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Locked in galleys, doing life terms on pages, they may well
possess the power to move worlds. But words heard publicly--pouring
from radios, stumbling in the funny lagoons of stage and disc--cast
a spell all their own. Test these speakers.
BOB & RAY. If they were a martini, they'd be five
parts gin to one of vermouth. But this duo-jet's radio humor
is more than wickedly dry and flat. They discovered the hysterical
planes of Nonphenomena--in public service announcements for the
Office Of Fluctuation Control And Ceiling Repairs and industrial
ads for the Monongahela Metal Foundry ("Having unexpected
guests see your dull steel ingots is an embarrassing prospect
for everyone"), and plumbed the norms of Odd (the priceless
"Slow Talkers Of America" interview). There's much
more, on five volumes of The Classic Bob & Ray, available
through RadioArt, P.O. Box 2000 GPO, New York, N.Y. 10116.
 STAN FREBERG. The Weird
Al of the Fifties, and the Golden Gate between old-style Forties
comics and the new "sick" comedians. Best remembered
for his savage parodies of Presley ("Heartbreak Hotel"),
Johnny Ray ("Cry"), and Lawrence Welk ("W'unnerful
W'unnerful"), the mild-mannered adman also scored fastbuck
teen stardom in "Old Payola Roll Blues," which exposes
the true source of retardo warbler Clyde Ankle's falsetto (he's
goosed by a stick). Stan's strangest: his Gleason satire, the
" Honeyearthers, " which casts Ralph, Ed & co.
as sitcom moonmen. More recently, Freberg's the voice-dad in
"The Family Dog" episode of Spielberg's Amazing
Stories, and the star of National Public Radio's "The
Stan Freberg Radio Show" (1991). -D.B.
Capitol Collectors cd Stan Freberg, Stan
Freberg Presents the United States Of America (box),
Tip
of the Freberg (box).
RONNIE GRAHAM. On the late-Fifties Riverside comedy sampler
How To Be Terribly Terribly Funny, Graham "was walkin'
up the beach the other day, lookin' for some ashtrays in their
natural state. This cat came up to me and said, 'Man, how do
I get to Carnegie Hall?' So I said, 'Practice, mother, practice.'
Little later, this other cat come up and he said, 'Meeow...'
He was a real cat" Delivered in a rusty, pre-Waits rasp,
Graham's routine includes a parody of Slim Gaillard's "Cement
Mixer," an impression of Harry The Hipster officiating at
a bop school commencement, and a lecture on the proper way to
puff "left-wing Luckies" and "Progressive Pall
Malls" that almost redeems dope humor. "Of all the
instruments, the furnace is the hippest. It's got a draft. .
." This long out-of-print LP also features Louie Nye's tri-martini
salute to Mad Ave., "Thimk, Scheme and Plan Ahead,"
and an excerpt from Pete U's racy riffing (see below).
DICK GREGORY. How about Dick Gregory, stand-up comedian,
civil rights activist, writer, and nutritionist? On latenight
television, Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Washington D.C. cop commissioner
are debating what makes the youth of today want to break the
law. Uninvited, some guy stands up In the audience and points
the finger: "You two keep talking about family, family this,
family that. Family's got nothin' to do with it. The Nazis had
family. The Mob has family. It ain't about family! It's about
self-respect!" Was that Dick Gregory? The first black comedian
to work the white night clubs? The same Dick Gregory who delivered
a two-hour speech (1963) in Selma, Alabama, surrounded by police,
a move which political historian Howard Zinn has described as
"a cultural turning point for the whole South"? The
same guy who appeared in People under the head "NUTRITION
COMEDIAN HELPS THE EXTREMELY OVERWEIGHT WITH INTENSIVE DIET PLAN"?
Talk about your American originals! Dick'll lecture the Reverend
and the police commissioner, crack some jokes, fight on the frontline
for civil rights, then mix up a tropical fruit smoothie so everyone
can keep the pounds off!
Recordings: The
Best of Dick Gregory; Live
at the Village Gate; At
Kent State. Books by Dick Gregory: Nigger:
An Autobiography (Dutton 1964), No More Lies (Harper
1971.) D.W.
ROBIN HARRIS. Be
Be's Kids (Polygram). Fat, black and 36, the "sepia
Jackie Gleason" (Sweet Dick Willie in Do The Right Thing)
cut but one cd before he died in 1990. Still, it's a marvel of
hit-and-run humor, Harris zinging household names and anonymous
hecklers alike with savage speed. Recalling 'Pops,' who constantly
reminded him "When I was your age, I walked 20 miles to
school," Harris quips "That why you didn't graduate,
you was tired?"
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KEROUAC. The bard's the word on the three-cd box The
Jack Kerouac Collection (Rhino Wordbeat). Blues and haikus
for days. Dig the Railroad Earth.
 KEN NORDINE.
Tom Waits calls him "the guy with the pitch fork in your
head saying 'Go ahead and jump."' The truth is, you've heard
him. He's the pipes behind hundreds of radio and TV commercials.
What you may not know is that this voice is attached to one of
the coolest brains in history. When he isn't hipping the world
to Murine or Motorola, Nord takes the time to talk groovy on
a series of unparalleled "word jazz" goof discs. Nordine's
short-short unpoems carry the listener down a twsting word-road
where puns sway and far-out concepts bloom. His mellow, straightfroward
manner (usually backed by an uptight jazz quartet) is deceiving.
Even the squares have been known to experience "IT"
--that shimmering plateau of psychedelic knowingness--while digging
such Kennord classics as "My Baby," "Reaching
Into In," and "The Sound Museum." -D.W.
Essential: The
Best of Word Jazz, Vol. 1 (Rhino/ Word, Beat). Devout
Catalyst (Grateful Dead Merchandising)
DEWEY PHILLIPS. For folks brainwashed into the "more
music, less talk" stalag of the last two decades, it may
seem incomprehensible that a crazed-cat deejay could enhance
the records he spins, goose them to greatness with sanctified
shouts & spieling. If, as Dyl claimed, Smokey was a poet,
then Memphis motormouth Dewey--the first jock to play Presley
(1954)--was, like Murray and Wolfman and the Real Don Steele,
a shaman-saint, trash-talkin' the word jazz of the spheres into
a new nation of ears. Be there now. Try Red
Hot And Blue: Classic Radio Transcriptions (Zu-Zazz Records).
That'll flat git it.
PETER USTINOV (Riverside lp 12-833 Peter Ustinov).
"During the first Grand Prix du Roc in nineteen hundred
and six... Roger Knute was disqualified for soliciting aid in
pushing his thousand-horsepower Navajomobile, built incidentally
in Tucson, after his engine stalled as he swerved to avoid a
monkey which had strayed from the rock to watch the race."
In the late Fifties, wheelman Ustinov, armed only with a set
of notes, faced a live mike and winged an entire Grand
Prix race on the Rock of Gibraltar, sending up every nationality
and producing an eccentric comedy classic. The French try to
demoralize the Germans by bringing girls into the pit, the German
driver sneezes on schedule to decrease weight, and the American's
car is so heavy that its rear wheels are up in the air, etc.
As freshly funny today as when first cut. Vrrrooom. -D.B.
***
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