Disc 1: 1.01. - 1.25. Studio Recordings with Piano [55'40]
Disc 2: 2.01. - 2.24. Live Performances [79'20]
Disc 3: 3.01. - 3.25. More Live Performances and Studio Recordings with Orchestra [61'00]
Tom Lehrer- speaker, singer and piano
Rhino Reprise R2 79831 [recorded between 1953 and 1999; CD set issued 2000]
[CD-rip; flacs, cover, 80-page booklet and inlay scans]
Tom Lehrer was born in 1928 and is still alive today - so still enjoying the royalties from his large recording sales figures - more than two million records and still rising. Lehrer is widely considered to be the wittiest musical satirist and master of irreverent social commentary, ever since his first 10 inch LP, Songs by Tom Lehrer, was released in 1953. Even more surprising is that he is a Harvard-educated math prodigy and teacher at both Harvard and MIT, with bone-dry, and often black, wit and has an exuberant performing style. [I got it from Sallie - or Agnes as it is in this recording - is about STDs.] His public performing career came to a voluntary end in the early 1970s with just a few songs recorded from 1993 to 1999.This collection of 74 tracks includes all of Tom Lehrer's songs, often in multiple performances, and including some not previously recorded. All of the earlier recordings were remastered for this set and sound very much better than the original issues - not always the case with remastering.
Back in 2015, WMS Nemo posted an earlier releases of four of the studio recordings here on MIMIC, but the download links are no longer active. All of those songs are included in this set.
Disc 1 - 'Songs by Tom Lehrer' (1953 - recorded at Trans-Radio, Boston, MA; produced by Tom Lehrer)
- 'More of Tom Lehrer' (1959 - recorded at RCA Victor Studios, New York, NA; produced by Tom Lehrer)
- Two recent recordings (1997 and 1993 - recorded at Sound Techniques, Boston, MA and WGBH Studios, Allston, MA; produced by Tom Lehrer)
Disc 2 - 'Tom Lehrer Revisited' (1960 - recorded at Kresge Auditorium, MIT, Cambridge, MA; produced by Tom Lehrer, engineered by Stephen Fassett)
- 'An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer' (1959 - recorded at Sanders Theatre, Havard, Cambridge, MA; produced by Tom Lehrer, engineered by Stephen Fassett)
Disc 3 - 'That Was The Year That Was' (1965 - recorded at the hungry i, San Francisco, CA; produced by Jimmy Hilliard, engineered by Don Geis)
- 'The Richard Hayman Sessions' (1960 - recorded at RCA Victor Studios, New York, NA; produced by - James Stagliano, engineered by Ray Hall)
- 'The Joe Raposo Sessions' (1971-1972 - recorded at Media Sound Studios, New York, NY; produced by Joe Raposo, engineered by Fred Christie)
- 'The Rob Fisher Sessions' (1999 - new recordings - recorded at Sound on Sound Recordings, New York, NY; produced by Rob Fisher, engineered by Cythia Daniels)
I find it truly amazing that so many satirical songs from the early 1950s remain so topical and relevant today. Especially such masterpieces as The Old Dope Peddler, Be Prepared and My Home Town. Never having attended a live concert by Tom Lehrer, I still don't know what the verse omitted from all the recordings of the latter is about. Alma is a must for all fans of Mahler (writer of Das Lied von der Erde and other light classics) and the architect, Walter Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus school of design). And could there be a better title and refrain for a song than (I’m Spending) Hanukkah in Santa Monica? Lehrer points out that there are no great Hanukkah songs because all the great Jewish song writers are too busy writing Christmas songs.