Between the fall of 1962 and the end of 1963, Allan Sherman was perhaps the most popular comedian in America, and along with Bob Newhart he was one of the first to rise to fame through the medium of the long-playing record album. Sherman's gimmick was his gift for taking familiar melodies -- folk songs, old standards, hits of the day -- and pairing them with new lyrics that turned their original meanings upside down and threw them into a whole new (and very funny) light. Sherman's twin obsessions were Jewish-American ...
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Between the fall of 1962 and the end of 1963, Allan Sherman was perhaps the most popular comedian in America, and along with Bob Newhart he was one of the first to rise to fame through the medium of the long-playing record album. Sherman's gimmick was his gift for taking familiar melodies -- folk songs, old standards, hits of the day -- and pairing them with new lyrics that turned their original meanings upside down and threw them into a whole new (and very funny) light. Sherman's twin obsessions were Jewish-American culture and the daily outrages that were part and parcel of life in postwar America -- from cut-rate clothing and extended families to crabgrass and summer camp, Sherman could point out the foibles of muddling through the Kennedy era and show what was both funny and ridiculous about them. Sherman also had a remarkable gift for the language, and the craft in his best parodies was often every bit as graceful (if not more so) than the original lyrics they replaced. While "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (A Letter from Camp" would prove to be his most enduring number, the fact the man racked up three million-selling albums in a space of less than a year proves he certainly had a firm hold on the nation's ears for a while, and those albums -- My Son, the Folk Singer, My Son, the Celebrity, and My Son, the Nut -- proved wildly influential on a generation of musicians and humorists. Unfortunately, only a tiny fraction of Sherman's recorded output has been available in the CD age, but Rhino Handmade have finally remedied this situation with My Son, the Box, a six-disc set that presents an obsessively thorough documentation of Sherman's work. My Son, the Box features all eight albums Sherman recorded for Warner Bros. Records -- from the inspired 1962 debut, My Son, the Folk Singer, to the lackluster 1967 swan song, Togetherness -- along with a treasure trove of rare and unreleased material. The first disc includes Sherman's Semitic parody of My Fair Lady, which prompted the writer and television producer to take a shot at a new career in music, and outtakes and alternate performances from all eight albums are scattered through the box. The compilers have also included some true oddities, including sets of comic songs about paper cups and synthetic carpet fibers Sherman wrote under advertising commissions, and a rare "serious" single, "Oddball" and "His Own Little Island," in which the comic reveals his sentimental side. Sadly, the quality of Sherman's work began to slip after the My Son trilogy, and the last disc is tough going, dominated by the unimpressive Togetherness album and closing with a bizarre and ultimately heartbreaking live tape from 1967 of an obviously drunk Sherman performing "Hello Mudduh, Hello Faddah" at a nightclub gig as if he can't wait for the song to be over. Mark Cohen's superb liner notes provide a superb analysis of Sherman's work while not glossing over the tragedies of his life and the disappointments of his later years (he died in 1973, only 48 years of age). But if there was sadness in Allan Sherman's life, his art was comedy that celebrated the glories and failings of ordinary life, and there's not a disc in this set that doesn't generate a handful of solid belly laughs. My Son, the Box is a loving tribute to an overlooked comic master, and no one serious about collecting recorded humor should be without it. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
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