone with a turban on isn't going to be laughed at and jeered, or where somebody Egyptian will be mistaken for a member of ISIS and told to leave the country..
South Africa, last time anyone checked, was still rife with racial strife, although if it involves blacks beating, murdering, or just driving whites off the land, that's a GOOD thing. (Maybe the Native Americans in the USA should try it).
As Peter Gabriel or Patti Smith or of course, the Nazi leader himself, Roger Waters would tell you, South Africa is fine. It's not an apartheid nation. Neither is North Korea. Neither is Turkey or Libya or the UAR or Egypt or Russia or Red China. ONLY Israel. Even though anybody can visit Israel whereas in some of the aforementioned places, you'd end up in jail, or on a skewer to be eaten by the locals. (North Korea has decided its citizens are NOT allowed to own dogs -- dogs are being gathered up and eaten. But I digress.)
In a more naive age, Marais and Miranda seemed to be encouraging folks to visit South Africa in particular, and Africa in general, and they sang happy (if not sappy) adaptations of native songs. Maybe they never had a hit like "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" based very loosely on a really bad African song few would ever want to put on a juke box, but they tried their best. Didn't they? Look out, if there's a statue honoring them, it's probably been taken down by now. (That's called being reasonable. Today's Liberal was yesterday's Fascist). Seriously, if they can pull down a statue of Kate Smith, they wouldn't hesitate to do that to Marias or Miranda. Hell, go find their relatives and demand reparations. That's fair. At least, it's fair in a world gone stark raving mad.
South African Josef Marais (Nov 17 1905 - Apr 27 1978) and Amsterdam native Miranda (Rosa Lily Odette Baruch de la Pardo, Jan 9 1912 - Apr 20 1986) were kindly people. They used to sing a folk song about "Johnny with the Wooden Leg," but after the war, and mindful of injuries suffered by soldiers, they updated the lyric to "Johnny with the bandy leg." They dressed like classical concert artists, and almost never performed anything that could be considered tasteless.
Almost never.
For any of you who are Dutch/South African, you'll recognize these lines:
Siembamba - mamma se kindjie Siembamba - mamma se kindjie Draai sy nek om gooi hom in die sloot Trap op sy kop dan is hy dood
This is probably tasteless and offensive right there, because they are singing in "Afrikaan Dutch" which is an oppressive bastardization of whatever language the Africans spoke before the Dutch got there with their "my way or the highway" attitude, and those painful wooden shoes which can really put a dent in you with one swift kick.
PS the Dutch are nice people. They never colonized a country, did they? Besides South Africa? Oh, hey hey, BLM, they DID come to America, pushed some Indians around, and created "NEW AMSTERDAM" which became New York. Surely, these fucks should be made to pay for something their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. May I suggest looting every fucking windmill in Holland? That seems fair. Although looting every store in Amsterdam would be much more fun. Except the cheese stores. Gouda. Christ, you DON'T WANT IT. (Dutch lives don't matter). But I digress again....
M&M do offer the English translation in the next verse of this live recording. (Let's not SPOIL things by quoting it here!)
And so, with over-population, global warming, the fabulous pandemic, and the absolutely insane amount of racial animosity being happily driven by people with nothing better to do (and in need of looted watches, sneakers and computers), the ILLFOLKS blog happily adds to the ever decreasing posts that are UN-PC and scared to be humorous, by offering....listen to it online or download.... The delightful dead baby lullaby SIEMBAMBA.
There are two things you should know about French girls. First, they love to fight (at least according to Reid-Brooker), and they are as into Bob Dylan as, oh, Joan Baez or Judy Collins.
Let's have a three-way with Bob. That's two girls and Dylan! He'd like that. And in these virtual times, girls on YouTube are about the best you can do. Distancing, ya know. It's hard keeping six inches away, but the times, they are deranging.
Our first Frenchie, who might be called the Barbara Steele of the pop music world, is exotic, dark-haired, wild-eyed Marie Laforêt. Sweet Marie, a Goddess of Gloom, She's been covered on this blog: MARIE
The nice thing about her version of 'I WANT YOU," is that the YouTube video has lots and lots of photos of Marie. You'll want her, too:
Now our second Frenchie. This blog has not done nearly enough in promoting the slogan of the year, "Black Lives Matter." So, having a Black French singer on this page should help. Shouldn't it? Or should she have been placed ahead of Marie on the page? It's SO easy to OFFEND people this day, especially people who have nothing better to do than be OFFENDED.
As for other BLM activities, sorry, I just haven't gotten to Portland yet, to go pull a white trucker out onto the gutter and beat his head in for being white. I haven't gone to the Promenade in Santa Monica to liberate expensive sunglasses. I haven't gone to Trump Tower in New York to scrawl righteous graffiti slogans on the sidewalk. I don't walk around with a BLM t-shirt to be ass-holier than thou, and hope to get a smiling "Right on" from some black street thug I wouldn't want to know and don't want to slip money to just because he says I should.
"Black Lives Matter." Let's remind people that they should keep black people in their thoughts all day long and even if they are helpless to better their own fucking lives, and have enough trouble getting through the day.
I mean, you might as well be going around saying 'UFO's Matter" to the average person. Their response would be -- what the FUCK do you expect ME to do about it?
PS, if you say "ALL lives matter" you a racist, because everything's just fine Mexicans, or the Pakistanis who drive a cab 18 hours a day, or the Asian girls working massage parlors. Life is peachy for them. Among others. And the Orthodox Jew clocked on the street in Brooklyn by somebody "of color," well, next time put "Black Lives Matter" on your black coat and black hat and hope it can be read by the black who doesn't think you knew all about slavery 2,000 years ago...and the act that all over the world, it's antiSemitism that is the favorite for haters....the hatred for Jews is far more prevalent than for any other minority group. But hey, Farrakhan, and Free Speech...nothing offensive about HIM.
At least this post has a black woman as well as a white woman! It's not much. Not compared to Mayor Wilhelm De Blasio, who married a black lesbian, and managed to squeeze to kids out of her twat. Oh...she's FUGLY, too. Extremely. That's part of her charm. It surely isn't the way she squanders millions of taxpayer dollars while grinning like a fucking ghoul.
Yes, for every white woman in this post, there's a black one! There. And no, posting Dieu est nègre by Juliette Greco doesn't cut it. Not black, and not a Dylan song. Instead, here's a BLACK version of the BLACK-themed Dylan classic, "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll."
Some doubt the authenticity of the story, especially given other well-meaning faux pas by Bob, such as declaring Joey Gallo to be a really lovely guy, and warping the story of Hurricane Carter, who most believe was not only a genuine prick in real life, but also a murderer. Still, the villain of the song, Zinhof Zinger or whatever his name is....did he actually strike and kill Hattie? And do it deliberately? He said no, that doesn't make for a good story. It's like answering 'Who Killed Davey Moore" with "what the fuck, that's boxing."
The point NOW is that Americns are rotten and their cities deserve to be looted, and "white privilege" is ridiculous just because white people had the nerve to try and make lives better in obscure third world countries that couldn't figure out how to create electricity or invent a flush toilet. But the key word is American. Don't get made at those lovely Danes who invaded the West Indies. Or the Dutch who did their share of Indian killing when they came to "New Amsterdam." And let's not mention current racists like North Korea where, according to Jeff Bezos' Washington Post, "North Korea has the highest prevalence of modern slavery in the world."
There's oppression, murder and rape in hot spots all over this world and nobody gives much of a damn, do they? Fuck the Kurds. Fuck the Libyans. Fuck the Nigerians. Fuck anybody who is actually at risk just going outside their door. Don't mention Trump's pal Putin, who is to ethnic cleansing what Snowy is to Bleach. (White reference). Don't talk about how an American woman crossed the border into Mexico this week and got every tooth knocked out of her head-- before or after she was beaten to death and left for the flies. Mexico's drug cartels? Why protest THOSE? No fun in looting Mexico, there's nothing there but burritos and bad beer.
Anyway....
One of the stereotypes of Blacks is that they are loud and loaded with soul, and they all roar like Tina Turner, or at least have tremendously fat asses like Icky Mirage, or whatever that monster's name is. Forget about Jessye Norman (most can't forget because they never heard of her). Well, below, is a surprisingly gentle version of "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," sung beautifully in French, and the black woman is playing a HARP. This might do more to show equality than shouting Muthafucka and Nigga while blasting rap or blasting a cap into some white cop's face, but why be reasonable? Bob Dylan once declared:
You're the queen of my flesh, girl, you're my woman, you're my delight You're the lamb of my soul, girl, and you touch up the night But there's violence in the eyes, girl, so let us not be enticed On the way out of Egypt, through Ethiopia, to the judgement hall of Christ.
That covered a lot of territory didn't it? Some say he was referring to Clydie King or Carolyn Dennis or some other black girlfriend.
Well, Bob, THIS girl is very cute. Next time you pick up something in England, get across the channel and look for her. Here she is, precious angel, singin' and playin' that harp....
Somebody says, “RCA just put out a FORTY CD BOXED SET on him…”
You figure, Elvis Presley. You know, THE KING, who died on August 16th and a whole bunch of people still sob about it. Jerks as far away as Holland solemnly say it was "the day the music died." I know, it's hard to keep track of how many DAYS the fucking music died -- Freddie or Kurt or Elvis or...
So, a FORTY CD boxed set from RCA (plus DVDs). But wait...that's not ELVIS...
Right, cat-gut breath, Julian Bream. Astonishing isn’t it? And that’s the reason somebody that successful turns up on this, the blog of less renown. He’s certainly not well known among the regulars who visit here. Most don’t care about classical music at all. And yet, he’s left behind an incredible (and expensive) legacy:
Another factor accounting for Julian's obscurity in the little minds of the average people, is that when anyone mentions classical guitar and a famous guitarist, the first name people say is "Uhhhhhh." And then,"Oh! Segovia!” But there ain’t half been some clever bastards, and oh…Segovia was certainly one. But don’t overlook the man from Battersea, Julian Bream.
Another problem: Battersea. For most people with a passing interest in classical solo guitar, what they like, over some paella and a quart bottle of Madeira, is the famous pieces coming from Spain. “Yeah, maybe I should have ONE album of classical guitar, like I have ONE album of sitar music.” The go-to guy would be Segovia. Certainly my own favorites among guitar concertos are both from Latino composers: Rodrigo and Castuelnuevo-Tedesco. But, irony of ironies, I have them both on either side of a great record from the English guitarist John Williams.
Back to Bream. His father was a jazz guitarist, but when young Julian was given a classical guitar, he was hooked on the classics, and became a prodigy before reaching puberty. He would go on to travel the world and win four Grammy awards playing both the guitar and the lute. He’s credited with popularizing the vast library of classical guitar music (especially British works) for the general public. Hey, Jude kept coming up with more albums, and in his native England, was the subject of several documentaries and a “This is Your Life” TV broadcast.
Since this IS an esoteric blog, your sample is not one of Julian’s guitar pieces, but one for lute, a most neglected instrument indeed. From the looks of it, the lute is almost as difficult to master as the sitar. Ah, the lute. Ah, Mr. Bream.
As we honor his passing, let’s remember that tribute song from the Everly Brothers: “Whenever I want Lute all I have to do is Bream. Bream Bream Bream…”
Birmingham mates and the leaders of the legendary group CITY BOY, Steve Broughton Lunt and bearded Laurence “Lol” Mason got their first songwriting credit via Roy Everett. Also from Birmingham, Everett (full name Roy Everett Taylor) called attention to himself circa 1963 leading The Climbers. The rest of the band included Jim Kelly and Chris Wheeler (guitars), Ralph Wheeler (Drums) and Honri Edouarde on bass. They managed to get on a British TV show called "Teenagers Only."
He next fronted The Blueshounds, a group that included bass player Honri Eduoarde but otherwise a new group of players: Dave Pegg (guitar). Mike Burney (sax), Frank Devine (drums) and Gordon Bache (organ). The group began to get noticed, and circa 1966, Roy Everett got lost. The band was renamed The New Generation, and included Jimmy Cliff (yet to cross too many rivers) and Ayshea Brough.
Roy surfaced as a solo singer for a pair of Parlophone singles, of which the B-sides have proven to have interest among trivia fans. The B-Side of Roy’s 1969 single “Birthday Blues” on Parlophone was “Empty Sky,” issued a few weeks before Elton John. At the time Elton was better known, if at all, as a budding songwriter working for Dick James. “If I’m being honest,” Roy’s take is muscular with just a slight trace of Jagger attitude. This intriguing mess of funk, Vanilla Fudge drum and organ, soulful back-up singers and bursts of trumpet and blazing lead guitar somehow didn’t interest British audiences. That’s too bad. And you want to hear it for yourself, don’t you?
Roy got some attention in some pretty well known venues. In February of 1969 he was on the bill at The Marquee in London, along with Locomotive (Mick Taylor a member of that group), Tea & Sympathy, the Bakerloo Blues Band, and an odd group called Earth which included some bloke named Ozzy Osbourne who was then merely John Osbourne. If you've got your glasses on, you'll find Roy Everett in this picture (heavy guy with his hand on Pete York's shoulder) along with members of Locomotive and Earth (later to be called Black Sabbath...yes, that's Ozzy doing the gurning, while Iommi, Geezer and Ward play it straight). You can click the pic to get a larger image.
The second and last Roy Everett single: “Turn On Your Own Heat,” (1970) was written and produced by Donny Marchand and arranged by Mike Batt. “Look At That Old Bird” is the B-side, produced by Jonathan Peel. The song is given a Jose Feliciano-Elton John treatment, with maybe a dash of Jimmy Cliff. It's hard to make out all the words, at least the way Roy sings it. It would be a stretch to say it could’ve been used as the theme song for “MacKenna’s Gold” instead of Feliciano’s meandering “Old Turkey Buzzard.” It would be a stretch, since the film came out two years earlier, but both old bird songs are about equal in musicality. One song might be slightly better known than the other, but not to most people, who never heard of either.
You want to hear Feliciano's song? Somebody on YouTube kindly uploaded the opening credits, which show scenic Utah, a lot of canyons, and a buzzard. Which is about as entertaining as the overly long "last of the epic westerns" gets. About the only memorable moment in the film is Julie Newmar's double swimming naked underwater for thirty seconds. (You do get to see the real Julie emerge bare-ass and run into the bushes). But I digress.
Here’s a quote from classical pianist Leon Fleisher’s memoir:
“When the gods want to get you, they know right where to strike, the place where it will hurt the most.”
The world of the classical pianist is extremely stressful and brutally difficult. Think it’s hard to make it in rock or country music or rap? The standards for classical are obnoxiously high.
Just about the worst thing that can happen to a genius pianist who has beaten the odds and risen to the top of his profession, is the nightmare of injury. Leon Fleisher (July 23, 1928 – August 2, 2020) suffered a kind of "carpal tunnel syndrome" disaster that crippled his career for decades.
A prodigy born in San Francisco, Leon was hailed by some of the greats of his era (conductor Pierre Monteux and pianist Artur Schnabel). He studied with Schnabel since the age of 10 and at 16 he performed with Monteux and the New York Philharmonic.
He was signed to Columbia records for praised recordings in the 50’s and early 60’s. Focal dystonia, caused by over-use of certain muscles or tendons, weakened his right hand in 1965, creating cramping in several fingers. “I was in a state of deep depression,” he recalled. His second marriage was unraveling and he thought of suicide.
Now what? He followed the Paul Wittgenstein playbook and tried to continue by playing the left-handed “freak” pieces.
Paul Wittgenstein's career was promising until a literal shot in the arm during World War I left him an amputee. Josef Labor was the first composer
to create a left-handed piece for him. Once Labor’s “Variations for Pianoforte Left Hand” debuted, and Paul adapted famous works for left-handed variations, it was clear Wittgenstein had a future after all. Like many a genius, he proved to be quite temperamental and even a bit of an ingrate.
Hindemeth wrote a left-handed piano
concerto for him in 1924, and it was rejected. The great Prokofiev submitted one in 1931 and it too was rejected. Ravel wrote the brilliant
“Concerto for the Left Hand” and Wittgenstein approved. It became his showpiece, a spectacular
success when it premiered around 1932. It is so spectacular, most
wouldn’t even realize only one hand is playing when they hear it.
Wittgenstein
thrived despite the Nazis, who considered him a Jew, even though (for
the sake of safety) most of his family had converted years earlier.
Eventually, as long as he and his sisters gave them ALL of their family
fortune, they were allowed to to live. Wittgenstein came to America in
1941.
John Browning’s version of the Ravel piece was the first I bought and remains my favorite. The vintage pianists on “primitive” (ie, non digital) vinyl from that area of course include Kempf, Rubinstein and Richter, and I have more of their Beethoven sonatas and concertos than others. I can't say Fleisher was one of my favorites, but I do have some of his Beethoven works, and he's definitely one of the better interpreters.
Aside from left-handed works, Fleisher became a teacher and a conductor with the Baltimore Symphony. Some twenty years passed before medical science was able to help Fleisher regain enough use of his hand to be considered any kind of competitive pianist again. In 1982 he returned to the stage but didn’t think his performance was anywhere near as good as he could be, and it took another ten years before he was comfortable enough, using everything from aromatherapy to botox injections, to take up professional performances again, both solo and in duo-piano works with his wife.
Two photos: the optimistic young Leon at the start of his career, and after enduring what happens when fate lends a hand...or takes one away.
During Leon’s absence from the recording studio, quite a few other promising pianists came and went due to the whims of fate. I remember seeing Roger Scime (accent grave over the e...) who recorded for Columbia’s subsidiary Epic label. He issued a Gershwin album in 1959 but a car accident damaged his hands and the 60's became lost to him. I saw him in the 70's, and he played well, but couldn't quite compete with the top recording artists of the day.
Another artist signed to Columbia (and recording with George Szell as Fleisher had), Gary Graffman, also saw his recording career shortened when he sprained his right hand in 1977 and he too, was diagnosed with focal dystonia. In 1985 he thrilled audiences with the premiere of a piano concerto for the left hand created by Erich Wolfgang Korngold for, yes, Paul Wittgenstein. Gary is still with us, in his early 90’s.
In 1996, Leon Fleisher and Gary Graffman united to perform “Concerto for Two Pianos” by William Bolcom, a work that could be played by ONE pianist, or by two, each using one hand and one piano. In a strange twist of fate, Fleisher would premiere the Wittgenstein-rejected “Piano Concerto for the Left Hand” by Paul Hindemith.
Why hadn’t it ever been recorded? Hindemeth either didn’t have a spare copy, or didn’t have another one-handed pianist to give it to, or no able-bodied pianist wanted to bother with it. It was only discovered after the death of Wittgenstein’s widow. She was several decades younger than he, and passed on in 2002. Wittgenstein died way back in 1961. Leon premiered the piece in 2004.
If you’re wondering, yes, there are a few one-handed pianists in the world (there’s even Liu Wei, an Asian pianist with no hands, who plays with his feet…but obviously with a limited repertoire).
Norman Malone (partially paralyzed when his berserk father went after him and his brother with a hammer to their heads) managed to master the Ravel piece while in his 60’s. Nicholas McCarthy (born without a right hand) is in his 20’s and the best known single-handed pianist playing today.
One thing about pianists…once they are on the right track, age itself isn’t much of a factor. A surprising number of concert pianists have been able to remain big attractions and tour the world into their 70’s, 80’s, and even 90’s. Richter, Horowitz, even Rubinstein with troubled eyesight, performed late in life.
Fleisher was a “Kennedy Center Honors” recepient in 2007. One of the last major appearances for Fleisher was, at the request of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a performance at the Supreme Court in 2012.
Around 1964, “Camp Records” began issuing gay novelty 45’s. They seemed to be aimed at gays with a sense of humor.
No doubt once used copies turned up in thrift shops, or got passed around via cassette dupes, straight listeners got a laugh, too. Maybe the laugh was more AT the simpering vocalists than WITH, but "light in the loafers" humor was always a part of the comedy world, from Edward Everett Horton and Joe Besser in movies, to stereotype depictions by Lenny Bruce and Jonathan Winters, to wink-wink guys like Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Lynde and those who preferred to be considered "flamboyant" rather than outright gay (Rip Taylor).
The singles (and later two albums, “The Queen is in the Closet” and “Mad About the Boy”) were mostly sold via mail order in “body builder” gay interest magazines such as Vagabond, but probably had sales in some Greenwich Village and San Francisco record stores where a snickering clerk might slap one on the turntable for a trusted customer to try out.
The ten singles were given amusing serial numbers. “I’d Rather Fight Than Swish” by B. Bubba, was on Camp 2B1 (to be one), and “Homer the Happy Little Homo” by Byrd E. Bath was on Camp ICUR 1-2 (I see you are one, too!) “Leather Jacket Lovers” by Sandy Beech was on Camp TS2U (tough shit to you) and “Stanley the Manly Transvestite” by Rodney Dangerfield was on Camp 181 (one ate one).
Nobody knows who the singers behind the aliases were, but no, Rodney Dangerfield was not THE Rodney Dangerfield. The oddball name was invented decades earlier, perhaps by one of Jack Benny’s writers, who used it as a character name on a Benny radio show circa 1941. “Rodney Dangerfield” turned up as a character name here and there on radio, TV and in whiz bang jokes and yes, an adult novelty single. When Jacob Cohen was searching for a catchy new stage name (having had no respect or luck as “Jack Roy”) somebody suggested “Rodney Dangerfield.” Rodney had no idea of its history and gave it a try. As with Orson Bean (who had used a variety of other funny names, including Roger Duck), the audience was laughing just on the introduction.
The output from Camp Records is now available on CD, so the originals are only valuable to a small circle of vinyl junkies and collectors of gay memorabilia.
Collectors tend to be a sad, nutty bunch, especially the “I’ve got it YOU don’t” loners, who brag about what they have, but won’t even share a photo, and most certainly not make a copy of rare vinyl UNLESS it’s in trade for some rarity of equal value. Which leads to a mention of the Laurel & Hardy addicts. Back in the day, there were “tents” for “The Sons of the Desert,” a Stan Laurel-approved fan group organized by Orson Bean, Chuck McCann and others. 16mm prints would be screened at “banquets,” and the biggest “tent,” which was in New York, would bring in guest speakers who knew “the boys,” as well as vintage stars and entertainers such as Margaret Hamilton and Will Jordan. Sadly, in the Internet age, things have degenerated a bit, and that includes ridiculous Facebook groups where creeps dress up as “Stan and Babe.” You’ll find no shortage of jerks in bowler hats and badly-fitting suits standing in a basement loaded with worthless memorabilia such as ugly “big head” statues of “the boys” and other ceramic crackpot nonsense. The “I have it you don’t” mentality extends to shelves of inane books, and rows of the same movies in 8mm, VHS and DVD formats, etc.
They’ll share boring snapshots of L&H film locations then and “NOW!” (Yes, let’s all go stare at some modern building that replaced one that “the boys” used as the background for a pie fight or something). One idiot Facebook group is called “Deconstructing Laurel and Hardy” or something like that, and contains selfies on some of the most ridiculous losers on the planet. Their mantra is to insist that “the boys” were the greatest comedy team of all time “because they really loved each other.” Well, yes, if you notice how often they shared the same bed in some harmless 1930’s short, or were married to hideous harridans who ruled over them like angry mommies. But in real life, they steered clear of each other, as they’d spent enough time together during filming. As for “loving” each other, Ollie was bossy and officious, and Stan wasn’t averse to giving Ollie a poke in the eye.
One might argue that Abbott & Costello were a more believable team, since they got on each others’ nerves and were both clearly pissed off at a world where they had to live together because no women wanted anything to do with them. Which is generally the case with today’s surviving L&H fans, the obsessive ones who are so incredibly homely and clueless. Although not nearly as ridiculous as the 50 year-old virgin in the UK who runs a “museum” (a room in back of a memorabilia mall shop) for Phil Silvers.
Melding “Stanley the Manly Transvestite” and Laurel & Hardy’s infamously fey dance from “Way out West” AND a few crossdressing film moments, you have, for viewing or downloading, the artfully done item below:
