Allen & Rossi - Allen & Rossi Meet The Great Society 1965

Marty Allen	Morton David Alpern	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA
Mar 23 1922 -	Official Site	Wikipedia  Wikipedia Allen

 

Steve Rossi	Joseph Charles Tafarella	Los Angeles, California USA
1928 or 1932 -	Official Site Facebook  gMail	Wikipedia IMDB Rossi

I can't figure Marty Allen & Steve Rossi out. I have a couple of their comedy albums, saw them many times on the ED SULLIVAN SHOW way back when, and some months ago viewed their spot on one of the weeks in Feb. '64 when the Beatles were headlining that program. Allen specifically is NOT funny. That "Hello dere!" schtick of his was tedious.
For their 1965 red label MERCURY album ALLEN & ROSSI MEET THE GREAT SOCIETY (MG2105/SR6105), Marty abandons this ubiquitous greeting to even worse effect. He's called on here to play many characters, do dialects, accents, old and young people, celebities and nobodies-- and fails miserably at all of them. Allen does NOT sound remotely like LBJ; he uses a generic Southern accent more suited to Alabama than Texas. His MLK is worse, so are the Italian and German dialects. Talk about no talent, yet this guy played Sullivan dozens of times. Go figure.
Steve Rossi wisely stays out of the way, acting mostly as straight man, narrator and interviewer. He doesn't sing but has contributed lyrics and music to a few songs, one of which, "Dumb," perfectly describes this unfunny record. It is however, a time capsule snapshot of 1965. Mention is made of the new Soviet premier (Kosygin), Lyndon picking a dog up by the ears (reference to a famous photo), NASA's surveying of the lunar surface, Lady Bird's pet project: a cosmetic makeover of the U.S., the War on Poverty and other things then in the news. Too bad none of these were commented upon with any kind of wit. ~amazon.com
Also featuring Dyanne Thorne, Carol McKinley, Harvey Miller, Bill Levine and Bob Prescott

01 Hubert 0:45
02 Medicare 0:34
03 LBJ's New Dog  1:31
04 Homecoming 1:14
05 LBJ Dance Lesson 2:50
06 Martin Luther King 0:27
07 Ranger Photographs 0:38
08 Poverty Program  1:47
09 President's Tailor 0:53
10 Russian Premier 1:40
11 Lady Bird 1:01
12 Jimmy Hoffa 1:15
13 L.B.J. Ranch  0:33
14 Free Enterprise 1:17
15 Dumb  1:43
16 Lynda Bird's Date 1:39
17 Countdown 1:16
18 Passport, Italian Style 0:47
19 Beautify America  1:46
20 Peace Corps 1:16
21 Two Man Gemini Capsule  0:44
22 LBJ Radio 0:55
23 Farm Subsidy Program  1:31
24 Balance the Budget  1:21
25 White House Correspondent 1:29
26 United Nations  1:17
27 Lady Bird Luncheon  0:26
28 New Image 0:57
29 On With the Show  0:39
30 The Great Society 1:07

		Stand-up				Mercury - MG2105
ENJOY!
Their other albums on this blog are HERE WANTED
Dedicated To Our Armed Forces 1967	(Bernie) Allen & Rossi - According To Allen & Rossi, Sex Is... 1973

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