I've received and am enjoying My Son, the Box, which is the 6-disc collection of darn near everything Allan Sherman ever recorded in his short but wonderful career singing song parodies. I hope in the next week or so to compile and post a list here of everything that isn't in this collection. It's not a long list.
Rumor has it that the 4,000 limited edition copies that have been issued by Rhino Handmade are going fast. If you'd like to order one, you can use this Amazon link but you'll actually save money at some other sites. CD Universe, for instance, has it for $98.
Allan Sherman's records were very important to me when I was a lad. I played them over and over and over again to the point where I have most of them committed to memory — though perhaps not as well as I'd thought. These new CDs are clearer than my old records and I'm noticing a few lyrics that I'd previously misunderstood. I'm also noticing that Mr. Sherman didn't know some of his lyrics as well as he should have. On My Son, the Folk Singer, there's a short tune that goes, "Mammy's little baby loves matzoh, matzoh / Mammy's little baby loves matzoh balls." In it, Sherman sings…
Stole the skillet
Stole the lead
Stole a lotta balls
Made of Pesach bread
Stole the chicken
Out of the soup
Stole the pot
And made a lot of chicken soup
I always thought it was "Made a Pesach bread." Then again, I'll bet the line after next was written as "out of the coop" and Sherman sang it wrong at the recording. There are a couple of those on his early albums and with someone obviously deciding that the over-all performance was too good to correct.
I'm also learning a few lyrics I had wrong from Robert Sherman's site. Robbie is Allan Sherman's son and we have him to thank for this wonderful boxed set of CDs, and for the fact that it's so complete and so everything Allan Sherman fans could have wanted. Over at www.campgranada.com, he's posted the lyrics to most of the songs in his father's repertoire. Again, I'm discovering that I had a few lines wrong all these years.
And here's one other link of note. You can purchase an Allan Sherman ringtone for your cellular phone here.
For the most part, the material holds up very well. Yes, a lot of the references are dated. But when I first heard and loved My Son, the Folk Singer, I was ten and I didn't get some of the references then, either. David Dubinsky? Olga San Juan? Sherman was just a funny man and we don't have to understand everything he was talking about to enjoy his work. I never have, anyway. I'm very happy with this new collection.