Rating:
Genre:
Vocal Music
Release Date: 11/14/2006
Comic actress
Charlotte Rae had achieved a breakthrough the previous year as
Mrs. Peachum in the celebrated
Marc Blitzstein adaptation of
The Threepenny Opera at the Theatre de Lys Off-Broadway when she was signed by
Vanguard Records in 1955 to make an album of
novelty songs. But she had been in New York for years by then, doing her nightclub act at the Blue Angel, the Village Vanguard, and other clubs, and
Songs I Taught My Mother, subtitled "Silly, Sinful & Satiric Selections," was a collection of witty, bawdy, and sophisticated special material that she had assembled for those performances. She called on friends including
Blitzstein, who provided the opening number,
"Modest Maid," about a character fascinated by lechery, and, from his musical
No for an Answer, the frenetic
"Fraught." The biggest contributor, however, was
Sheldon Harnick (later known as the lyricist for a series of Broadway
musicals including
Fiddler on the Roof), who was tapped for
"Gus the Gopher" and
"Merry Little Minuet" (from
John Murray Anderson's Almanac), and collaborated with
Rae on
"Backer's Audition" and
"Gabor the Merrier." "Merry Little Minuet" hilariously combined
classical music with a caustic view of world affairs, to wit: "The whole world is festering with unhappy souls/The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles/Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch/And I don't like anybody very much." (The song anticipated
Randy Newman's
"Political Science" by decades.) Such a number had to be sung perfectly straight for its best effect, but
"Backer's Audition" and
"Gabor the Merrier" were both broadly acted satires full of winking references to contemporary figures. And when she wasn't making fun of the
Gabor sisters,
Rae could use a distinctly
Marlene Dietrich-like voice to intone the silly lyrics to
Ogden Nash's poem
"The Sea-Gull and the Ea-Gull," set to music by
Vernon Duke, whose
"Summer Is A-Comin' In" from
The Lady Comes Across was also included. (
Rae would revive it again in 1956 in
The Littlest Revue.) Add in a couple of
Cole Porter gems and the apparently never-before-recorded
Rodgers & Hart ballad
"Why Can't I?" from
Spring Is Here, and the album made for a wonderful set of comic material rendered by a first-class
cabaret talent with a long career still ahead of her.
~William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
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