This is my blog where I write about music, jewelry, and myself. Vaudeville, burlesque, blues, jazz, songs about baltimore, novelties, and whatever else I feel like posting. Mostly from my own LPs and 78s. Subscribe via any of the methods in the right-hand column. Please do not link directly to the mp3 files.
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The plight of June Harlow and the plight of Kara Mae
I've had trials and tribulations. Record needle failures and record player failures, technical difficulties and life distractions. I got some new needles for the LP player, got an entirely new Califone 1430K to play my 78s, and tried to learn just a little bit more about easier ways to export mp3s and normalize and tag files en masse. I am in the process of digitizing many of my 1930's-related LPs. After some frustration with sound quality, I discovered that this record I'm posting (half-of) sounds better when played with the 78 needle. So I went ahead and did that.  Here is side one of "Great Motion Picture Themes from Jean Harlow Films." I haven't tagged everything thoroughly enough to name all of the songwriters and movies and stuff. Frankly, I'm not convinced this blog currently has the readership to necessitate me putting forth too much effort (at this time.) So here's one side of a record. I need to go to bed. Great Motion Picture Themes From Jean Harlow FilmsSince you already know all about Jean Harlow, and have access to tons of photos of her lovely face, I'll randomly include the tangentally related burlesque star "June Harlow," alleged niece of the Hollywood star. Due to her butt chin I'll believe it.
In an interviews in Cabaret magazine in 1956, she talks about getting into stripping at age 16 because she knows she's gotta use it or lose it. She laments that Marilyn Monroe gets comparisons to her aunt Jean. Coincidentally, June was apparently married to Joe DiMaggio's brother. In another Cabaret feature one year later she talks up her plans to become a movie star, and disses the acting chops of Marilyn and Jayne, declaring that she won't have to be a good actress because they aren't.
I scanned her centerfold but then I realized there's already a decent scan of it online. So when I do the second half of the Jean Harlow themes record, I'll try to mix in some more photos of her "niece."
click the photo for a huge image or click here for the whole page.
Labels: burlesque, cinema, glamorous
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Noooooo
AAAAHHH. MY CALIFONE! IT'S BROKEN! What the hell man. Tonight it just wouldn't spin. The sound works, the light works, but it never makes the shift from "standby" to "play." I opened it up and all wires are secure and fuse is fine, etc. So I guess the motor died or something. How infuriating. And sad. So.. no 'party record' tonight. Instead, something that's actually funnier, yet also more substantial. I have no idea how I got this record. Well I know how I got it. I bought it online because it contained two of my favorite themes - burlesque and drag queens. But I have no idea how I got it for ten dollars. On the back of this record sleeve it lists 9 other Ray "Rae" Bourbon releases, which I just looked up on ebay and are for sale at around $50 each. Why are these such collectors items? Well, Rae Bourbon is a pretty special character. The best information can be found in this tribute site. Rae Bourbon was a female impersonator and gay icon, performing from the 1930s up until his imprisonment in the late 1960s. He'd been convicted of "Accomplice to Murder with Malice," against a man who had disposed of dogs that Rae had put in his care. He died in prison in 1971. He appeared in a few silent films in the 1920s after entering his photo (as a female) in a Photoplay contest. In the early 1930's he performed in the "pansy shows", gay and mainstream nightclubs, and vaudeville. Another bit of his story from this site offers some enlightenment regarding party records: From 1935 through the early forties, Ray would record with Bob and Chet, Howard, and other musicians in a series of sides released under various small labels such as "Bourbana", "Liberty Music Shop" and "Imperial" (not related to the R&B label of the fifties). Like other "blue" party records of the period, they were sold at Ray's shows, through mail order, and "under the counter" by discrete record dealers. A surprising number of Ray's records were pirated under anonymous labels and many were pressed in small quantities for use in jukeboxes in adult establishments such as bars and nightclubs. Rae seems to be an expert about vaudeville, burlesque, and Mae West. Now there's a broad after my own heart. Seriously, I urge you to read this life story. Rae Bourbon
Strip Queen
Ladies of Burlsque
UTC 1950s
Hey. For extra fun here's a wav of me singing into an answering machine a few years ago.
If you have any 78 player recommendations, let me know. I'm mostly likely to just get another Califone exactly like the one I have.
Labels: adult, burlesque, comedy, gay, glamorous, mae west, party records, vaudeville
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books: burlesque, flappers, and zines (the blogs of the 90s)
Candy Barr: The Small-Town Texas Runaway Who Became a Darling of the Mob and the Queen of Las Vegas Burlesque by Ted Schwarz I was hoping to write a story on this book for Bachelor Pad Magazine. By the end of the first chapter I realized this was too bleak for Java the Bachelor's "Booze, Babes & Burly-Q." Candy Barr (nee Juanita Slusher)'s life was tragically full of rape, forced-prostitution and exploitation. Even her alleged relationship with gangster Mickey Cohen was, by her account, not of her own will. At times I was confused about the whereabouts of her child. The birth of her daughter is briefly mentioned, leaving me wondering about Candy working as a dancer during her pregnancy. During later events, the presence of her daughter wouldn't seem to fit in with the events. Most of the events in the book were told to the author by Candy Barr, which accounts for some of the confusion. Her life in prison is the most fascinating era. During this time she wrote a (later self-published) book of poetry, leveraged the prison's desire for her to perform in the annual rodeo in exchange for a job in the prison library, and grew as a person. The best part of the book, on the part of the author, is compellingly describing Candy/Juanita's heartfelt passion for dancing, and how her natural talent at it helped her to overcome the obstacles to join the ranks of the most famous exotic dancers of all time. If, like me, you like reading everything you can get your hands on about the lives of exotic dancers, or you're interested eventful life stories, this is a worthwhile book. It is not a romanticized tale of stripping or "burlesque." Very little glitz, glamour and rhinestones 
Posing a Threat: Flappers, Chorus Girls, and Other Brazen Performers of the American 1920s by Angela J. LathamOne person who reviewed this on Amazon lamented that it sounded too academic. That excited me because I like stuff that reads like that. However, this was a little too school-paper-y, complete with the author explaining the point that she is trying to present. I didn't like the concept she kept stressing, about "performer" as a term used for the traditional sense of performer as well as "performances" in every day life. I don't need some abstractions, just some facts about flappers and stuff! The discussions about bathing suit censorship in Atlantic City and elsewhere was my favorite part. The author presented some other abstract point about how calling some ladies too fat to wear revealing bathing suits was a form of censorship. That sounded good to me, but then I tried to explain that to someone else and it just sounded dumb and I felt dumb. 
Eat The Document by Dana Spiotta This book was a gift from a longtime correspondent. Before this blog was a twinkle in my eye, and before I got into reading about burlesque and even old music, I used to do a zine. Not the "burlesque fashion" zine... I did a corny zine about local bands and hanging out in suburbia and considerations in political involvement and goofy fake ads. So this kind gal (and onetime contributor!) sent me this book. I enjoyed it. It was a compelling read. It's about this lady who has to go into hiding after a political protest action goes wrong in the 60s. It then delves into her modern-day revolutionary counterparts, living in group-houses, selling out their hacking skills to corporations, or just appreciating obscure media (hello). I think it was a little over-ambitious.. a few of the ideas explored in this book should have been left out and saved for the next one. However, the main story was intriguing, and the superfluous stuff did rouse memories and thoughts about all that zine-making, patch-sewing, show-going, group-housing 1990s good times. Labels: books, burlesque
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Biltmore
 "Burlesque" Party Novelty
Biltomore
year: ??Here's another "party record" to pass a few minutes of your time. It's pretty low quality and skips at the beginning but the point is pretty easy to understand. What I can't understand is whether "Party Novelty's" was intentionally possessive or just plain old bad grammar. I guess lowlife's have had bad grammar for decades at least. Labels: adult, burlesque, comedy, party records
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By request (kind of)
I aim to please. I guess the writer of this intriguing classic movie blog found my site while searching for a recording of Barbra Stanwyck singing "Take It Off The E String (Play It On The G String)", as seen and heard in the movie " Lady of Burlesque"(1943). For those of you who aren't familiar, the movie is an adaptation of the novel "The G String Murders" by the one and only Gypsy Rose Lee, eloquent stripper turned mystery writer. Stanwyck sings this saucy number and flaunts her goods in the burlesque tradition, in the beginning of the movie before the shit goes down. (By that I mean the aforementioned murders of course) The song is credited to Sammy Cahn and Harry Akst. I can only guess that it would be this Sammy Cahn and Harry Akst, each relatively successful and acclaimed showtune writers on their own. If I'm correct that would make it the same men who brought us such songs as "Dinah" (Akst) and "Until The Real Thing Comes Along"(Cahn). Hell.. Cahn partnered with various people on a whole slew of familiar songs from "Love and Marriage" to "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow." I copied this song from the "Ladies of Burlesque" compilation LP. I posted another song and mentioned this one 2 years ago. Which of course led to this request. Anyway, I'm glad someone looked at my blog. I'm glad I could be of service delivering this legendary burlesque-related recording to someone who seeks it. Enjoy. Sorry my record player sucks. I'm working on that. Take It Off The E String (Play It On The G String)(Sammy Kahn, Harry Akst) Barbara Stanwyck - from the 1943 film "Lady of Burlesque" 
Barbara Stanwyck looking ridiculously hot
Labels: burlesque, cinema, comedy, glamorous
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This sounds like the same people from the last one...
 Party Platters
"Bits of Burlesque"
Newspaper Headlines
I didn't realize I have so many party records. I wanted to find something else Baltimore related. But mostly I want to get the post I entitled "vagina" down on the page since I'm trying to promote my blog and turn the world on to the lost art of party records. There will be some Baltimore stuff forthcoming... as well as "Farmer Brown's Jackass," which was too long for me to bother with tonight. Labels: adult, burlesque, comedy, party records
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where to begin?
I set up my record player goods the other day. I'm not too good with wires but I always figure it out eventually. I have that usb turntable but I don't use the usb port. That record player sucks anyway and if I had loose change I'd buy a different one. It goes in through the receiver and out to my computer. Same with my Califone. It has a 1/4 headphone jack so I plug it in there like that. As I settled down into my new home I got a few blasts from the past. First and foremost and oh-so-exciting is that the Lili St. Cyr biography finally came out.  I played a part in this however small and for that I am proud and grateful. Kelly DiNardo did a great job and I really encourage you to check it out. Photographer Ed Fox has a new book out on Taschen featuring yours truly, circa 2001. Good memories of that wonderful trip to LA. And oddly enough I got a little mention in the City Paper mail section just this week. A photographer I once worked with gave me a nod in regards to a story the City Paper had done about "neo-pinups" in Baltimore. Meanwhile I've been making jewelry, painting house, tending houseplants and reading. ...and mp3-ifying some records. Nothing appropriate for here, yet though. I'll get right on it, I promise. In the meantime here's a Doris Day song. When I was 19 I knew nothing about "old music" but I wanted to learn. I'd search the internet for things like 'life is a bowl of cherries', and for Irving Berlin, who I learned of from songs performed by my beloved Eva Cassidy on the Live at Blues Alley record, (a record which changed my life for real.) So the familiar name of Doris Day sounded like someone I would probably like, and I bought a CD called "Cocktail Hour" because that sounded like something I would probably like. Today, the first track from that CD evokes the memories of sitting around in my old apartment on Park Avenue with hot cups of tea during the cold winter, discovering new old music, getting excited about jazz and Irving Berlin and Tin Pan Alley and burlesque and just about anything that happened before I was born. Doris Day
Someone Like YouLabels: books, burlesque
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Original Sin
 Well, well, well... it looks like it's time for another burlesque novelty. I haven't posted one in awhile. The Sherry Britton LP is one thing, but I can't believe this one hasn't been reissued. Rhino? Somebody? At one point I'd thought about trying to do it myself. I don't think I'm up to the task. But someone should do it. And it should benefit Exotic World. Oh and I should be writing the reflective liner notes... You probably know who Gypsy Rose Lee is. She was a dancer. And then she wrote a mystery novel. Which became a movie. She also had a musical written about her life. The "Gypsy Rose Lee Remembers Burlesque" LP is much like the Sherry Britton one mentioned above (as well as a number of other burlesque LPs), but this one is centered around Gypsy and her career. There are some quality bits - the one I'm posting is my favorite. This humorous song speaks for itself. You can find this record for cheap on ebay, or perhaps even at your local thrift store.  Gypsy Rose Lee
Adam & Eve
Gypsy Rose Lee Remembers Burlesque
Stereoddities, 1962Labels: burlesque, comedy, glamorous
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Stupid!
Billy and Lee
Climate
Live Burlesque Live
United Artists 1967This clip is so terrible I couldn't even listen to it again to make sure the mp3 sounds right. Drawn out joke with a stupid punch line.  I want to research the correlation between the quality of the ads on an inner record sleeve and the quality of the record itself. Here are three other gems from United Artists list of mostly Soundtracks:     What do you think? Labels: burlesque, comedy
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Burlesque Uncensored
A Bare Faced Documentary
Sketch:
Old Judge Montfort Rides Again
Cook1071, 1954
"Another SOUNDS OF OUR TIMES recording by Cook Laboratories, Stamford, Conn.," claims to have been "recorded in the flesh during a live performance." The mp3 I've made is of a classic courtroom-marraige comedy sketch. There's not much cast and credit information on the sleeve of the record, just some tomfoolery. There are about a half dozen records called "Burlesque Uncensored." Somehow I ended up with three copies of this one. It's a fairly common record. In fact, more samples from this record (and a different cover) can be found at the Smithsonian Folkways site. The Smithsonian Institution! Now that makes me feel scholarly.  Labels: burlesque, comedy
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The Best of Burlesque: Installment 1
 MGM Records Presents "THE BEST OF BURLESQUE." Narrated by: Sherry Britton. Top Banana: Tom Poston. I think this record is probably my favorite out of all of my burlesque records. I wanted to save it for later, but "Burlesque With The Nuts Inside" was skipping, so lucky you, I decided to go ahead and start with this one. The embittered essay from the sleeve, posted below, refers to the 1942 ban on burlesque in New York City, advocated by the Society for the Suppression of Vice and Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Sherry Britton was a very beautiful and famous stripper, and her intelligence and sense of humor shine through her narration on this record. I have about three or four more installments I will be posting. Be patient - keep reading my blog, suckers! From the record sleeve:  "The album you are now holding represents all that remains of an art form that was invented in America for Americans. On that bleak day in 1942 when a rumpled New York City politician with a penchant for chasing fire-trucks signed a ukase banning Burlesque, an era of unique entertainment ended. With the banishment of Burlesque from Broadway, this medium was stigmatized in the minds of the masses and, when transplanted across the Hudson River, the dry rot of vulgarity and synthetic sex completed the conspiracy. The new overlords of the runway forgot that the word "Burlesque" means parody or travesty, that originally the burlesque show had satirized and lampooned the topics of the times and contemporary musical theatre, and that Freudian and Kinseyesque overtones had no place in its initial concept. Thus it was that real Burlesque, along with the whooping crane and the passenger pigeon, passed into extinction.
What you are about to hear is a reconstruction of a burly show of the late 'Thirties. You have passed into the purlieus of roccoco architectural indescretion known as "Renaissance RKO" or "Early DeMille." Seated in the orchestra, you are overpowered by a miasma of cigar smoke thick as a prarie fire. Through it, dimly, you see the runway, a bridge of thighs cherished by devotees of dimpled derrieres, for it permitted propinquity to the "ponies" and the seats adjacent to it were tabbed the "bald-headed row." A cross-section of the male species, with a sprinkling of females, surround you. Stevedores, store-clerks, bookkeepers and home-wreckers, all they have in common is a limited entertainment budget and a thirst for adventure. An expectancy falls over the audience as the orchestra, toupees askew, files into the pit. The newspapers, racing-forms, tout-sheets and tattered copies of "Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang" are put down, fresh Bayuk Phillies are ignited, and all settle back in anticipation of an hour's escape from the reality of dull days and empty nights; maybe Burly was banal and tawdry, maybe it was sleazy and tarnished, but to many millions it was the only theatre they could truly call theirs. Sic transit gloria Minsky!" - Jack Vaughan (1) PROLOGUE: Emmett Rose(2) NARRATOR: Sherry Britton(3) OVERTURE: The BandOPENING: (4) "Hello, Everybody" and (5) "Autumn Salutation" Nelle's Belles Labels: burlesque, comedy, glamorous
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Alice Faye - Whose Big Baby Are You?
 Whose Big Baby Are You?Alice Faye - from the 1935 film "King of Burlesque"  I've never seen "King of Burlesque." This "Ladies of Burlesque" record is pretty common - record collectors will come across it often, especially when seeking other burlesque-related gems. It has some good songs on it. I don't know what year the compilation was put out, but the first song is "Ladies of the Chorus" featuring Marilyn Monroe, yet Marilyn's name is not printed on the front of the record alongside the other stars listed. This comp also features the famed Barbara Stanwyck "Take It Off the E String (Play It on the G String)" from the Gypsy Rose Lee-penned film "Lady of Burlesque." Maybe I'll put that song on here at some point. I really wish I could find "King of Burlesque," so that I could find out who the King in question is, and also so I could see what the crowd is laughing at in this Alice Faye track. Labels: burlesque, cinema, glamorous
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