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Allan Sherman

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Allan Sherman (sometimes incorrectly Alan and "Allen"), November 30, 1924 – November 20, 1973, was an American musician, parodist, satirist, and television producer.

Contents

Early Life

Sherman took his mother's maiden name after being abandoned in childhood by his father, Percy Copelon, a stock car racer, mechanic and inventor. Copelon would much later offer to pay for Sherman's education if he would re-take the family name, but when no support was forthcoming, the young man became Allan Sherman once again. His mother married four times, with numerous relationships in-between. Sherman attended 21 schools. At Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, Sherman wrote the senior musical, starring classmate Ricardo Montalban.

Early career: Classic Albums

Sherman was the creator and original producer of the popular I've Got a Secret (1952-1967), but was fired after a particularly unsuccessful episode (featuring Tony Curtis) that aired June 11, 1958. Later, he found that the little song parodies he performed to amuse his friends and family were taking a life of their own. He released an LP of these parodies, My Son, the Folk Singer, in 1962. The album was so successful that it was quickly followed by My Son, the Celebrity.

The first two LPs were mainly Jewish-folk-culture rewritings of old folk tunes (as suggested by the albums' titles), and his first minor hit was Sarah Jackman, a takeoff of Frère Jacques in which he and a woman (Christine Nelson) exchange family gossip (Sarah Jackman, Sarah Jackman, How's by you? How's by you? How's by you the family? How's your sister Emily? etc.) By his peak with My Son, the Nut in 1963, Sherman had begun to appeal to a larger audience, and broadened both his subject matter and his choice of parody material.

Sherman's parody lyrics were written in collaboration with Lou Busch. A few of the Sherman/Busch songs are completely original creations...featuring original music as well as lyrics, rather than new lyrics applied to an existing melody. The Sherman/Busch originals — notably "Go to Sleep, Paul Revere" and "Peyton Place" — are delightful novelty songs, showing genuine melodic originality as well as deft lyrics.

In My Son, The Nut, his pointed parodies of classical and popular tunes savaged summer camp ("Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" to the tune of Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours), encroaching automation in the workforce ("Automation" to the tune of "Fascination"), space travel ("Eight Foot Two, Solid Blue" to "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue"), the exodus to the suburbs, ("Here's to the Crabgrass" to the tune of "English Country Garden"), and his own bloated figure ("Hail to Thee, Fat Person", which blames his obesity on the Marshall Plan).

Sherman's 1965 album My Name Is Allan (which bears a childhood photograph of Sherman on the jacket sleeve) is something of a theme album: except for a couple of original novelty songs with music by Sherman and Busch, all the songs on this album are parodies of songs that had won the Academy Award for Best Song, including "That Old Black Magic", "Secret Love" and "The Continental".

Later work

At the height of his popularity in 1965, Sherman published an autobiography, A Gift of Laughter. For a short period, Sherman was culturally ubiquitous.

He sang on and guest-hosted The Tonight Show, appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, and narrated his own version of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with the Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler (this concert was released as an album Peter and the Commissar).

A children's book version of "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" with illustrations by Syd Hoff was released. A pirate album, More Folk Songs by Allan Sherman and His Friends, contained two parodies Sherman had recorded in the early 1950s with material by other artists.

Later albums grew more pointedly satirical and less light-hearted as the decade lost its innocence, and Sherman took up his pen to skewer protesting students ("The Rebel"), consumer debt ("A Waste of Money" to "A Taste of Honey"), and the generation gap ("Downtown", "Pop Hates the Beatles").

A unique voice

Allan Sherman's large body of parody work (over 100 recorded parodies in five years) was brilliant on many levels: His choice of material was itself funny, his lyrics were self-contained and consistently funny (and usually led to a climactic punchline), and yet spookily paralleled the sounds of the original, and his choice of topics was always timely and relevant.

Finally, his humor was charming, self-deprecating, insightful, and never seemed to be trying too hard. His brilliance inspired a new generation of developing parodists such as "Weird Al" Yankovic, who pays homage to Sherman (for the sharp-eyed) on the cover of his own first LP. Sherman is also credited with introducing Bill Cosby to a national audience, and thus launching that popular entertainer's career.

Like his contemporary Tom Lehrer, Sherman wrote satirical songs for the two-year-long "highbrow" satire program (the American version) That Was The Week That Was (1964 - 1965), including his Dropout's March.

Unfortunately, his topics were often relevant only to his own time and place; unlike most of Lehrer's, Sherman's parodies generally did not date or travel very well. But anyone familiar with the American concerns of the era will still find all his songs hilarious.

And a few are timeless -- "Hello Muddah", the abovementioned story of the boy from Camp Granada, is as fresh now as ever, and has been translated into other languages: Sweden, for example, has translated and adopted the song as its own.

Decline

Sherman's creative career was rather short. After its peak in 1963, his popularity declined precipitously during 1964; some have attributed this decline in part to the Kennedy assassination, as the public felt less open to Sherman's type of comedy. By 1965 he had released two albums that did not make the top 50. In 1966 Warner Brothers dropped him from the label.

Disillusioned but still creative, in 1973 Sherman published the controversial "The Rape of the A*P*E*", which detailed his point of view on American Puritanism and the Sexual Revolution.

Sherman wrote the script and lyrics (but not the music) for The Fig Leaves Are Falling, a flop Broadway musical that lasted only four performances in 1969. This failed comedy seemed to consider itself a sharp satire on sexual hypocrisy, but came across as merely mealy-mouthed.

In 1971 he was the voice of the Cat in the Hat in Dr. Seuss' animated specials.

Personal life and legacy

A smoker, Sherman struggled with lung disease, and finally succumbed to emphysema ten days before his 49th birthday.

Sherman's personal life was rather miserable, both before and after his sudden success as a singer-songwriter. An excellent ([link]) biographical article details his rise and fall, as well as the follow-on story of his son, Robert Sherman, who was the original "Boy from Camp Granada".

Allan Sherman was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.

His works were not forgotten after his death: a "Best of" CD was released in 1990 and a musical revue of his songs entitled "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" toured in 2003. A box set of most of his songs was recently released under the title "My Son, The Box".

"The Rape of the A*P*E*" is once again topical and actively sought-after, though rare.

National Public Radio profiled Sherman on All Things Considered 14 March 2006 through the eyes of Jesse Green, a writer. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5279983

Brief discography

Work for Broadway

Trivia

Bibliography

External links

 

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