Linden Waddell: Hello, Again! The Songs of Allan Sherman

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Linden Waddell

Hello, Again! The Songs of Allan Sherman

Tom Rolla’s Gardenia, West Hollywood, CA, August 29, 2015

Reviewed by Elliot Zwiebach for Cabaret Scenes

Linden-Waddell-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_212Allan Sherman was a genius, as Linden Waddell demonstrated over and over in an evening of solid laughter as she performed more than 20 of his funny, silly song parodies.

Sherman was, of course, the man who took the instrumental “Dance of the Hours” and made it into “A Letter from Camp,” more popularly known as “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh.” However, most of the songs for which he wrote parodies already had lyrics, and Sherman ingeniously took the existing word structures and created brilliant, hilarious lyrics to create a string of best-selling record albums during the 1960s.
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The results include a wide range of melodies from the Great American Songbook that got completely new interpretations in Sherman’s versions, such as a song about the joys of smoked salmon called “There Is Nothing Like a Lox”; a brief French history lesson in “You Went the Wrong Way, Old King Louie”; and a rousing ditty based on “Down by the Riverside” called “Don’t Buy the Liverwurst.”

Waddell did them all justice with her strong, wide-ranging voice, which encompasses a soaring soprano, a Merman belt and a solid feel for sweet irony. When combined with extremely well-developed acting chops, she was in absolutely top form singing great songs with familiar melodies and amazingly funny lyrics.

Her voice soared on a thrillingly beautiful take on Irving Berlin’s “How Deep Is the Ocean (How High Is the Sky),” which morphed into Sherman’s “How Deep Is the Birdbath?.” She as very effective on “Overweight People” (Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg’s “Over the Rainbow”) — whose bridge includes the lyrics, “Where every little thing I taste/Won’t wind up showing on my waist/Or worse/Behind me.” Waddell also was adorable on “When I’m in the Mood for Love” (a takeoff on the Jimmy McHugh/Dorothy Fields classic) with lyrics that include, “When I’m in the mood for love/You’re in the mood for herring …”

There was also a clever take on plurals in Sherman’s “One Hippopotami” (based on the Newley/Bricusse “What Kind of Fool Am I?”), a tongue-twisting list of Jewish names in “Shake Hands with Your Uncle Max” (from the traditional Irish song “Dear Old Donagan”), and an uproarious version of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” with all punctuation marks spoken aloud.

Waddell utilized a plethora of props —a dozen or more books of S&H trading stamps as she sang “Green Stamps,” Sherman’s version of “Green Eyes” (Adolfo Utera/Nilo Menendez); a backscratcher for “That Old Back Scratcher” (“That Old Black Magic” by Arlen and Johnny Mercer); a plate of plastic food for “Chopped Liver” (to the tune of the Mercer/Henry Mancini “Moon River”); and a zither on “Sir Greenbaum’s Madrigal” (formerly “Greensleeves”). She also struggled mightily with a stool in “Smog Gets in Your Eyes,” sung à la Marlene Dietrich.
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Waddell was ably abetted by a terrifically entertaining script, piano and occasional vocal accompaniment by Musical Director Marjorie Poe and excellent direction and choreography by Janet Miller.

The evening included an audience sing-along of “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh” — with the words available on flyers at every table — and ended with the only serious song of the evening: “All of My Laughter,” a wistful ballad with lyrics by Sherman to Albert Hague’s music from Broadway’s The Fig Leaves Are Falling, which served as a counterpoint to all the silliness that preceded it, including the lyric, “I want to laugh all of my laughter before I go.” Clearly, he left a lot of laughter for the rest of us, as Waddell stunningly reminded us.
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Elliot Zwiebach

Elliot Zwiebach loves the music of The Great American Songbook and classic Broadway, with a special affinity for Rodgers and Hammerstein. He's been a professional writer for 45 years and a cabaret reviewer for five. Based in Los Angeles, Zwiebach has been exposed to some of the most talented performers in cabaret—the famous and the not-so-famous—and enjoys it all. Reviewing cabaret has even pushed him into doing some singing of his own — a very fun and liberating experience that gives him a connection with the performers he reviews.