Oh My Dear Sweet God, Run and Hide -- Ethel Merman did Disco???

[leigh.bess.toad]

One of my "friends" on FB posted one of the songs from an album from 1979 where Ethel Merman does disco. Yes, it is just as campy and amazing and horrible and entrancing and breathtakingly bad as it sounds. Am I the only one who didn't know about this? But if you are like me and had no idea this existed, here's one of the cuts: "There's No Business Like Show Business". Make sure the volume is up to enjoy the full effects. But just try and get this out of your head. It won't be easy.

 

[video=youtube;inzhNkQENOs]

 

I think I may be scarred for life.

[+ Socalguy]

I'm proud/ashamed that Robster has the full cd:)

[+ WilliamM]

One of my "friends" on FB posted one of the songs from an album from 1979 where Ethel Merman does disco. Yes, it is just as campy and amazing and horrible and entrancing and breathtakingly bad as it sounds. Am I the only one who didn't know about this? But if you are like me and had no idea this existed, here's one of the cuts: "There's No Business Like Show Business". Make sure the volume is up to enjoy the full effects. But just try and get this out of your head. It won't be easy.

 

I think I may be scarred for life.

 

 

Ha Ha-

 

Where were you in 1979? Merman promoted that album on every talk show in the country. Lee, I know that you were married, just not sure for how many years (so disregard the next paragraph if it does not apply to you in regard to bars and clubs).

 

And the songs were played constantly in gay bars and clubs, well after she died in 1984. After 40 years (1930-1970) on Broadway, Merman was still willing to take any job offered, even when her reputation as Broadway's greatest musical star was only contested seriously by Mary Martin.

[+ Robster]

I'm proud/ashamed that Robster has the full cd:)

Ah, Wayne beat me to it. I am indeed the proud owner (yes, I said proud!) of The Ethel Merman Disco Album on CD.

 

I had no idea it existed either, but when I found it in a local used CD shop a few years ago, I knew I just had to have it.

 

Rob

[bigvalboy]

LOL...never heard this Lee until now, but I couldn't get past the 2 min mark. Of course it was no worse than "The village people" and yes I danced in disco's in a white suit with white vest just like Travolta did in Saturday Night Fever.....It wasn't pretty, I still have nightmares.

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

I first heard the disco version of "No Business" at a college party in 1983. My college marching band was playing the song for our halftime show and one of the members had the album and played it for us. It has been a running joke for my group of friends for 30 years.

[MrMiniver]

One of my "friends" on FB posted one of the songs from an album from 1979 where Ethel Merman does disco. Yes, it is just as campy and amazing and horrible and entrancing and breathtakingly bad as it sounds. Am I the only one who didn't know about this? But if you are like me and had no idea this existed, here's one of the cuts: "There's No Business Like Show Business". Make sure the volume is up to enjoy the full effects. But just try and get this out of your head. It won't be easy.

 

[video=youtube;inzhNkQENOs]

 

I think I may be scarred for life.

 

Oh, this was very famous at the time. Merman went on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and sang a few of these songs. It was godawful but almost deliriously fun in a really outrageous over-the-top campy way.

[+ azdr0710]

I couldn't get past the 2 min mark.

 

 

I valiantly troopered on to the 1:40 mark.....

[mmk123]

this is also on iTunes

[rvwnsd]

Here I expected to hear Merman sing in a faux disco style, but what I got was her singing her songs like she always did with a cheezy disco background.

[+ WilliamM]

Here I expected to hear Merman sing in a faux disco style' date=' but what I got was her singing her songs like she always did with a cheezy disco background.[/quote']

 

She was famous for always singing songs the same way, especially songs from "Gypsy" and "Annie Get Your Gun." I saw Merman at her best in "Gypsy," that's why it is sad to hear her at her worst (no attempt to get into the disco mode) in that clip.

[whipped guy]

Lee!!!! BIG LOL!!!! You were probably way too busy singing Happy Birthday at the Chart a house in Connecticut during that time frame to have noticed that album. Yes, while a vocal student Lee was a singing waiter and the Chart House was the place to go to get serenaded on your birthday! Actually the majority of the wait staff were culled from music students at Hartt School of Music from the University of Hartford and they performed a very distinctive version of the piece!

 

Back on topic.. I had forgotten about that album... actually I probably have repressed most of the disco era... but now definitely recall it and the fact that Ethel did make the rounds promoting it... Possibly even on Dance Fever!!! Remember that!!!!!!

[+ Cock Eyed Optimist]

LOL! If anyone else besides Robster still has the album, it has got to be Rick Munroe! He is the biggest Merman fan I know!!

[rvwnsd]

She was famous for always singing songs the same way, especially songs from "Gypsy" and "Annie Get Your Gun." I saw Merman at her best in "Gypsy," that's why it is sad to hear her at her worst (no attempt to get into the disco mode) in that clip.

 

I think she sounded pretty damned good for a 75 year old who was probably in the first stages of brain cancer, which took her life four years later.

[MrMiniver]

I think she sounded pretty damned good for a 75 year old who was probably in the first stages of brain cancer, which took her life four years later.

 

She was 76 when she died of brain cancer and it was clear seeing her around that time that there were times when things were off but she was enough "Ethel" that most people didn't notice. About 2 weeks before she was diagnosed, I went over to her place in the Pierre and have this great snapshot of her holding a champagne bottle while the rest of us had glasses. She was truly a trip, but an amazing one.

 

I don't think she sounds bad on the disco album. It's the arrangements that are awful. It was an attempt -- made by many older stars at the time -- to be relevant to new generations who hadn't heard their music. Most of them were failures but they were done in great fun.

[+ WilliamM]

She was 76 when she died of brain cancer and it was clear seeing her around that time that there were times when things were off but she was enough "Ethel" that most people didn't notice. About 2 weeks before she was diagnosed, I went over to her place in the Pierre and have this great snapshot of her holding a champagne bottle while the rest of us had glasses. She was truly a trip, but an amazing one.

 

I don't think she sounds bad on the disco album. It's the arrangements that are awful. It was an attempt -- made by many older stars at the time -- to be relevant to new generations who hadn't heard their music. Most of them were failures but they were done in great fun.

 

If this 30 minute interview with Ethel Merman was indeed conducted in 1983, it was just before the brain tumor was diagnosed. To be clear, MrMiniver, I am disputing that Merman showed sign of the tumor before early 1983. Others have said the same thing. But, her memory is amazing in this very interesting "oral history" discussion.

 

 

[Phil_musc]

Lee, you wicked, wicked man for posting something so deliciously fun as this during our penitential season of Lent. I'm going to have to get down on my knees, fiddle with my rosaries, bow my head with great respect and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect with a boatload of Hail Mary's. It'w even worse than that because I, unlike several of you, actually made it to the end of the clip. I gotta tell you the modulation at about 3:45 is to die for!

 

In the words of another song from the era, "More, More, More."

[MrMiniver]

If this 30 minute interview with Ethel Merman was indeed conducted in 1983, it was just before the brain tumor was diagnosed. To be clear, MrMiniver, I am disputing that Merman showed sign of the tumor before early 1983. Others have said the same thing. But, her memory is amazing in this very interesting "oral history" discussion.

 

 

 

Yes, I think during that period there were probably some signs if anyone had been paying that much attention but it wasn't anything significant that would have been obvious. I think the incident that occurred as she was preparing to fly out to LA for her Oscar appearance was so shocking because it really was the first concrete thing to happen that indicated something was wrong. Of course, after that it was downhill pretty fast. Very sad. Her son Bob told me that he used to play her music on a tape recorder by her bedside and it got to the point pretty fast where she didn't even perk up for that.

[Irtwo]

It was an attempt -- made by many older stars at the time -- to be relevant to new generations who hadn't heard their music. Most of them were failures but they were done in great fun.

 

So true, When disco was at is peak, has-beens were coming out of the woodwork. Connie Francis tried a comeback disco version of her "Where the Boys Are".

 

[video=youtube;AejP5Lg-nd0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AejP5Lg-nd0

[Bosguy]

Ah, Wayne beat me to it. I am indeed the proud owner (yes, I said proud!) of The Ethel Merman Disco Album on CD.

 

I had no idea it existed either, but when I found it in a local used CD shop a few years ago, I knew I just had to have it.

 

Rob

 

Perfect. You're booked for Spurline next year!!! Start planning your outfit now.

 

Boston Bill

[+ WilliamM]

Yes' date=' I think during that period there were probably some signs if anyone had been paying that much attention but it wasn't anything significant that would have been obvious. I think the incident that occurred as she was preparing to fly out to LA for her Oscar appearance was so shocking because it really was the first concrete thing to happen that indicated something was wrong. Of course, after that it was downhill pretty fast. Very sad. Her son Bob told me that he used to play her music on a tape recorder by her bedside and it got to the point pretty fast where she didn't even perk up for that.[/quote']

 

We have two very different views in this thread between people who know Merman mostly as a camp icon vs. those who knew her personally and/or saw her on Broadway in one or more of her signature roles. When I saw Merman in "Gypsy," she was only 52-years old --- younger than Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone (the last two women to star in "Gypsy" revivals on Broadway).

[+ Robster]

Perfect. You're booked for Spurline next year!!! Start planning your outfit now.

 

Boston Bill

 

LOL!!! That would be truly horrifying.

 

Rob

[N13]

From Philmusc "...get down on my knees, fiddle with my rosaries, bow my head with great respect and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect..."

 

Think it would be really 'correct' to credit Tom Lehrer who wrote these lyrics in his "Vatican Rag." Credit where credit is due?

 

N13

[+ FreshFluff]

Question about the lyrics for you musical theater experts:

 

Why on earth would the sheriff escort the cast of a musical out of town? Is it because the show is obscene or because it's so bad that the audience is angry? Or maybe the line just happened to have the right number of syllables.

[MrMiniver]

Question about the lyrics for you musical theater experts:

 

Why on earth would the sheriff escort the cast of a musical out of town? Is it because the show is obscene or because it's so bad that the audience is angry? Or maybe the line just happened to have the right number of syllables.

 

Often people would complain and the sheriff would trump up some "morals charge" "contributing to the .... " you know that sort of thing. Back in the 19th century, there was even tarring and feathering of entertainers .... so when that song was written this was still well known. Not like today when some seem to celebrate the lewd behavior of a Bieber or Cyrus. Ah, the good old days when they would have been "run out of town."