ON THE RECORD: Broadway's Jersey Boys and Allan Sherman's "My Son, The Box"
By Steven Suskin
27 Nov 2005
MY SON, THE BOX [Rhino Handmade MCSR 3027]
Allan Sherman (1924-73) was a comedy writer for people like Lew Parker, Jerry Lester, Jackie Gleason, Steve Allen and Phil Silvers. (The length of the list attests to Sherman's penchant for getting fired.) Sherman was born in Chicago, the son of a racing car driver from Alabama. Yes, a Jewish racing car driver from Alabama.
Sherman's claim to fame, at least until 1962, was the TV game show "I've Got a Secret," which he co-created in 1952. He produced the show until 1958, when he was fired. Transplanted to Hollywood as a television gag writer, his off-the-cuff show tune parodies made him popular on the living- room circuit. When your next-door neighbor invites you over to entertain his friends, you go — especially if you live next to Harpo Marx.
When Sherman decided to record a novelty album, the legal department warned him against using show tunes. Sherman turned to folk songs and others by less prominent authors, like "Glory, Glory Harry Lewis," "My Zelda" (AKA "Matilda"), "Jump Down, Spin Around, Pick a Dress o' Cotton," "Melvin Rose of Texas" and "Mammy's Little Baby Loves Matzoballs." "My Son, The Folk Singer," they called it; the cover shot showed a short-and-chubby, shirt open-at-the-throat, guitar-strumming, bare-footed Sherman, looking not very much like Peter, Paul, Mary or Harry (Belafonte).
The 1962 album skyrocketed through the charts upon its release; it has been described as the fastest-selling LP up till that time, selling over 500,000 copies in a month and quickly going gold. (Believe it or not, people invited friends over, served canapes and put the platter on the Victrola.) Sherman followed it up two months later — things moved quickly in those days — with "My Son, The Celebrity," which was highlighted by "Al 'N Yetta" ("Alouette"), "Won't You Come Home, Disraeli" and "Harvey and Sheila" ("Hava Negila").
"My Son, The Nut" came in 1963, with Sherman's biggest hit. He took the "Dance of the Hours," from Amilcare Ponchielli's opera
La Gioconda, and turned it into "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!" ("A Letter from Camp"). The song was everywhere that summer, with the single version alone selling over a million copies. Sherman was a mega-star, setting records at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl and Tanglewood, and filling in for a week as vacation replacement for Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show." But the one joke soon wore thin. There were five more albums, with quickly diminishing returns. Sherman lost his recording contract with Warner Bros. in 1966, and he was all but washed up.
Rhino, the folks who have given us Jersey Boys, have also released "My Son, The Box." This is a six-disc compilation of just about everything they could find in the archives, including outtakes, some industrial show material and other miscellanea. (This is not a complete Allan Sherman; there is an existing demo of Sherman singing the songs from The Fig Leaves Are Falling, the 1969 musical flop he wrote with Albert Hague, which is not included.)
How does the material hold up? Well, it's very Jewish. (Sherman's parody version of My Fair Lady, for example, inevitably includes "With a Little Bit of Lox.") Still, it's very funny. The humor is stretched and a wee bit obvious at times, but Sherman keeps on coming up with gems that are almost startlingly good. (His "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is about the aforementioned Harry Lewis, a velvet cutter who works for one Irving Roth. He dies in a blaze on July 4th, when "he was trampling in the warehouse where the drapes of Roth are stored.") Six discs of this seemed daunting, but whenever I thought I'd had enough, Sherman came through with another uproarious zinger.
"My Son, The Box," "an individually-numbered, limited edition of 4,000 copies," is available online only (from Rhino.com) with a notably high price tag. If this limits its appeal to diehard Sherman fans, so be it. Rhino also sells a one-disc collection, "My Son, The Greatest." I haven't listened to the first three Sherman albums since they came out (when I was in fourth grade), and never listened to the others. I find them as funny today as I did then, or almost so. And let me report that my six-year-old is absolutely in stitches from the doings at Camp Granada and the "statue of a naked lady with a clock where her stomach ought to be" that Sherman receives on the fifth day of Christmas.
—Steven Suskin, author of the forthcoming "Second Act Trouble" [Applause Books], "A Must See! Brilliant Broadway Artwork," the "Broadway Yearbook" series, "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached by e-mail at Ssuskin@aol.com.
