Customer Reviews

The Best of Spike Jones

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Musicologist Barry Hansen,better known as radio personality Dr.Demento,has said that Spike Jones was the first novelty artist he remembers hearing as a child-This disc features all the big hits that Spike & his City Slickers had in the 1940's:"Cocktails For Two","William Tell Overture","Laura","Dance Of The Hours"-I'll bet Weird Al Yankovic would cite Spike as one of his influences-Anyway,if you love silly music,this one's right up your alley.

My sister and I used to perform skits for our parents (to the original record) when we were kids and I was so happy when I found this on CD. Very funny if you like the slap stick type of music from the late 40's and early 50's. This is a true classic and very very funny. This is a greatest hits type and every track is awesome. The "My Old Flame" track is worth the price alone!

All of the well-known Jones numbers, BUT! If you don't get Spike's absurdist operatic parody (via hillbilly parody) "Pal-Yat-Chee" (on another disc) you don't yet have everything you need!

Also, for a whole nother dimension of fun, check out the VHS videos from Spike's 1950s TV show!

Spike Jones and the City Slickers were among the most accomplished musicians ever to fall all over the stage. Whatever kind of music you love, from jazz to opera, this insanity will tickle your funny bone. The William Tell overture in Spike Jones'
hands ranks as one of the five funniest skits I've ever heard, Abbott and Costello's `Who's On First?' included... and that is praise of the highest kind. Is good stuff! I also saw the Mickey Katz album here on Amazon. If I remember correctly, Katz was Joel Grey's father, a singer with an insane tenor voice, and an incredibly accomplished clarinet player... along with being a Spike Jones' alumnus. Is also good stuff!

I was so glad to get this excellent CD of Spike Jones music. I think the sound quality is excellent, and the zany comical routines Spike invented as at least as funny today as they were when he created them 50 years go. Its a treat to hear and keep available for those times when we need to be cheered up and made to laugh.............

My Dad shared this one with me and now I am enjoying sharing it with my son. A wonderfully esoteric piece of music history.

Who else could gargle his way through the William Tell Overture, I ask you, than Spike Jones? This CD was first my grandmother's, then my mother's and now it's mine, and let me tell you, I am very proud to be in this hereditary line of musical insanity (strange as its existance is)! This is amazing stuff-HILARIOUS, innovative, imaginative (to say the least!), and gloriously over-the-top. I promise you, dear readers, my child will be humming Dance of the Hours before they know how to read, car-horns and all!

Spike Jones combined his 1940s big band with vaudevillean puns, sound effects & other gags. He gave a demented twist to standards like "Laura" and "Cocktails for Two." He never fails to give me a giggle in this cynical, depressed fin-de-20th-siecle era. Think Weird Al Yankovich, circa 1945.

"Cocktails For Two" has got to be the funniest recording of all time. I laughed at it forty years ago and laugh at it now. It's a pity that Al Yankovic has such limited material to try to parody, they just don't write those kind of songs anymore. I suspect "Weird Al" and Spike Jones are the same person. Once you listen to "Chloe" or "You Only Hurt The One You Love", long forgotten hits of the past, you feel that if only the City Slickers could tackle today's popular selling stuff...maybe, maybe...there could be laughs again.

If you need a laugh in your life, BUY THIS CD !!! This is old style clean funny stuff. This guy is better than all stand up comedians of this day and time. I recommend this for the fun of it!! Spike Jones was the comedian of the 40's and 50's.