If you're not aware of Sherman, he was basically the Weird Al Yankovic of the 1960s (and one of Yankovic's biggest influences, by the way). That means he took well known songs and wrote his own funny lyrics to them, then sung them. He only had one big hit, "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (A Letter from Camp)," which reached Number Two for three weeks in the US. in 1963. But his albums sold millions. In fact, he had three albums in a row that reached Number One in the U.S., which was unheard of, before or since, for a song parody specialist. I thought his songs were clever and well done back when I was a kid, and I still do now. But, admittedly, his style isn't for everybody.
Sherman spent most of the 1950s producing and writing for TV shows, especially the show "I've Got a Secret." Living near Hollywood, his work allowed him to meet many celebrities. He often became the entertainment at parties hosted by comedian Harpo Marx. After many years of this, comedian George Burns called the record company that he was signed to and convinced them to sign Sherman to a record contact as well. His debut album in 1962, "My Son, the Folk Singer," was a sensation, selling over a million copies.
His career peaked early, from 1962 to 1964. Once the Beatles and the British Invasion came along, his music was largely left behind. Plus, in my opinion, his first four albums were his best and their quality steadily declined after that. His music career basically ended by 1967, though he lived until 1973. He died of respiratory failure when only 48 years old.
Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:
I never knew about this performance, until I discovered it last week (writing this in September 2025). It turns out it has been officially released (decades afterwards) under the title "Live at the Hollywood Bowl," but it's extremely obscure. I couldn't even find it on SoulseekQT, and that has absolutely everything. The timing of this concert was ideal, because it came near the end of his peak period, when he was a big star. Another live album was released, in 1966, called "Allan Sherman: Live! (Hoping You Are the Same)." While that's good, this is better, and twice as long.
The sound quality here is excellent. I did make one change to nearly all the songs, however. It so happens this had the stage well recorded, but there was very little of the audience. So I used the MVSEP program to separate the crowd noise from everything else. Then I carefully boosted just the laughing and cheering from the audience, to show more of the audience interaction.
At the time of this concert, Sherman's best selling album, "My Son, the Nut," was just about to released. As far as I can tell, would come out one month later, but the lead single from it, "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah," had been released and already was a big hit. He played that, and a few other songs from the upcoming album. Otherwise, he mostly played songs from previous albums. He had a problem in that most songwriters in that era wouldn't give permission for him to write parodies of their songs, so he generally wrote parodies of songs in the public domain. I was hoping some of his unreleased songs that he wasn't allowed to put on album would appear here, but that wasn't the case.
This album is an hour and 13 minutes long.01 talk by emcee (Allan Sherman)
02 Overture (Allan Sherman)
03 talk (Allan Sherman)
04 Harvey and Shelia (Allan Sherman)
05 A Number of Short Songs (Allan Sherman)
06 Green Stamps (Allan Sherman)
07 talk (Allan Sherman)
08 I See Bones (Allan Sherman)
09 Hail to Thee, Fat Person (Allan Sherman)
10 talk (Allan Sherman)
11 Overweight People (Allan Sherman)
12 talk (Allan Sherman)
13 Disraeli, Won't You Please Come Home (Allan Sherman)
14 When I Was a Lad (Allan Sherman)
15 talk (Allan Sherman)
16 Automation (Allan Sherman)
17 talk (Allan Sherman)
18 Sarah Jackman (Allan Sherman with Rosemary Clooney)
19 talk (Allan Sherman)
20 One Hippopotami (Allan Sherman)
21 talk (Allan Sherman)
22 You Went the Wrong Way, Old King Louie (Allan Sherman)
23 talk (Allan Sherman)
24 The Ballad of Harry Lewis (Allan Sherman)
25 talk (Allan Sherman)
26 Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah [A Letter from Camp] (Allan Sherman)
27 talk (Allan Sherman)
28 No One's Perfect (Allan Sherman with the New Christy Minstrels)
29 Shticks and Stones (Allan Sherman)
30 talk (Allan Sherman)
31 When You Walk through the Bronx (Allan Sherman)
32 Finale [Instrumental] (Allan Sherman)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/sDBwhR4f
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/YrxOD26iM7oKXzX/file
For the cover photo, I found a concert poster from around this time period (though not this exact show). I cleaned it up a bit, cropped it to make it square, and added the location text at the bottom.
Harpo Marx was a friend of Allan's and appeared with him with what would be Harpo's last show. Harpo actually took the microphone and said, "As I was saying before I was interrupted." and proceeded to talk for 20 minutes. Allan detailed all of this in his autobiography.
ReplyDeleteI own this album and it is a fun listen. He was at his peak: an orchestra behind him, an established singer (Rosemary Clooney) duetting with him, a hit single which basically saved Warner Brothers records. But put Allan Sherman with the many acts ruined by John Kennedy's assassination, and ruined by the Beatles. He'd sneak into the Top 40 one last time with an oddball version of Petula Clark's "Downtown" and spent the rest of his life a bitter, angry man. His biography is a worthy read, but the parade passed few people more cruelly than it did Allan Sherman.
ReplyDeleteThank you, this is such a treat! When I was a kid, My Son the Folksinger was played constantly in our house! He was so funny, but also very much of his time (the late 1950s to the early 1960s). After the Beatles, popular culture left him behind.
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