The rubber swan is mine

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts.

03/03/63 : The First Family - Vaughn Meader

This is an album I've never heard of by someone I've never heard of - and that cover is certainly quite something! But Wikipedia will explain to us that this was a big deal, so buckle in for this.

It's a comedy album based around JFK and his family, with them struggling with "normal" household issues - and somewhat unsurprisingly, it's dated. However, surprisingly, quite a bit of it was still relevant - and some of it was also actually funny (which was something TW3 didn't manage). I imagine quite a few people greatly objected to the whole thing, but it all feels to be good-natured to me (although I imagine sensitivities were very different back then). It's also of note for featuring a woman in a major role - wonders will never cease.

We're at #16 in the charts this week with a re-entry for this one week, but it had previously had a seven week run with it having peaked at #12, which seems pretty good for something that's very obviously American. The top five this week were Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley, Frank Ifield, Frank Sinatra & Count Basie and West Side Story and the highest new entry was All Star Festival (#18).

So, what does Wikipedia have to say about this album? Unusually, we're going to do things in reverse and start with its commercial performance because this was, at the time, quite obviously, the fastest and biggest selling album ever - selling a million copies a week for the first six weeks of its release, spending twelve consecutive weeks at #1 in the US. You weren't expecting that now, were you? It was also critically successful, winning the Grammy Album Of The Year award - the second (and currently) last comedy and spoken word recording to do so (after this, which I'm sure you remember). 

Interestingly, the album was recorded on the same night as JFK's speech on the Cuban Missile Crisis and the audience were unaware of what was going on in the real world - their reactions might have been somewhat different otherwise. Vaughn Meader was already known as a JFK impersonator and Jacqui was played by Naomi Brossard, who according to the internet hasn't done anything else in her life, but she's still with us at the ripe old age of 88. There was a lot of initial opposition to the album, but once it got out there it seems to have been mostly met with approval due to its good-natured tone and JFK himself thoroughly approved, giving it to friends and playing the whole thing in one Cabinet meeting.

Unfortunately, the whole thing came crashing down with his assassination - they stopped selling it (which I guess I can understand, but it wasn't re-released until '99!) but interestingly, there were a load of comments under the YouTube recording (which was the only place I could find it) which basically said "my parents bought this and the whole family loved it, but it got put away after his death and was never listened to again". Apparently, Lenny Bruce played a show on the night of JFKs death and he walked on stage, stood in silence for a couple of minutes and then said "boy, is Vaughn Meader fucked". And that was very much the case, with a spiral into addiction and depression following for him - although he did pull things together later in life, scraping a living playing piano in bars.

Interestingly, discogs.com has no copies of this for sale in the US so I guess it would be considered bad form, but you can pick up a version here for a fiver. For an obviously dated comedy album, this was actually pretty funny, but I also really enjoy it when an album you've never heard of turns out to have been massive back in the day - this was one enjoyably educational visit.

10/03/63 - Enjoyably educational