45 RPMs 63: The Coasters ~ Poison Ivy

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The Coasters ~ Poison Ivy

 

I've always connected my total experience with The Coasters to my high school days but I just came to realize not so. On July 16, 1959, The Coasters recorded Poison Ivy, long after those days, but my love for them does go back to then.        

 

The Coasters ~ Poison Ivy
  45 rpm record

photo by Styrous®

 

 

Obviously, contrary to my "I remember where I was . . ", I don't! But I do remember loving the song from the first time I heard it, no matter where I was.            

The tune was written by the brilliant song writing team, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It went to #1 on the R&B chart, #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #15 in the UK. This was their third top-ten hit of that year following Charlie Brown and Along Came Jones; I thought those were from my high school days as well. Seems after a few decades of life you get things confused! Oh, well!      

 

The song discusses a girl known as "Poison Ivy". She is compared to measles, mumps, chickenpox, the common cold, and whooping cough, but is deemed worse, because "Poison Ivy, Lord, will make you itch". According to lyricist Jerry Leiber, "Pure and simple, 'Poison Ivy' is a metaphor for a sexually transmitted disease".         

 

Almost every musician in existence has covered the song (link below) but the best version I've ever heard was in a scene from the 1997 film Batman & Robin. The song was re-scored by Elliot Goldenthal and the character, Poison Ivy aka Dr. Pamela Isley, is portrayed by Uma Thurman of the 1994 film, Pulp Fiction, and she is sensational! She speaks in a mix of Eartha Kitt and Mae West with double entendres galore.            

 

 

Batman & Robin poster

I'm a Hog for You was also written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It is a moderate speed, syncopated song with a terrific dance beat and a great set of lyrics (link below).       

      

The Coasters ~ I'm a Hog for You
  45 rpm record

photo by Styrous®

 

 

        

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A - Poison Ivy - 2:43

Side 2:

B - I’m A Hog For You - 1:59

Companies, etc.

    Published By – Tiger (7)

 Credits:

 

      Written By Leiber - Stoller*

 

Notes:

Label variation: Very slight variance in the text layout compared to: Poison Ivy / I'm A Hog For You

Produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
A-side recorded July 16, 1959 at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York City
B-side recorded August 8, 1958 at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York City

Barcode and Other Identifiers        

        

Label variation: Very slight variance in the text layout compared to: Poison Ivy / I'm A Hog For You

Produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
A-side recorded July 16, 1959 at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York City
B-side recorded August 8, 1958 at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York City

 

The Coasters – Poison Ivy / I'm A Hog For You
Label: ATCO Records – 45-6146
Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM
Country: US
Released: Aug 1959
Genre: Rock, Funk / Soul
Style: Vocal, Rhythm & Blues, Rock & Roll

        

        

        

        

Viewfinder links:       

        
The Coasters         

Elliot Goldenthal        

Eartha Kitt         

Poison Ivy lyrics        

Uma Thurman         

Mae West      
     
Net links:       

         

Cover versions        

Songfacts ~ Poison Ivy        

     
YouTube links:      
         

Batman ~ Poison Ivy         

The Coasters ~  

        I'm a Hog for You      

        Poison Ivy         

        Poison Ivy (live)        

        

        
        
         

        

        

Styrous® ~ Friday, July 16, 2021   

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20,000 vinyl LPs 265: Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

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Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

vinyl LP front cover detail 

artwork by Robert Galster

detail photo by Styrous®

 

 

Today is the birthday of Earth Kitt, a South Carolina gal who was an actress, singer, and cabaret star famous for years in Africa, South America then Europe but totally unknown in the United States until Leonard Sillman featured her in his Broadway musical revue, New Faces of 1952; it brought her to the attention of American audiences for the first time and she finally became a huge success here.    

 

 

Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

vinyl LP front cover

artwork by Robert Galster

photo by Styrous®

 

 

The New Faces Of 1952 review introduced and brought many other performers fame: Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostley, Robert Clary, Carol Lawrence, Ronny Graham, performer/writer Mel Brooks (as Melvin Brooks), lyricist Sheldon Harnick and more.         

 

 

Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

vinyl LP back cover

photo by Styrous®

Paul Lynde was well known for his roles as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, the befuddled father Harry MacAfee in Bye Bye Birdie, and as a regular "center square" panelist on the game show The Hollywood Squares from 1968 to 1981. He also voiced animated characters for four Hanna-Barbera productions.     

 

Alice Ghostley was an American actress and singer. She was best known for her roles as Esmeralda (1969–70; 1972) also on Bewitched, as Cousin Alice (1970–71) on Mayberry R.F.D., and as Bernice Clifton (1986–93) on Designing Women, for which she received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1992. She was a regular on Nichols (1971–72) and The Julie Andrews Hour (1972–73).           

 

 

Alice Ghostley & Robert Clary - 1952 

photo by Leo Friedman
 

 

Robert Clary was a Holocaust survivor who settled in Paris, France, after the war. He is best known for his role in the television sitcom Hogan's Heroes as Corporal Louis LeBeau.                 

 

Carol Lawrence is known for portraying Maria on Broadway in the musical West Side Story (1957), receiving a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She also appeared in many television dramas, including Rawhide and Murder She Wrote. She was married to singer Robert Goulet.       

Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

vinyl LP back cover details

detail photos by Styrous®

Ronny Graham was an American actor and theater director, composer, lyricist, and writer. He penned seven episodes of M*A*S*H (and guest starred as Sgt. Gribble in the episode Your Hit Parade, for which he was program consultant) and nine episodes of The Brady Bunch Hour. He also co-wrote the screenplays for the Mel Brooks films To Be or Not to Be (1983) and Spaceballs (1987), appearing onscreen as Sondheim in the former and the Minister in the latter. His other film credits included roles in Dirty Little Billy (1972), Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), The World's Greatest Lover (1977) and History of the World, Part I (1981). He had a recurring role on Chico and the Man and made guest appearances on Murder She Wrote, Picket Fences, and Chicago Hope.        

 

Ronny Graham - 1951 

photo by Leo Friedman

 Virginia de Luce & Bill Mullikin - 1952

photo by Leo Friedman

 

 

 

June Carroll - 1952 

photo by Leo Friedman

 

 

Sheldon Harnick is an American lyricist and songwriter best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof and Fiorello!. He wrote the lyrics for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1979) with music by Michel Legrand.          

Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

vinyl LP back cover details

detail photos by Styrous®

Mel Brooks  is an American director, writer, actor, comedian, producer and composer. He is known as a creator of broad film farces and comedic parodies. Brooks began his career as a comic and a writer for the Sid Caesar variety show, Your Show of Shows (1950–1954) alongside Woody Allen, Neil Simon, and Larry Gelbart. Together with Carl Reiner, he created the comic character The 2000 Year Old Man. He wrote, with Buck Henry, the hit television comedy series Get Smart, which ran from 1965 to 1970.  

Mel Brooks

date & photographer unknown

 

Brooks became one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s, with many of his films being among the top 10 moneymakers of the year they were released. His best-known films include The Producers (1968), The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Silent Movie (1976), High Anxiety (1977), History of the World, Part I (1981), Spaceballs (1987), and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). A musical adaptation of his first film, The Producers, ran on Broadway from 2001 to 2007, and was remade into a musical film in 2005.         

 

Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

vinyl LP front cover detail 

artwork by Robert Galster

detail photo by Styrous®

Earth Kitt was born on January 17, 1927 in North (near Columbia), South Carolina, USA. Her mother was African American and, Cherokee, and her father was a White-American. Very busy throughout the 1950's and 1960's as a performer, Kitt was also active in social and political movements. She spoke four languages and sang in seven, which she effortlessly demonstrated in many of her cabaret performances. Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the world".       

rear: Virginia de Luce

Eartha Kitt, Rosemary O’Reilly & Patricia Hammerlee 

photo by Leo Friedman      

 

Earth Kitt died of colon cancer on Christmas Day, 2008, three weeks short of her 82nd birthday at her home in Weston, Connecticut.           

Eartha Kitt - 1952

photo by Leo Friedman      

    

Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

vinyl LP back cover details

detail photos by Styrous®

Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

vinyl LP back cover details

detail photos by Styrous®

Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

vinyl LP side 1

detail photos by Styrous®

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952

vinyl LP side 1

detail photos by Styrous®

 

 

   

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A1 – Ronny Graham And The Company* - Opening, written by P. De Vries*, R. Graham*
   
A2 – Robert Clary, Virginia De Luce, Rosemary O'Reilly, Patricia Hammerlee* And Bill Mullikin - Lucky Pierre, written by– R. Graham*
   
A3 – Alice Ghostley Introduced By Virginia De Luce - Boston Beguine, written by S. Harnick*
   
A4 – Rosemary O'Reilly, Robert Clary, Eartha Kitt, June Carroll Introduced By Virginia De Luce - Love Is A Simple Thing, written by A. Siegel*, J. Carroll*
   
A5 – Alice Ghostley And Joe Lautner With Virginia Bosler, Bill Mullikin And Allen Conroy Introduced By Virginia De Luce - Nanty Puts Her Hair Up, written by A. Siegel*, H. Farjeon*
   
A6 – June Carroll - Guess Who I Saw Today, written by E. Boyd*, M. Grand*
   
A7 – Eartha Kitt Introduced By Robert Clary - Bal Petite Bal, written by F. Lemarque*

Side 2:

        Three For The Road

B1a – Virginia De Luce - Introduction    
B1b – Robert Clary - Raining Memories, written by R. Graham*   
B1c – Rosemary O'Reilly And Joe Lautner - Waltzing In Venice, written by R. Graham*
   
B1d – Alice Ghostley, Ronny Graham And The Company* - Take Off The Mask, written by R. Graham*
   
B2 – June Carroll And The Company* - Penny Candy, written by A. Siegel*, J. Carroll*
   
B3 – Rosemary O'Reilly - Don't Fall Asleep, written by R. Graham*
   
B4 – Robert Clary With Rosemary O'Reilly And Joe Lautner Introduced By Virginia De Luce - I’m In Love With Miss Logan    

B5 – Eartha Kitt - Monotonous, written by A. Siegel*, J. Carroll*
   
B6a – Joe Lautner, Bill Mullikin, Paul Lynde, Patricia Hammerlee* And The Company* - Lizzie Borden, written by M. Brown*
   
B6b – Virginia De Luce - (He Takes Me Off His Income Tax)    

Credits:

    Arranged By [Orchestra] – Ted Royal
    Artwork [Uncredited] – Robert Galster
    Conductor [Orchestra] – A. Coppola*
    Directed By [Sketches] – John Beal (3)
    Performer – Alice Ghostley, Allen Conroy, Bill Mullikin, Carol Lawrence, Carol Nelson (2), Eartha Kitt, Jimmy Russell (4), Joseph Lautner*, June Carroll, Michael Dominico, Patricia Hammerlee*, Paul Lynde, Robert Clary, Ronny Graham, Rosemary O'Reilly, Virginia Bosler, Virginia De Luce
    Producer – Leonard Sillman
    Written-By [Sketches Mostly By] – Melvin Brooks*, Ronny Graham

Barcode and Other Identifiers

    Matrix / Runout: E2VP-4123
    Matrix / Runout: E2VP-4124    

 

Original Cast* ‎– Leonard Sillman's New Faces Of 1952
Label: RCA Victor ‎– LOC 1008
Series: Green Label Series –
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: US
Released: 1953
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Musical

 

        

         

Viewfinder links:        

        

Julie Andrews         

Mel Brooks       

Robert Clary       

Leo Friedman       

Alice Ghostley       

Robert Goulet        

Eartha Kitt         

Carole Lawrence            

Paul Lynde     

Orson Welles        

     

Net links:        

         

Al Hirschfeld Foundation ~ New Faces of 1952             

Masterworks Broadway ~ New Faces of 1952 – Original Cast     

Museum of the City of New York ~  New Faces of 1952 images      

    

YouTube links:        

         

New Faces of 1952 (complete album) (55 mins., 27 secs.)          

New Faces Promo        

June Caroll ~ Guess Who I Saw Today      

Robert Clary ~        

        Lucky Pierre        

        I'm in Love With Miss Logan      

Eartha Kitt ~ Monotonous           

Eartha Kitt & Robert Clary ~ Bal Petit Bal         

Paul Lynde & Alice Ghostly ~ New Faces of '52         

Inga Swenson, Virginia de Luce, June Carroll, Robert Clary ~ Love is a Simple Thing        

Inga Swenson, Virginia de Luce, June Carroll, Robert Clary ~ Love is a Simple Thing (video)       

         

         

 

 

 

 New Faces Of 1952

drawing by Al Hirschfeld  

 

 

        

        

Styrous® ~ Sunday, January 17, 2021       
       

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Robert Clary articles/mentions

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New Faces of 1952                   
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Robert Clary - 1953

publicity photo

        

       

       

       

        

       

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Theater/performance people

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Eartha Kitt articles/mentions

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Batman, Adam West & the Whole Gang     

The Harlem Renaissance      

Kismet & Alexander Borodin        

      

      
      
      

      

       

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

Eartha Kitt - 1952          

photo by Carl Van Vechten         

       

       

          

     

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Carl Van Vechten & the Harlem Renaissance

                  

Harlem Renaissance

Today, June 17, is the birthday of photographer Carl Van Vechten. Born in 1880, he was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance.    

Carl Van Vechten Self-portrait (1934) 

He was the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. Van Vechten met Gertrude Stein in Paris in 1913. They continued corresponding for the remainder of Stein's life, and at her death she appointed Van Vechten her literary executor; he helped to bring into print her unpublished writings.   

Gertrude Stein - 1935

Van Vechten was interested in black writers and artists, and knew and promoted many of the major figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Ethel Waters, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston and Wallace Thurman. Van Vechten's controversial novel Nigger Heaven was published in 1926.

Nigger Heaven - 1926

 

His essay Negro Blues Singers was published in Vanity Fair in 1926 (link below). Biographer Edward White suggests Van Vechten was convinced that Negro culture was the essence of America.      

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, social, and artistic movement that took place in Harlem, New York, spanning from about 1918 until the mid-1930s. During the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke. The Movement also included the new African-American cultural expressions across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United States affected by the African-American Great Migration, of which Harlem was the largest. The Harlem Renaissance was considered to be a rebirth of African-American arts. Though it was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, many francophone black writers from African and Caribbean colonies who lived in Paris were also influenced by the Harlem Renaissance.

Many of its ideas lived on much longer. The zenith of this "flowering of Negro literature", as James Weldon Johnson preferred to call the Harlem Renaissance, took place between 1924 (when Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life hosted a party for black writers where many white publishers were in attendance) and 1929 (the year of the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression). 

By the start of the 1930s and at age 50, Van Vechten took up photography, using his apartment at 150 West 55th Street as a studio. 

Martha Graham and Bertram Ross - 1961

Billie Holiday - 1949 

Dizzy Gillespie - 1955 

Eartha Kitt - 1952

Bessie Smith

Alberta Hunter

Feral Benga - 1937  

Gloria Davy - 1958 

 

Harry Belafonte - 1954 

William Grant Still

Ruby Dee

James Baldwin - 1955 

Ethel Waters -1932

 

Zora Neale Hurston

Hugh Laing (left) - 1940

Marian Anderson 

Joe Louis - 1941 

Maidie Norman

Fredi Washington 

Pearl Bailey - July 5, 1946

Mildred Bailey

W. C. Handy - 1941 

Among the many individuals he photographed were Gertrude Abercrombie, Peter Abrahams, Mercedes de Acosta, Adele Addison, Alvin Ailey, Edward Albee, Sara Allgood, Marguerite D'Alvarez, Judith Anderson, Marian Anderson, Antony Armstrong-Jones, W. H. Auden, Don Bachardy, Pearl Bailey, Josephine Baker, James Baldwin, Pierre Balmain, Tallulah Bankhead, Albert C. Barnes, Theda Bara, Harry Belafonte, Barbara Bel Geddes, Thomas Hart Benton, Leonard Bernstein, Mary McLeod Bethune, Karen Blixen, Jane Bowles, Marlon Brando, Witter Bynner, James Branch Cabell, Paul Cadmus, Erskine Caldwell, Truman Capote, Bennett Cerf, Marc Chagall, Giorgio de Chirico, Constance Collier, Katharine Cornell, Countee Cullen, Roald Dahl, Salvador Dalí, Ossie Davis, Gloria Davy, Ruby Dee, Norman Douglas, Evelyn Dove, Alfred Drake, John Van Druten, Jacob Epstein, Ella Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Fizdale, Lynn Fontanne, Ruth Ford, Ben Gazzara, John Gielgud, Dizzy Gillespie, Arthur Gold, Martha Graham, W. C. Handy, John Hersey, Al Hirschfeld, Billie Holiday, William Hopper, Lena Horne, Horst P. Horst, Zora Neale Hurston, Christopher Isherwood, Mahalia Jackson, Philip Johnson, Frida Kahlo, Eartha Kitt, Gaston Lachaise, Hugh Laing, Fernand Léger, Lotte Lenya, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Sidney Lumet, Alfred Lunt, Norman Mailer, Alicia Markova, Henri Matisse, W. Somerset Maugham, Elsa Maxwell, Carson McCullers, Colin McPhee, Gian Carlo Menotti, Henry Miller, Joan Miró, Marianne Moore, Helen Morgan, Robert Morse, Patricia Neal, Ramón Novarro, Georgia O'Keeffe, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Tyrone Power, Leontyne Price, Vincent Price, Diego Rivera, Jerome Robbins, Paul Robeson, Cesar Romero, Bertram Ross, Arthur Schwartz, George Schuyler, Beverly Sills, Gertrude Stein, James Stewart, Alfred Stieglitz, Ada "Bricktop" Smith, Bessie Smith, Paul Taylor, Prentiss Taylor, Pavel Tchelitchew, Virgil Thomson, Alice B. Toklas, Antony Tudor, Gloria Vanderbilt, Gore Vidal, Khaled Abdul-Wahab, Hugh Walpole, Evelyn Waugh, Orson Welles, Thornton Wilder, Donald Windham, Thomas Wolfe, Anna May Wong, Lin Yutang and Richard Wright.   

 

Van Vechten died in 1964, at the age of 84, in New York City. His ashes were scattered over Shakespeare Gardens, Central Park, Manhattan, New York City.         

  

Net links:  
         
Negro “Blues” Singers by Carl Van Vechten        
Carl Van Vechten Gallery        
        
       
      
      

Styrous® ~ Saturday, June 17, 2017      

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