Customer Reviews

American Originals

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Any fan of Andy Griffith should love this CD. For those that aren't sure of the track listing, it has everything that's on the Wit and Wisdom of Andy Griffith plus more tracks. Here's the complete listing: 1. The Fishin' Hole 2. What It Was, Was Football (Part I & II) 3. Cindy 4. Love Poems: "To The Lovely Juanita Beasley" 5. Make Yourself Comfortable 6. North Carolina, My Home State 7. The Preacher And The Bear 8. Romeo & Juliet (Part I & II) 9. Love Poems: "Togetherness" 10. Swan Lake 11. Flop Eared Mule 12. Hamlet 13. The Discovery of America 14. Don't Look Back 15. Opera Carmen 16. Andy And Cleopatra 17. The Midnight Special 18. The Andy Griffith Theme

Everyone knows Andy Griffith from The Andy Griffith Show, but many today may not be aware of the range of this man's talent as an actor, comedian, and all-around entertainer. This album collects a number of Andy's funny stories and songs taken from a series of recordings he made in the 1950s and early 1960s. The material itself is an almost vaudevillian mix of memorable treats. Griffith's natural penchant for telling hilarious, down-home stories actually jump-started his whole career. The most familiar Andy Griffith recording was his first one, recorded live at an insurance convention in 1952; as the story goes, he essentially thought up the whole routine during a 45-minute drive from Chapel Hill to Raleigh. "What it Was, Was Football" is classic Southern humor that had his audience rolling in the aisles, and it is as funny today as it was decades ago. Colonial released the recording, it sold over a million copies, and Andy Griffith soon found himself working for the Columbia label, putting out a number of albums over the next twelve years. What It Was, Was Football is simply hilarious, as Griffith assumes the role of a country bumpkin describing his first experience watching the game of football. Explaining things in simplistic, countrified terms went over big up North of the Mason-Dixon line, but Andy never forgot, betrayed, or belittled his North Carolina roots.

The strength of this CD is the comedy bits, but there are also several songs included for your enjoyment. The album opens up with The Fishin' Hole: yes, there are actual lyrics to the theme song of The Andy Griffith Show, and you can hear them right here. Cindy and Flop Eared Mule are bluegrass-oriented tracks meant to entertain, while The Midnight Special reveals the kind of true singing talent this man has always possessed. Of course, Griffith's ingenious storytelling is the star of this collection. I suppose much of this would be called stand-up comedy, but Andy tells his stories as if he is sitting on the porch at home entertaining a few good friends. Two of the better tracks found here consist of Andy's unique, folksy recounting of Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet, but he also tickles the funny bone explaining opera in Opera Carmen and ballet in Swan Lake. He goes on to describe the history of The Discovery of America and Andy and Cleopatra in a manner you surely won't find in any textbook. He also offers up two love poems, one called Togetherness and the other dedicated To The Lovely Juanita Beasley. If you need some help sparkin' that sweetheart of yours, you might want to try a few lines from these poems yourself (although they should prove much more effective down here in the South than up North).

The roots of Mayberry's Sheriff Andy Taylor can be found right here in these early comedy recordings of one of America's premiere storytellers, so everyone who loves The Andy Griffith Show (and who doesn't?) should really enjoy this CD. Andy Griffith truly was and is an American Original. This is good old country humor at its best, an album the whole family, from the youngest lad to the oldest gentleman, can heartily enjoy.

Andy Griffith, a complex and intelligent fellow, is NOT a country bumpkin. He has only portrayed one, better than anyone I can name, on stage, screen, television and, in the medium that got him noticed, on record. If you're not familiar with Mr. Griffith's recording career, brother, you are in for a real treat.

Andy stomps the pomp and pretension out of opera, ballet and Bill Shakespeare, using his pocketknife-sharp mother wit to whittle them down to their soap-opera cores and retell them, in his amiable mule-eating-briars way, masterfully and hilariously. He even pokes gentle fun at Mt. Airy, North Carolina, his hometown, in a bit Mayberry fans will find especially amusing. Andy wrote most of these classic routines himself, including the million-selling "What It Was, Was Football," which hasn't lost a smidgen of its timeless charm since "Deacon Andy Griffith" (as Capitol Records dubbed him) first performed it in 1953. (I once played "Football" for a group of Cub Scouts. Bless 'em, they "got it" completely and laughed like hyenas.)

Andy sings, too, in his own boisterous style: full-throttled bluegrass ("Cindy"), prison blues ("The Midnight Special"), even mock gospel ("The Preacher and the Bear"). A special treat is the seldom heard "The Fishin' Hole" - the vocal version of "The Andy Griffith Show" theme - which Ange sings with all the jocularity of a kid playing hooky. There's also a fully-orchestrated version of the TAGS theme, complete with finger snaps and composer Earle Hagen's familiar whistling.

If you love Andy, if you love Mayberry, you will love this CD.

We used to listen to the comedy bits on a weekly radio program that plays in the D.C. area, and the whole family loves them. The Shakespeare retellings are the best -- funny, yet actually quite close to the actual plots. And What it was was football is a perfect deadpan southern dimwit parody. I'm so glad these are out on cd.

This is some real humor from the past by a guy that only can put pain in your sides from laughing at his brand of explaining things. Highly recommend it!

Here's Andy before Mayberry -- some of the original singles that gave him a shot on the Danny Thomas Show as the laid-back NC Sheriff. What is was was Football will make you giggle, laugh, spill yer Big Orange, and I don't know what-all. But especially watch out for Andy's read on Carmine!

This makes me laugh when I listen to it and when I think about it. It is acceptable for all audiances---clean and a simple down-home type comedy. I would like to see and hear more like it. ---Kenneth Whitman

I confess I got this almost entirely just for Andy Griffith's hysterically funny version of Hamlet. It's extremely dry and sly humor, since his folksy and ever-so-slightly twisted retelling of the tale is delivered as pure cornpone, but most of the humor only makes sense if you're pretty well acquainted with Shakespeare's play.

Andy Griffith's early comedy pieces are really funny. Short, hilarious, great to listen to on the road.

Andy is from Mt Airy NC which is my home town. I dad spent time with Andy doing his childhood. So I may be a bit prejudiced but I love this guy and his comedy! Try a couple and see what you think. It's clean family oriented comedy.