Category Archives: Audio Links

This is from about ten years ago on this site…

In late 1964, Lorne Greene was not only the star of the biggest hit show on TV — Bonanza — but he also had a surprising hit record. It was called "Ringo" and apart from perhaps poaching on the guy's name, it had nothing to do with the drummer for The Beatles. It was one of those talking/singing western ballad tunes and they sold an awful lot of them. If you don't know the song, it has been (like everything else that ever existed) uploaded to YouTube.

At the time, Hanna-Barbera had a record label and someone got the idea to have Huckleberry Hound record a parody that would be about Ringo Starr. This is it with the great Daws Butler performing the vocal. The flip side was also Daws as Huck. It was "Clementine," which we offered you back in this link.

I don't believe they sold a lot of copies of this. I was a huge Hanna-Barbera fan and I don't think I even saw this at the time. But here's "Bingo Ringo"…

Also, while we're speaking of Daws: The other day on Dan Shahin's fine webcast, I mentioned that Daws had recorded a couple of messages for my answering machine. This was back when we all had answering machines instead of voicemail, and everyone tried to outdo everyone else with a fancy or funny outgoing message. A couple of folks wrote to ask about mine so here are the two that Daws did for me…

From a 1947 radio show, Gloria DeHaven sings "The Trolley Song" — with a little bit of help from Groucho Marx…

Alec Baldwin interviews Dick Cavett…

Here's a 7-and-a-half minute audio featurette on the Two-Thousand Year Old Man, the classic comedy routine by Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. As mentioned in the piece, Reiner and Brooks are talking about doing a new album, which seems appropriate now that Mel is getting near that age. Part of me hopes they don't because it could never possibly live up expectations. And part of me hopes they do because I want to be in that recording session. Thanks to Barry Mitchell who sent me this link…

You may not believe this but I have here another recording of "The Lambeth Walk." This one's pretty lively and it features the great bandleader Artie Shaw.

Here's another rendition of "The Lambeth Walk" from 1938. I got a million of 'em. This one's by Hans Rehmstedt and his Orchestra. I'm told they were one of most popular "swing" bands in Germany at the time this was recorded and this platter sold like sauerkraut all across the land. Then the song came to be loathed and denounced by the Nazi leadership. The record company changed its name to "In Lambert's Nachtlokal" to try and not call the Nazi censors' attention to it…then as it became even more hated, they stopped pressing it completely. To hear it (complete with German lyrics sung by Rudi Dreyer) click on the player below…

Another recording of — what else? — "The Lambeth Walk." Like most here, this one is from 1938…but the difference it that this one's in Polish. Here's the Iwo Wesby Orchestra…

The Bert Ambrose Orchestra recorded "The Lambeth Walk" in 1938. If you're not utterly sick of this song, click on the player below…

For a change, we have here a recording of "The Lambeth Walk." This one was recorded in 1938 by the popular Big Band of the day, Billy Cotton and his Orchestra…

Here's a snappy instrumental version of "The Lambeth Walk" as performed by Erhard Bauschke. Herr Bauschke had a popular dance band in pre-Nazi Germany in the thirties, then went right on playing a modified set list as Hitler rose to power. One source says his band played in concentration camps to add a merrier note to the killing of Jews and that Bauschke himself was drafted into the German army, captured and spent time as a Prisoner of War of the Americans. He was released after the war and briefly resumed his musical career before dying in an auto accident. (This is all stuff I read and I'm not certain it's correct.)

Whatever, I'm guessing he didn't play "The Lambeth Walk" much after it became a sign of thumbing one's nose at Hitler…but here's his rendition of it…

Annalisa Ericson was a superstar of the Swedish cinema. Around 1949 (I think), she recorded her lively version of "The Lambeth Walk." Let's listen to it, shall we?

As I mentioned, "The Lambeth Walk" was recorded by an awful lot of different recording artists. Here we have a 1938 version from the Michael Flome Dance Orchestra…