Stan Freberg's magnum opus as a maker of funny records was probably Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America — the Early Years. It was a musical comedy album that came out in 1961, featuring clever songs and highly fractured interpretations of our nation's founding years. Dr. Demento has said he still can't decide if it's the best comedy album in history or the best history album in comedy. Either way, it was pretty good.
The brilliant Mr. Freberg planned it as a three-volume set: Volume One started with Columbus and took us up to the Revolutionary War. Volume Two would carry things through World War I and then the third release would bring things up to the present day. Stan wrote the songs, co-wrote the sketches and played (in the first one) Christopher Columbus, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and several other historical figures. He was aided in his efforts by superstar arranger/conductor Billy May and by a superb cast including Paul Frees, June Foray, Jesse White, Byron Kane and Peter Leeds. The tunes are wonderful, the jokes are funny and eminently quotable…and there's even a smidgen of real history in there. A great record.
It started with Christopher Columbus setting foot on the shores of America and being unable to cash a check because, after all, it was Columbus Day. It ended with General George Washington winning the Revolutionary War, after spending hours deciding which boat to rent.
That was the first album. It was a huge hit and Stan set to work on the second album. Then "things happened."
In the latter half of the last century, the most prolific producer of Broadway shows was a man named David Merrick. Hello, Dolly! was one of his. So was 42nd Street. So were dozens and dozens of others.
He was also perhaps the most colorful off-stage personality of the Broadway scene. Every Merrick show yielded tales of trickery, feuds, threats, more threats, and lawsuits – most of this deliberately and wickedly orchestrated by Mr. Merrick. He was said to consider any project incomplete unless he sued a few people and made at least a few enemies-for-life. (To learn more about the amazing, controversial career of David Merrick, seek out a book called David Merrick: The Abominable Showman by Howard Kissel.)
Shortly after the first volume of United States of America hit record shops, Merrick heard it and made a deal with Freberg to stage the whole thing – Volume One, plus the material that was to comprise Volumes Two and Three — on Broadway as a musical. The deal was on-again, off-again a few times but then finally it was on, and Freberg moved to New York to begin rehearsals. To his dying day, he wished he'd said no. He wished he'd stayed home and gone ahead with his plans to record Volume Two and then Volume Three. Merrick, however, insisted they be postponed, so as not to infringe on sales of the show's planned cast album.
So instead of making the records, Stan began mounting a Broadway show, and the fights with Merrick were legendary. A few of them are recounted in the Kissel book and more were told in Freberg's autobiography, It Only Hurts When I Laugh.
The best one — the one I have to tell here — is the one where they were rehearsing the Battle of Appomattox. Merrick, after observing a run-through, marched up to Freberg and said, "Take Lincoln out of the Civil War. He doesn't work."
Stan gave out with a loud, understandable Huh? "Don't you think people will notice his absence?" he asked the producer.
"Oh," Merrick replied. "You'll miss him, I'll miss him, a few history buffs will miss him, but the average person won't notice." He also suggested moving Barbara Fretchie from the Civil War to the Revolutionary War, because they needed a strong female character in that section.
Most of their exchanges, alas, weren't this funny, at least to Stan. He finally decided that Merrick was trying to destroy his spirit, and he yanked the project. Broadway lost what might have been a wonderful show but, worse, Volume Two of Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America was indefinitely shelved. By the time the legal battles abated, Stan had lost the momentum of the project.
I loved that first record. I played it over and over and over, and I wasn't the only one. Soon after, a group called the Beatles became the hottest thing in the history of show business. When Paul McCartney was once asked what kind of music he liked to listen to, he mentioned a couple of songs from Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America. I'd call that a pretty good compliment — wouldn't you?
I'm not sure exactly when I discovered it — around '63, I guess. Maybe a bit earlier. I bought a copy at a record store on Westwood Boulevard in West L.A., just north of Pico. If you know the area: It was located right where they built Junior's Delicatessen which is now Lenny's Delicatessen, which is where Ken Levine and I just had lunch which is not the least bit relevant to this article.
Every time I went into a record store thereafter, I would zip over to the Comedy section and peek in front of the index divider for Stan Freberg, on which his name would inevitably be misspelled. I would fervently pray that Volume Two would be there but it never was. A few times, I asked the clerk in the store on Westwood if he had any idea when it would be in and I was always told, "No, and we've had a lot of people asking."
Little did I know that (a) it would take thirty-five years and (b) I would get to be there for its creation. For that matter, there's a (c) and a (d): I didn't imagine that I'd get to know Stan and work with him…and that we'd even lunch at Junior's Delicatessen — on the very same hunk of real estate where I bought the first volume of Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America.
Throughout those thirty-five years, Stan was asked over and over, "Say, is Volume Two ever coming out?" It came to be the Eternal Question of his existence.
The first time I met him, I figured that he was probably sick of people asking him about it, so I held off and didn't ask immediately. I think I held off for about four minutes. The answer, of course, was that he had moved on to other work, he was no longer making comedy albums and neither was Capitol, and his company of actors had scattered and, in a few sad cases, passed away.
And there was another reason which I didn't mention the first time I wrote about all this. Stan was expensive. He put a high price tag on his creations, demanded total control and always went first class. His musical arranger/conductor did not come cheap and what he had Billy May arrange and conduct was a full orchestra. Full orchestras never come cheap. Neither did the cast Stan wanted to use. He also demanded (or maybe just needed) a large cast and plenty of studio time to do multiple takes and then to spend days editing and mixing, editing and mixing.
During those 3.5 decades, he was often approached by record companies about bringing forth Volume Two. They were all enthusiastic about it. That was, until they saw the budget. Record companies simply did not spend that kind of money on a comedy record…especially a comedy record with commercial prospects that faded as Volume One became more and more a distant memory. Finally though, some outside investors came in, not so much because they expected to make a fortune off the album but as they simply felt it should be done.
So one day, Stan called and asked if I could meet him for lunch — at Junior's, which was frighteningly appropriate. He had a tuna sandwich and I had corned beef and he asked me if I'd help him out with Volume Two. I said…well, what do you think I said?
I'll tell you what happened next in our next installment of Freberg Stories. I'm not sure yet how long it'll be before it appears but it should be less than thirty-five years.