Greatest Shticks

Mickey Katz | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 11, 2000)
• Original Release Date: May 9, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Koch Records
• ASIN: B00004NKBX
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #165,704 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Duvid Crockett

2. Knish Doctor

3. I'm a Schlemiel of Fortune

4. Borscht Riders in the Sky

5. Old Black Smidgick

6. She'll Be Coming 'Round the Katzkills

7. Barber of Schlemiel

8. Yiddish Mule Train

9. That Pickle in the Window (How Much Is)

10. Sixteen Tons

11. It's a Michaye in Hawaiye

12. Sound Off

13. Where Is My Pants?

14. Bagel Call Rag

15. The Poiple Kishke Eater

16. Geshray of DeVilde Kotchke

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars viva le *glug*meister..., August 7, 2000

By 

Eddie Landsberg "My 10th year as a reviewer !... (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Greatest Shticks (Audio CD)

My father had a huge stack of Mickey Katz 45's hidden away in the closet of the "office" and when I was about 9 or 10 I got to them and in due time got hooked.

When Mickey Katz passed away 10 years ago, one would have thought (sadly), that would be last of him... forever forgotten. Even when I was 10 the only place you could find his records most of the times were in small Jewish gift shops, and even then it was always the same one or two albums (which probably had been sitting on the shelf since 1950's.) - - Now its the Millenium, mainstream Jazz clarinetist Don Byron is playing his stuff at the ultra hip "Knitting Factory" and, heck, Amazon is carrying his stuff... people are even trading his MP3s you know where. At this rate, Joel Grey's Daddy's may gain a posthumous popularity as that never seen of a borscht belt comedian.

Mickey Katz for years was the King of The Borscht belt. He took the Spike Jones formula of song parody, added a touch of Klezmer to it and a spattering of Yiddish words (a bit more than Lenny Bruce, but not as much as the Barton Brothers) and became a legend (check out his bio "Pappa Play for Me if you can hunt it down anywhere.)

Katz's outrageously elastic voice and wit, and his ability to pull together top notch studio musicians (he himself was a master clarinetist) and pull off the same formula that launched his mentor Spike Jones to fame (and later parodists like Allen Sherman and Wierd Al Yankovik) have earned him a place not just in the annals of "Jewish ethnic music", but the world of Dr. Demento and musical comedy as well.

Viva le *glug*meister !

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for Purim -- or anytime you need a good laugh!, March 13, 2003

By 

Rabbi Yonassan Gershom (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Greatest Shticks (Audio CD)

Those post-Holocaust pessimists who foretold the demise of the Yiddish culture never reckoned with the invention of the music CD. Here is yet another collection of vintage Borscht Belt, recovered from long forgotten LPs and re-released for a whole new generation of Jews to discover and enjoy. Even if you don't understand Yiddish, (Yinglish, actually, since Mickey Katz sings in a mixture of Yiddish and English), you will find these klezmerized parodies absolutely hilarious. Numbers like "Yiddish Mule Train" and "Sixteen Tons (of hard salami)" need no translation to be funny. And who knows? You might find out that you know more Yiddish than you think you do!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mars to Earth: "SEND MORE MICKEY KATZ", March 24, 2001

By 

F. J. Weiner (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Greatest Shticks (Audio CD)

There are no highlights to this CD. EVERY TRACK is great! First of all, the songs themselves are extremely enjoyable. Add the arrangements--that toe-tapping, pulse-pounding, Yiddish / Dixieland "Klezmer" sound--and then add Mickey's vocalizing and his very funny send-ups of the lyrics, and you've got a solidly satisfying shtikel of songs. If you're reading this review, then you must have had some interest in Mickey Katz to start with (or else you asked the search engine to connect you to songs containing the words BORSCHT, SMIDGICK, or SCHLEMIEL). Get this!