Great musical comedy from Brian

If you don't know Stan, chances are you've heard his material if your musical knowledge extends back past 1980. Heavily involved in radio, commercials, and TV, not to mention fantastic albums, Stan was unique. He had a gift for parody, and was a great arranger. He also had a hand in some Looney Tunes classics: he played Big Baby Bear in the Bugs Bunny shorts, and also performed the song for "The Three Little Bops". Look that one up on YouTube...

("PRESENTS THE UNITED STATES" picture)

When I was a kid, my mom and I took a trip by car from Ohio to Connecticut. All we had to listen to - especially in the barren radio land of Pennsylvania - was a tape she had of Stan's album "Presents the United States Of America". Outside of Python, I'd never heard historical figures skewered like this! The album covers from Columbus up to the Revolution. He completely took the piss out of people who were still heroes at that time - Washington is an arrogant jackass, Ben Franklin is an idea-stealing old fart, Betsy Ross is an overworked old seamstress. This is a funny album, and very unique for a comedy record from the early 60's. This is so much a part of my musical DNA, I can't recommend it enough.

This one is the rare gem. This box set came out in 1999, and has been out of print for a looonngg time! It covers the vital parts of his career. And since he didn't do albums very much - he mainly did singles - this presents stuff not readily available otherwise. Some of the best musical parodies evermade are on here. If you want to know where Weird Al came from, you'll find the answer.

One of Stan's best situations was to have the comedy come from the musicians working in the studio, i.e. Elvis ripping his pants, the bongo player having a problem with the loud singer on "Day-O", the piano player hating the one note he plays over and over on "The Great Pretender"...it's just a classic setup. You'll also find this situation during the "Yankee Doodle" track on United States. And if you've ever sat through an episode of Lawrence Welk, "W'unerful W'unerful" will crack you up!

Stan admittedly had a problem with the then-growing Rock and Roll scene in the 50's (he was a jazz lover), and he skewers it brilliantly on versions of "Heartbreak Hotel", "Sh' Boom", "Day-O", and "The Great Pretender". And his take on the 50's radio payola scandal is priceless!

This is originally a 4 disc set, but the library copy I found didn't have the 4th disc, which was made up mostly of ads and latter-day songs. So, I don't have the disc 4 tracks at all, sorry. Everything else is prime material, though.

As an extra goody, I've included a zip containing all the radio shows Stan did for one season on CBS in 1958. The same wit and musical pizzazz from his albums is present in the show. And that last episode is priceless - they knew they were getting cancelled and decided to have fun with it.

I haven't seen this material out here in blog land, so go ahead and grab all this. And since Stan died back in April, I don't feel bad about putting this stuff up. And that box set is rare, and it shouldn't be, since his 50's comps like "Original Cast" and "Child's Garden Of Freberg" have never been reissued on CD.