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.
7 songs
I pulled this 10" 33 1/3 compilation out of a box of records I haven't looked at in a long time. It reminds me of record shopping, and when I used to get really thrilled in record stores and seek them out in my travels. I believe I got this at Rock & Roll Collectibles in New Orleans but that's just a hunch. The best thing about discovering old music was knowing nothing about it... I had no idea quite what I actually liked, so any venture to buy music would result in some random purchases. Those times may be behind me, but this is the kind of record I get excited to find even still. I'm sure it's not rare. It's not really that great. But it's got this.. essence. It's a 10", so it resembles a 78. It must have been promotional - it has a press clipping pasted onto the sleeve. That's probably the clincher for me. And here I am turning it into a cluster of heartless mp3s. As if it still has some value without the motion of setting a needle on it. I left it nice and scratchy so we can pretend. Download: Curtain Call Series Volume 4Marlene Deitrich - Ben Bernie - Libby Holman - George Jessel  Labels: 1930s, cinema, comedy, glamorous
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what killed the dog?
 Nat M Wills
"No News" or "What Killed the Dog"
Victor 17222-A 1908Why do I do things backwards? Grr. Usually I go through my records, pick out one, record the track and then research the artist/recording. But sometimes I find out the song is readily available in mp3 format and I feel silly. I should research it before BUYING it, let alone recording it. Of course the mp3 I put up here is the one I made, but you can also find this track at the wonderful archive.org's collection of Nat M Wills' recordings. What's more, there's a schnazzy CD collection released by the nearly-as-wonderful Archeophone Records, doubtless complete with an educational booklet. I also discovered this blog, "Vitaphone Varieties", which I am enjoying and hoping will continue to be updated. Well, these are the breaks when you're on your own in the cold lonely world of 78s and vaudeville. I think mine is the last generation that will remember when information was hard to find. Writing to indie labels for their catalogs, reading bands 'thank you' lists, taking note of Kurt Cobain's T-Shirts, wandering the library stacks, and even calling up strangers with questions... thanks to good ole internet I can put those desperate acts behind me. It's trite but yeah, I mean I'm posting an mp3 and including a link to another (likely better) mp3 of the same track.. I excel at redundancy . Labels: comedy, vaudeville
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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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"Who am he and what am the charge?"
Well.. what can I even eloquently say about this? This recording is from a Victor Vaudeville Comedy 12". The flip side sketch is "Darktown Campmeetin' Experiences." "Darky Specialty." I'm sure most readers of my blog are familiar with this unsettling phase in pop-culture. I like to believe that my 1917 equivalent wouldn't be interested in such a record as this. But as we all know- on some level, this type of entertainment wasn't the sole domain of "racists." Acts similar to this recording took place between the jugglers and opera singers in vaudeville. The inappropriateness of this type of entertainment was hardly acknowledged until decades later. (Although the Irish were able to successfully raise a big stink about the mockery they were facing in vaudeville.) I think the majority of consumers then as now were mindless sheep, never stopping to think about the perversion of 'lightheartedly' ridiculing a people and a culture while simultaneously oppressing it. I sometimes roll my eyes at the constant pop-culture self-reflection that takes place in our society today (hello VH1). But when you think about it in light of things that slipped by in the past, maybe it's a good thing to keep our consumption and entertainment under scrutiny. Maybe we can reflect on our questionable judgement within our own lifetime. Victor Vaudeville Company
Court Scene in Carolina
Victor Talking Machine Co., 1917Labels: comedy, ethnic, vaudeville
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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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Slap Her Down Again Paw.. whoa
 Esmereldy and Her Novelty Band
Slap Her Down Again Paw
1948As much as I tend to avoid encouraging negative stereotypes against hillbillies, hicks, yokels, etc., this song is a bizarre piece of "comedy" that must be heard to believe. This song is about the singer's sister Bessie, a hussy who has been cavorting with a traveling salesman with "City slickin' ways." As for the rest, the title says it all. Internet searching leads me to believe it's from 1948. If you really love the song and want to share it, there's a better quality version to be found here. Don't ask me why I made my own mp3... I guess it just felt like stealing otherwise. Labels: comedy, country, ethnic
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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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Laughing at or Laughing with?
Click through the vaudeville items I've posted and you're sure to notice the melting pot of ethnic caricatures. Some vaudevillians played up their actual heritage and some created a persona (or several) based on one of the many immigrant stereotypes flooding into the United States. People from all walks of life attended vaudeville shows to laugh at themselves and each other. The appropriate-ness of such humor is probably judged by most people in the context of social status, perceived or real. In addition to immigration-inspired monologues like this, there was also the minstrel influence on vaudeville. Another one of my records, instead of "Norwegian dialect" declares that it's a "Darky Specialty." I don't suppose I need to go into the way that piece of vaudeville history is looked upon today. But without that history and baggage, "for many, vaudeville was the first exposure to the cultures of people living right down the street."I don't know where Ethel Olson was born or what she looked like. I can determine that her specialty was gleeful laughter and Norwegian Dialect. (Scroll down that last link to a transcript and brief commentary about the monologue that's on the other side of the mp3 I'm posting.) Ethel Olson
At The Movies
1923? Labels: comedy, ethnic, vaudeville
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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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VAGINA
 FUN party record
My Apartment
year unknownI guess if I was an expert in "Party Records" I could estimate the date and origin by the label. I don't know where I can learn that from so if you have a lead, please share. As for "My Apartment".. it speaks for itself. I did some hiss reduction so it may sound a little weird. I don't know which is better. As for the "joke"... well, whatever. The next party record I'm gonna post is called "Farmer Brown's Jackass" and as you can guess from the title it's WAY more witty. Labels: adult, comedy, party records
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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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I hate water too
I hate drinking water. It tastes weird and gross to me. But I have been drinking it lately. It's been hot out. I like it icy cold. As cold as possible. Mostly though, I've been drinking the demon liquor. The thing is, I usually try to avoid talking about drinking like it's an event. My multi-faceted personality has so much else to offer. Like all of the music featured here. Yeah... booze is more interesting to most people. I am just tryin ta live. ANYWAY. I'm a little tipsy. And so I thought it would be appropriate to make one of these WC Fields mp3s. Talk about drinking-bragging. WC Fields is the predecessor to generations of celebrity drunks - people who make their identity out of a habit that a bajillion other people have just as emphatically.. If that word is appropriate. I meant like.. "severely." Soooo Mae West comes into play once again - because she shares this record with Fields. They appeared together in "My Little Chickadee," to dubious comedic benefit. Mae seemed very unwilling to accept Fields as a romantic counterpart, first of all. Secondly, the plot is clueless and Mae lacks fodder for her brand of lusty one-liners. Her lack of interest shows. I know about this, because I might just be Mae re-incarnated: Why bother putting effort into this movie if I'm not scoring some mega hot co-star to try and bone? Yes, exactly. That's what it seems to me like Mae was thinking. SO. WC Fields. This record. Yeah... W.C. Fields
The Day I Drank A Glass of Water
W.C. Field & Mae West
(5:52 by the way)   Mae hated Fields' drinking. She was never actually a drinker herself. Didn't touch the stuff. Maybe I'm not her after all. Labels: comedy, mae west, vaudeville
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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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more hilarious gender insights
I'm so glad to find out that some people are actually reading this blog. Thanks to anyone who's linked to me! Today... another "Comedy Monologue." Guess what this one's about. That's right.. women! Can't live with em, can't live without em. David Kline (as "Cohen") even uses that line, along with every other joke in the book. It was 1921 - let's hope these zingers were a little more novel. He also uses the "Marraige is an institution - but who wants to live in an institution?" line that is so often credited to Mae West. It's true that she recycled a lot of lines. I can't find any info on the web about David Kline. Get a more unique name, David! Too late now. David Kline
Cohen Talks About The Ladies
1921 Regal Comedy Monologue No.992
Completely Unrelated Illustration
Labels: comedy, vaudeville
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 ???
???
???This party record has a completely blank label, but it's not as risque as some of the more legitimate party records I've got. The premise of this is some kind of a horse race or game where the players have such names as "Big Dick" and "Passionate Lady." Yuk-yuk. The best part is really in the "message from our sponsor." "Do find that it now takes you all night to do what you used to do all night?" I wonder if anyone really ever had a party where they listened to these corny records. Labels: comedy, party records
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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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I Like A Guy What Takes His Time
Mae West: A Guy What Takes His Time (1933) A Guy What Takes His Time (1955) Here we have two versions of one of my favorite Mae West songs, "A Guy What Takes His Time." The first version was recorded in 1933, and is available on several of the common Mae West CDs. She sings the song in the movie "She Done Him Wrong," although it is highly cropped due to film censorship. Watching Mae sing these songs in her films is strange... she rolls her eyes and smiles as she purrs "ooooh," and it sounds really weird. The second version I don't like so much. I found this 1950s Mae West record "The Fabulous Mae West," which features a few of her hits re-recorded, as well as some new-ish songs. The production just doesn't suit her. Her songs are better when presented more simply... one would imagine them being performed in a sleazy saloon or nightclub. Singing with a big full band doesn't have the same effect. In the 1930s version of "A Guy What Takes His Time," the character singing is Lady Lou (aka Diamond Lil.) In the 1950s version, the character singing is Mae West. By the time she recorded it she was already pushing 60 years of age. 
Pick up Mae West "I'm No Angel," from the amazing Venerable Music site, to hear this and some other great Mae songs. Also, check out the Mae West blog, which is basically my favorite blog ever. Labels: cinema, comedy, glamorous, jazz era, mae west
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The Music Goes Round - "Novelty Song"
The Music Goes Round and RoundRiley-Farley and Their Onyx Club Boys  I think this is an appropriate first "record"-song to post. I recorded this off of my usb turntable. I don't know anything about noise reduction, so I didn't do any. The song skips in the beginning and I couldn't make it not skip. Well anyway. I got two of these Tin Pan Alley records at this gigantic Value Village sale. I love a lot of the songs on these records. Here's what the liner notes say about this song:
"In the early years of the century they were called "nut songs," but as popular music began to be taken seriously, nonsense lyrics set to music began to be termed "novelty songs." The 1930s had its share: "Goofus," "A-Tisket A-Tasket," "Cockeyed Mayor of Kaunakakai, "Flat Foot Floogie," "Hold Tight (Want Some Sea Food, Mama)," "Three Little Fishes," "Hut Sut Song," "Inka Dinka Doo," "I'se A-Muggin," "Knock Knock, Who's There?," "Shoot the Sherbert to Me, Herbert," "Ti-Pi-Tin," and the most popular of all, "The Music Goes Round and Round." It is about as fruitful to attempt to explain flagpole sitting, silly putty, or hula hoops as to try to understand the periodic, apparently universal surge of popularity of songs like these.
West Fifty-second Street in New York was a source of tremendous musical energy during the 1930s [see New World Records NW 250: Little Club Jazz]. The concentration of nightclubs (most of them former speakeasies) on that street employed large numbers of singers, instrumentalists, and bands that consumed and created a great quantity of songs.
In 1935 the renowed Onyx Club began to feature a swing- and Dixieland-oriented small combo led by two veteran dance-band musicians, Eddie Farley (trumpet) and Mike Riley (trombone). The band never took itself quite seriously and resorted to novelty songs and a great deal of on-stage clowning. One of its routines had something to do with the mechanics of a brass instrument. The song was called "The Music Goes Round and Round," and for some profoundly mysterious reason it became one of the biggest hits of the decade. So far, deep analysis of its musical structure, the lyrics, and the performances on the recording has yielded no satisfactory explanation for the song's extraordinary popularity. But, as the sage said, that's show biz."Also, there is apparently a movie about or involving this song. The Music Goes 'Round (1936)Labels: comedy, jazz era
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Jayne Mansfield - That Makes It!
That Makes ItToo Hot To Handle  One thing that really amuses me about the Jayne Mansfield movie "The Girl Can't Help It" is the general poor understanding of "Rock and Roll." (Movie title song excepted!) At that period in time, Hollywood's representations of rock n roll were usually pretty corny. This song here is another good example of a sweet but misguided attempt. Regardless, it's a good audio glimpse of Mansfield - from her first sultry words to the squeals towards the end of the song. It's a campy good time. So horrible, and yet I listen to this song often, as a routine part of my curiosity about the glamorous, confused and kitschy life of Jayne Mansfield.  Labels: cinema, comedy, glamorous, Jayne Mansfield
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