Jewish LPs
Last week National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” program featured a segment about a couple of guys who have spent years collecting old Jewish musical and spoken-word vinyl LPs from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and have written a book about them.
I’m sure their collection includes several albums by Mickey Katz. Katz was a clarinetist in Spike Jones’s comical band in the 1940s, and went on to record Yiddishized parodies of popular songs of the 1950s and 1960s. Most of the songs featured a klezmer break in the middle. (Katz was the father of Joel Grey of “Cabaret” fame.)
Anyway, one of Mickey Katz’s albums was in rotation in my home while I was growing up, and here are a couple of songs I remember from it.
“Duvid Crockett”:
And “Kiss of Meyer”:
As a member of Spike Jones’s band, I assume Katz helped record what is surely one of the best anti-Nazi songs ever:
Comments
| 26 November, 2008, 12:16 am |
If you like Katz have you checked out the Don Byron album “Don Byron plays the Music of Mickey Katz?” Superb.
| 26 November, 2008, 3:04 pm |
I love Spike Jones. I’ve just been looking at a video of “Cocktails for Two” and it works better without the slapstick pictures. They’re a distraction from the slapstick sounds.
“As a member of Spike Jones’s band, I assume”
Dangling modifier alert.
| 26 November, 2008, 3:57 pm |
Yes, “Cocktails for Two” is hilarious. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
“As a member of Spike Jones’s band, I assume”
Dangling modifier alert.
Yeah, yeah…
| 30 November, 2008, 2:27 am |
I’m assuming Allan Sherman was mentioned:
‘hello muddah, hello faddah - here I am at Camp Granada’
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