Fynsworth Alley is a company that releases Broadway-type albums. They do both newly-recorded works along with CDs of great old records, and they're about to reissue what may be the worst record album ever made. In 1979, for God knows what reason, one of Broadway's greatest stars recorded The Ethel Merman Disco Album, and it's really amazing. It doesn't work as a Broadway album, it doesn't work as a comedy album…hell, it doesn't even work as a disco album! The folks at Fynsworth Alley (pronounced Fins-worth) are not yet taking advance orders for its CD incarnation but never mind that.
You don't want to buy this. Trust me. What you might want to do is go to the Fynsworth Alley website and listen to a few of the short online samples they have available in RealAudio. And if these don't convince you that you don't want it, this website has two entire songs available, also in RealAudio. "I Got Rhythm" done disco? "There's No Business Like Show Business?" Good heavens.
Ethel Merman was a great talent with a corresponding ego. You have to wonder just what she thought she was doing when she said yes to this. Did she think a new generation would spark to her sound? Disco was already a joke in '79 so the logical assumption is that she thought it was a spoof…but she went out and did the talk show circuit in dead-earnest, singing live (she refused to lip-sync) and doing little disco dance steps even though she was nearing 80. I'm guessing the record company thought the curiosity factor would move sufficient product…but what was on her mind? Maybe — and I'm only being half-serious when I suggest this — it was an early symptom of the brain cancer that killed her just a few years later.
I've often thought there should be a service to which celebrities can subscribe when they're young, still in possession of their faculties and concerned about maintaining an image. The service would monitor their public performances and, at the appropriate moment, go to them and say, "Time to stop dancing" or "Time to lose the jet black toupee" or — eventually — "Time to stop performing." For male comedians, there would be a special alert for the age when sex jokes become unbecoming. (It's around the point when you begin using your genitalia strictly for waste elimination.) Groucho needed such a service. So did Uncle Miltie. And wouldn't it have been nice if Sinatra hadn't made those last few albums? Some loving soul should have stopped Ethel.
Anyway, we recommend taking a quick, free listen to Ms. Merman's oddest work. But for the love of God, don't buy it. Buy this, instead…
