The First Family (album)
The First Family | |
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Studio album by | |
Released | November 1962 Spring 1963 (Volume Two) |
Recorded | October 22, 1962 March 18, 1963 (Volume Two) |
Studio | Fine Recording Studio, New York City |
Genre | Comedy |
Label | Cadence Records |
Producer | Earle Doud[1] |
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
New Record Mirror | [3] |
The First Family is a 1962 comedy
The First Family won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1963, becoming the second and most recent comedy or spoken word album to win the award.
Cast
The First Family starred
The First Family was written and produced by Bob Booker, Earle Doud and George Foster; Booker and Doud were also in the cast and received front cover billing, as the album is officially titled Bob Booker and Earle Doud Present The First Family. The album also features the voice talent of Jim Lehner, Bradley Bolke, Chuck McCann, Bob McFadden, and Norma MacMillan. It was recorded in front of a live studio audience.
Meader later revealed, "A lot of people don't know this, but we recorded The First Family on the night of October 22, 1962, the same night as John F. Kennedy's Cuban Missile Crisis speech. The audience was in the studio and had no idea of the drama that was taking place. But the cast had heard the speech and our throats almost dropped to our toes, because if the audience had heard the Cuban Missile Speech, we would not have received the reaction we did." During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cadence Records almost cancelled the distribution of the record, assuming America would be going to war.
In popular culture
Although the album was growing by 1962, production of a record imitating the President met stiff opposition. James Hagerty, a top executive for ABC-Paramount Records and President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s former press secretary, said the proposed album would be "degrading to the presidency" and proclaimed that "every Communist country in the world would love this record." After other rejections, Cadence Records agreed to distribute the album, and within a month the record was appearing on store shelves, and seeing brisk sales. Two weeks later it had sold more than one million copies, pushing past the debut album by Peter, Paul and Mary.[6]
Within weeks, many Americans could recite favorite lines from the record, including "the rubber schwan [swan] is mine", and "move ahead...with great vigah [vigor]", the latter lampooning the President's own words. The album poked fun at Kennedy's
The First Family album won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1963.[9] That March, most of the same cast recorded a sequel album, The First Family Volume Two, a combination of spoken-word comedy and songs. Release in the spring of 1963, Volume Two was also successful, peaking at #4 on the album chart in June 1963.[10]
Immediately after Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, producers Booker and Doud, along with Cadence president Archie Bleyer, pulled both albums from sales and had all unsold copies destroyed so as not to seemingly "cash in" on the President's death. Both albums remained out of print until they were re-issued on CD together in 1999.
Similar albums
In 1962, two similar albums were also released:
- The Other Family spoofed the Nikita Khrushchev regime of the Soviet Union and featured Buck Henry, Joan Rivers, and George Segal.
- The President Strikes Back! was an imagined response of President Kennedy to The First Family, written by future Mel Brooks collaborator Ron Clark.
During Lyndon Johnson's administration, Doud and Alen Robin released a series of two comedy albums using actual recordings of Johnson and other political figures to create comedic simulated interviews: Welcome to the LBJ Ranch (1965)[11] and Lyndon Johnson's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).[12]
In 1966, The New First Family 1968: A Futuristic Fairy Tale was issued, co-produced by Bob Booker and George Foster, and starring impressionist and comic Will Jordan as the newly elected president Cary Grant in this political fantasy. Two other noted impressionists also appeared on the album – John Byner and David Frye. Frye's impression of Richard Nixon would later be featured on the Elektra Records albums I Am the President and Radio Free Nixon, among others. Will Jordan's most famous impression – that of TV host and newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan – was not used on The New First Family 1968. Instead, the Ed Sullivan impression heard on the album was done by Byner.
In 1981, a new album titled The First Family Rides Again was issued, co-produced by Doud and starring impressionist Rich Little as then-President Ronald Reagan.[13]
Track listing
The First FamilyAct I
Act II
|
The First Family Volume TwoAct I
Act II
|
Chart positions
Chart (1962) | Peak position |
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The First Family: Billboard Top LPs—Monaural | 1 |
The First Family Volume Two: Billboard Top LPs—Monaural | 4 |
See also
- Cultural depictions of John F. Kennedy
- Lists of fastest-selling albums
References
- ^ Smith, Ronald L. (2013). ""The First Family" (1962)" (PDF). Library of Congress.
- ^ Allmusic review
- New Record Mirror. No. 93. p. 10. Archived from the original(PDF) on 1 April 2022. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
- Billboard(February 2, 1963)
- ^ Bob Booker and Earle Doud (October 1962). "Album notes for The First Family". Collectibles Records.
- ISBN 978-1-55849-785-6, pp 132-33.
- ^ "Vaughn Meader, Satirist of Kennedy Family, Dies". washingtonpost.com. November 1, 2004. Retrieved 3 April 2006.
- A&E, November 22, 1988
- ^ Making Fun of the Kennedys|Studio 360|WNYC
- ^ Billboard June 1963
- ^ "'LBJ Ranch' LP Runs Hog Wild", Billboard, November 20, 1965.
- ^ "Album Potpourri", Appleton Post-Crescent, January 7, 1968.
- AllMusic.com
External links
- Library of Congress essay on the album's addition to the National Recording Registry.