Great comedians on '70s vinyl

[Wm. Charles Morrow]

The recent thread about the original Star Wars trilogy, with its off-shoot tangent concerning old vinyl records, reminded me of something.

In 1970 I was given a gift I greatly appreciated, and still remember fondly: an album of highlights from Laurel & Hardy comedies called Naturally High. The cover featured a psychedelic rendition of Stan & Ollie, placed before a cartoon-ish, wildly colored garden. Even at the time I felt that the folks who put out this record were pandering to the counter-culture, presenting the boys as, well, stoned as opposed to child-like, but I quickly got past my misgivings because the contents were delightful: two sides’ worth of audio snippets from the great Roach Studio films. There was a very memorable dialogue clip from Sons of the Desert, i.e. the epic argument between Ollie and Mae Busch -- with occasional, unhelpful interjections by Stan. There was the cute, tongue-twister routine from Thicker Than Water: “That’s the money she gave to me, that I gave to him, to give to her,” etc. etc. And there were songs: Oliver Hardy’s beautiful rendition of “Lazy Moon” from Pardon Us, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” from Swiss Miss, complete with tuba accompaniment, and all three numbers from Way Out West. I played that record a lot, which I’m sure endeared me to my siblings and parents.

Nevertheless -- later that same year, at Christmastime, I was given two additional, similar records. One was devoted to the movies of the Marx Brothers, and the other to W.C. Fields. These albums were obviously put out by the same producer, for the artwork on the jacket sleeves was similar, and both featured over-emphatic linking narration by Gary Owens, from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Again, there were great audio bits from the films. On the Marx Bros. L.P. all of Groucho’s best insults were preserved, and there were sections devoted to Chico’s zippiest keyboard solos and Harpo’s various sounds, including his beautiful solo from Horsefeathers. (My favorite of all his harp performances.) The Fields L.P. had most of his memorable quips, curses and mutterings. Just the other day I watched Never Give a Sucker an Even Break again for the first time in years, and every time Fields delivered a line that was used on that album, I’d remember hearing it on vinyl.

Did anyone else own these records? And did anyone else drive your family nuts by playing them repeatedly?

[Richard M Roberts]

The recent thread about the original Star Wars trilogy, with its off-shoot tangent concerning old vinyl records, reminded me of something.

In 1970 I was given a gift I greatly appreciated, and still remember fondly: an album of highlights from Laurel & Hardy comedies called Naturally High. The cover featured a psychedelic rendition of Stan & Ollie, placed before a cartoon-ish, wildly colored garden. Even at the time I felt that the folks who put out this record were pandering to the counter-culture, presenting the boys as, well, stoned as opposed to child-like, but I quickly got past my misgivings because the contents were delightful: two sides’ worth of audio snippets from the great Roach Studio films. There was a very memorable dialogue clip from Sons of the Desert, i.e. the epic argument between Ollie and Mae Busch -- with occasional, unhelpful interjections by Stan. There was the cute, tongue-twister routine from Thicker Than Water: “That’s the money she gave to me, that I gave to him, to give to her,” etc. etc. And there were songs: Oliver Hardy’s beautiful rendition of “Lazy Moon” from Pardon Us, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” from Swiss Miss, complete with tuba accompaniment, and all three numbers from Way Out West. I played that record a lot, which I’m sure endeared me to my siblings and parents.

The Laurel and Hardy records were put out by Mark 56 Records ( I recall the NATURALLY HIGH album,which I'm not sure was a Mark 56 disc, but the tracks you mentioned were also put out by this label on an album simply called LAUREL AND HARDY: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACKS which is the one I remember buying in the early 70's (and was delighted to discover, once I got it home, that the disc was actually a picture disc with nice pics of the boys on both sides). Mark 56 put out several more audio collections of clips from L and H's films, as well as complete soundtracks of a couple of their films (SONS OF THE DESERT and BABES IN TOYLAND I think).

Nevertheless -- later that same year, at Christmastime, I was given two additional, similar records. One was devoted to the movies of the Marx Brothers, and the other to W.C. Fields. These albums were obviously put out by the same producer, for the artwork on the jacket sleeves was similar, and both featured over-emphatic linking narration by Gary Owens, from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Again, there were great audio bits from the films. On the Marx Bros. L.P. all of Groucho’s best insults were preserved, and there were sections devoted to Chico’s zippiest keyboard solos and Harpo’s various sounds, including his beautiful solo from Horsefeathers. (My favorite of all his harp performances.) The Fields L.P. had most of his memorable quips, curses and mutterings. Just the other day I watched Never Give a Sucker an Even Break again for the first time in years, and every time Fields delivered a line that was used on that album, I’d remember hearing it on vinyl.

Did anyone else own these records? And did anyone else drive your family nuts by playing them repeatedly?

[/quote]



The Fields and Marx Brother discs were actually put out in the late-60's by Decca Records, back when they were owned by MCA, who also owned the pre-1948 Paramount and Univeral films at the time, and had no rights issues using audio clips from those films. They also did a Mae West disc, and the best and rarest of those collections was AN EVENING WITH BORIS KARLOFF AND HIS FRIENDS, which was produced by Verne Langdon and written by Forry Ackerman and, instead of Gary Owens, had BK himself taking you on an audio guided tour of clips from the Universal Horror shockers. That disc came and went, but the Fields, Marx Bros, and Mae West discs could be found in perpetual cutout bins for years, though they were all fun and nice to have in the days before we had all the films at our fingertips. These discs also came with nice posters as well.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Wm. Charles Morrow]

The Laurel and Hardy records were put out by Mark 56 Records ( I recall the NATURALLY HIGH album,which I'm not sure was a Mark 56 disc, but the tracks you mentioned were also put out by this label on an album simply called LAUREL AND HARDY: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACKS which is the one I remember buying in the early 70's (and was delighted to discover, once I got it home, that the disc was actually a picture disc with nice pics of the boys on both sides). Mark 56 put out several more audio collections of clips from L and H's films, as well as complete soundtracks of a couple of their films (SONS OF THE DESERT and BABES IN TOYLAND I think).

I still have my copy of Naturally High, which was on the Douglas label. Later I acquired two of the Mark 56 albums, including the picture disc you mentioned. Another one was called No U Turn, and I still have that one too, but haven't listened to it in ages. I also bought the Babes in Toyland soundtrack, and recall listening to it with a friend who'd never seen the movie -- and as we listened I described what was happening, while the soundtrack played! It's strange to think back to a time when it was impossible to simply pop a VHS tape or a DVD into a machine, and see the film.

The Fields and Marx Brother discs were actually put out in the late-60's by Decca Records, back when they were owned by MCA, who also owned the pre-1948 Paramount and Univeral films at the time, and had no rights issues using audio clips from those films. They also did a Mae West disc, and the best and rarest of those collections was AN EVENING WITH BORIS KARLOFF AND HIS FRIENDS, which was produced by Verne Langdon and written by Forry Ackerman and, instead of Gary Owens, had BK himself taking you on an audio guided tour of clips from the Universal Horror shockers. That disc came and went, but the Fields, Marx Bros, and Mae West discs could be found in perpetual cutout bins for years, though they were all fun and nice to have in the days before we had all the films at our fingertips. These discs also came with nice posters as well.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Somehow my Decca discs of the Marx Brothers and Fields disappeared at some point, what with moving from one place to another. I remember those posters, which I would look at while listening to the records. Unfortunately I never acquired the Mae West album. I do recall reading about the Karloff disc in the pages of Forry Ackerman's Famous Monsters. Sounded very cool. I'm sure it fetches a pretty penny on eBay, nowadays.

[Richard M Roberts]

I still have my copy of Naturally High, which was on the Douglas label.

That's what it was, it was one of Jack Douglas's records. He was a comedy writer for LAUGH-IN and sometime stand-up comedian who had his own short-lived record label. He put out that Laurel and Hardy disc, one or two of his own records, and two Lenny Bruce records that sold pretty well among other things.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Rollo Treadway]

You're bringing back memories. As a comedy fan in the 1970s, I avidly collected records and books preserving classic dialogue and scenes. With most of the Marxes' Paramount titles, I knew most of the dialogue by heart before I even got a chance to see the films!

I still have that MCA "Voice Tracks" album. Two other soundtrack albums of the 70s, "The Cocoanuts" and "A Night at the Opera", were bootlegs of poor to atrocious sound quality ("Opera" had the sound noticeably slowed down!) and I've long since disposed of those. Then there were the many old time radio shows on issued on vinyl and also CD - most of that material can now be downloaded via the Internet, of course. I've also kept the double album "An Evening With Groucho", from his 70s Carnegie Hall shows.



One of the more interesting radio compilations was "Marx Movie Madness (On the Radio)" from the late 70s. This consisted of radio spots from Paramount and MGM, including two lengthy ones for Duck Soup which contain generous helpings of dialogue and music that did not make it to the finished film.

In addition to the "Natural High" album, the British UA label issued a couple of L&H soundtrack compilation LP's, and also that 45rpm single of "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine"/"Honolulu Baby" which managed to make it all the way to #2 in the UK charts in December 1975. (The #1 single was "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, taken from their album "A Night at the Opera" — so one might say the Marxes were still rivals of L&H at that late date, if only by proxy.)



It's almost strange now to recall that there was a time when spoken word comedy albums were major sellers, from the heyday of Bob Newhart and Shelley Berman to Monty Python and beyond. Those records were played at parties, and people eagerly, joyfully listened. That time may be long gone, but audio comedy is still something I like to relax with. Nichols and May and Bob & Ray are big favorites these days, and thanks to the mp3 format, I still have enough unheard Fred Allen and Jack Benny shows to last me a lifetime.

PS. For Laurel and Hardy fans, a highly recommended recording is the Beau Hunks Orchestra's 2-CD set of LeRoy Shields' music for Hal Roach:

[Wm. Charles Morrow]

Thanks for posting the graphics -- very nice!

I do remember that 4-record set of Marx Brothers radio broadcasts, which I got in the mid-’70s. It had lots of comedy sketches featuring Groucho and various co-stars, an several tracks with Chico and his band during the war years. Chico’s music held up better than his comic patter with the announcer/straight-man, which was pretty lame, as I recall. Groucho’s sketches were generally enjoyable, but usually funniest when he’d depart from the script and ad-lib. The liveliest sketches were the ones he did with Al Jolson and Oscar Levant on The Kraft Music Hall, and what really gave them a boost was the free-for-all atmosphere, when they’d just throw the script out the window and wing it. One of my favorite tracks on that record was a routine involving Jack Benny, Harpo, Gary Cooper, and Bing Crosby. Naturally, Harpo doesn’t speak, but accompanies Bing on a very soulful rendition of “My Blue Heaven.”

There were also records of Will Rogers’ radio broadcasts, and I owned one of those, but it was a little difficult to appreciate. His comedy was so closely tied to contemporary events that some of the punch-lines were really obscure.

When it comes to the later stand-up comedy records, the ones people would play at parties, don’t forget Woody Allen’s The Nightclub Years, 1965-68. He later said that the material captured on those sides was some of the best stuff he ever did, and I think he’s right!

[siriami]

thought a picture of the Fields, Marx and West MCA/Decca albums might interest members.
Alistair

[siriami]

And a few others in my collection:

[Ray Faiola]

I have 16mm prints of two 4 minute TV commercials for the W.C. Fields Decca LP. In addition to Gary Owens' narration, the commercials feature scenes that were included on the LP - the bartending scene from MY LITTLE CHICKADEE and the pool table scene from SIX OF A KIND.

The great thing about all the Decca LP's is that they used 35mm soundtrack material and they sounded REALLY great.

I also have a 16 print of the commercial for the Telehouse GREATEST OF AL JOLSON double LP.

As for the Mark 56 albums - the Garabedian BABES IN TOYLAND album was where I started the search back in the 90's for the uncut version of the film for CBS/Fox. I called Richard Feiner, who licensed the soundtrack (he retained soundtrack rights on the entire library) but he had no idea what had become of the nitrate print used for the LP. Feiner subsequently licensed the rights to the music to LAUREL AND HARDY LAUGHTOONS and we released the scores with introductory soundtrack clips of the boys.

[ClarenceE]

I had a copy of the W.C.Fields album a few decades ago. Funny! As for the Marxs movie soundtracks, check iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/horse ... d274611956" target="_blank .
Also availible, Cocanuts/Monkey Business along with a lot of Marxist radio shows.